Translation as a Profession (Benjamins Translation Library)

chapter 7Here we go!Finding (and holding on to) clientsIntroductionFor both the freelance translator and the pre-sales staff in a translation company(who increasingly come from the ranks of the translators and have had specialtraining on the business side), finding new contracts is the key to survival.1. StrategiesThe following strategies can be recommended to anyone starting out as a freelancetranslator:– contact as many translation agencies or companies as possible and say you areavailable for work.Simply typing in ‘translation + agency’ in a search engine comes up withliterally tens of thousands of translation company and agency Web sites, allof whom are, in some way or other, looking for translators. Sites that advertise‘translators wanted’ should be avoided as those are usually on the look out fortranslators willing to work for free.Looking for contracts on the Internet can also be a way of picking up all kindsof useful and vital information and anyone hoping to work as a translatorwould be well advised to spend time trawling the Web for resources, as part oftheir own professional ‘education’.– leave your CV on professional translation Web sites and portals and translators’or translation exchanges. That is quite easy and one never knows, after all.– keep an eye (or an RSS thread) on Internet translation auction sites and callsfor tenders;– set up your own Web site and have it referenced by the main search engines tomake sure that those ‘identify’ your site, so that anyone looking for a translatorwill see it come up in the first pages of ‘hits’. If in doubt on referencing, get helpfrom a professional webmaster, who knows the trick;