Fee wizardry: a free online conversion tool

No, Dorothy, we’re in Kirkudbrightshire. And they use £ here (for now, anyway), not $ I spent a lot of time the other day (way too much time) on preparing quotes for translation jobs. Some were based on fee(£)/word, and a couple on fee(€)/standard page (which in my case equates to 1500 characters including spaces, …

Translators’ and editors’ skill-set: add mind-reading

Earl Bush served for many years as press secretary for Richard J. Daley, a controversial mayor of Chicago who was a forerunner to another Bush, George W., in his mangling of the English language. Examples are: “Gentlemen, get the thing straight once and for all — the policeman isn’t there to create disorder, the policeman …

Translating the Zodiac: take our poll

We had a Twitter conversation a couple of weeks ago about Zodiac signs and the sort of character traits that make for good translators/editors. I thought it would be interesting — and fun — to see if there’s any correlation between a person’s zodiac sign and their choice of translation/editing as a career. So I’ve devised this …

How to be good (2). Tips for clients

In my last post, I gave some tips on “How to Be a Good Translator”. Good translators (editors, web designers, accountants, insert profession of your choice) tend to be even better when they’re working with good clients. The tips listed below (from my website article How to Be a Good Client) were written with translation …

Resolutions for small-business owners

If you haven’t got round to making any business resolutions yet for 2011, or are stuck or ideas, here are some belated suggestions. Resolution 1 Raise your fees, if you haven’t already, especially if you live in the UK. See my own Resolution no. 1. If you’re a translator, check out Kevin Lossner’s post on the …