Don’t panic if you feel there’s a shortage of translation work at the moment.

Think of ways you could cut your per-word rate whilst maintaining a high hourly rate. Let’s say your easy-to-deal-with client sends you a simple translation project, one that doesn’t require any complex formatting: offer them the lower rate so that you can concentrate on the translation itself, and see if they’ll take on some of the more time-consuming aspects of your work - like PDF conversions and formatting.

Make Good Use of This Free Time

So, don’t panic if you feel there’s a shortage of translation work at the moment: if your rates are already sitting at a nice high level, it’s certainly to your advantage to work (say) 30% less than to charge 30% less. Make good use of this time to work on marketing strategies, or simply take some time off and enjoy yourself. And, while we’re talking about marketing, have you maintained your marketing strategies over the past years? If you haven’t been sending out resumes or marketing yourself and your services to agencies and/or direct clients, this should be your starting point. It’s certainly a better way of filling your time than cutting your translation rates with existing clients.

Of course, the higher up you are in the translation industry, the easier things will get. Once you’ve reached a certain price point you’re almost certain to be working with clients who are not so concerned about price. Of course, we’re not saying that these clients aren’t concerned about money at all, but they’re generally more focused on turnaround time, the quality of the translation, responsiveness, the translator’s knowledge of their product and/or service, and so on, than they are about trying to get you to reduce your rate.

Consider Trying Something Else

And here’s another point: if you feel you need to lower your rates past a certain point, then perhaps you should consider doing a different job altogether. It makes sense! If you’re only able to make (say) $25 an hour translating, then perhaps it’s time to look at a different career – if only for the time being. There are plenty of avenues out there for qualified translators to make good money.

Do Your Homework before You Make Any Decisions

So, we really want to reiterate here that you need to look at your own data and ask yourself if you’re actually earning less money than you did last year. Remember that the world’s economy is not your economy! And we can’t blame our clients for continually asking for discounts when they’re continually being offered discounts. Translation as an industry needs to be very careful that translators don’t permanently lower the perception of our services, and this is exactly what will happen if we keep lowering our rates. Generally, people would rather work less than be forced to work more and earn less, but if you’re a single parent who lives from paycheck to paycheck, then the decision you make may be different.

If, however, you’ve been able to provide a safety net for yourself, perhaps the idea of working less is quite appealing on some level. You’ll have time to look at take that online course, check out other income-earning ideas, tidy up those loose ends you’ve been meaning to get to for so long, or even take that well-earned break. Above all, stay positive, and always have confidence in yourself and your translation skills. As we know only too well, these things go in cycles and before we know it we’ll all be complaining about too much work - and yes, it will be at the higher translation rate!