Any of you NOT in academia?

[Liv Bliss]

With a bachelor's and a master's in Russian (further in the past than I
would ever admit), I have been supporting myself quite well for lo these
many years in the translation business.

As it happens, I'm solidly in the humanities. I don't specialize in
e.g., engineering or law, and personal documents (diplomas et al.)
constitute only a tiny portion of my regular workload. There are
evidently other niches just aching to be filled.

If we have to talk dollars, I hover around the $20k mark annually on an
open-ended contract with one client alone. The others, who come and go
according to their need, add a rather thick layer of icing to that cake.
(Yes, OK, I can't believe my good fortune either.)

I re-entered the freelance world almost 2 years ago, having spent over a
decade as a project manager for a once-global translation company that
is now defunct (not my fault, honest!). Compared to my previous stint as
a freelancer, it is now much easier, thanks to the Internet, to get out
there and find the right jobs at the right price (though old-fashioned
networking still has a role to play).

The competition is fierce, admittedly, and colleagues tell me that the
downward pressure on rates seems inexorable. In my little corner of the
translation world, I don't appear to have been hurt by either of those
factors. Not yet, anyway. Translation is not a profession for the faint
of heart, however, or for those who aren't capable of, or interested in,
treating it as a business, not a hobby.

>>From my perspective, the profile of available work has certainly changed
over the last 10 years or so. I'm not the world's most percipient
person, but even I could see what was coming, in the commercial arena,
at least: huge joint venture and development agreements, followed by a
slew of lawsuits, followed by an eerie silence. A similar pattern
occurred in military contracts (minus the lawsuits) previously. Things
are still shaking out over there, and right now I have no idea what the
next big thing will be.

Finally, I must add my voice to Nora's and also plug the Slavic
Languages Division of the American Translators Association. The web site
and the newsletter are definitely worth a drop-in.


********************
Liv Bliss
e-mail: bliss at wmonline.com

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