Article by Marion Boers. Reproduced from PEGboard, November 2004.
Freelancing can be a very frightening experience. It always seems to be flood or famine – when you are busy there is no time to consider marketing or organising the next job, and when you have no work you worry about the month’s income and so are unable to enjoy the break you have earned through last week’s burning of the candle at both ends. I’m sure this is a familiar scenario to many PEG members.
None the less, freelancing can also be a very fulfilling experience. You are the boss, but you don’t have to worry about running a whole corporate organisation. You have the opportunity to diversify through learning a new skill, or to build up a niche market by specialising in a certain area, or to take six months off to trek through Africa. You get to decide the priorities in your life.
But how does one get to this point? Be warned – it’s a long, winding road! Often unexpected crossroads appear around corners and the pathway is frequently bumpy and may at times lead to a dead end.
I consider myself very fortunate, because I have never really had to work at making a career. The start was a little stressful – finishing ’varsity with a BA degree but not really equipped to walk into any particular job. As luck would have it, I chanced on an advert that sounded interesting and as a result started work the following January at the government language office in Pretoria, now known as the National Language Service. My four years there were a wonderful training period and equip- ped me with many of the skills I needed when I started freelancing.
When I left, I regarded myself essentially as a translator, as most of the work I had done up to then was translation. My former employers and some contacts I had made there and for whom I’d done some freelance work on the side were my first clients. The work did not come in in droves, but since I was a new mother that suited me fine, because there were plenty of other duties to keep me occupied.
The first deviation in my career path was the fact that my husband’s original training had been as an editor and he had continued editing trade journals on a freelance basis as his work had changed over the years. And so I was introduced to the world of magazine sub-editing. I had of course done language editing as part of my translation work, but now I learnt about ems and points and galleys and page proofs, how to mark up text for the typesetter and how a magazine is put together. I simply accepted that this was now part of my life, helping my husband with his work, but the change has stood me in good stead because it later gave me the ability to offer my services to other journals as well. Thus expands one’s world of work.
As a freelancer it is useful to have more than one string to your bow, and my next new skill was also developed in a roundabout way. I had become a mem- ber of the executive of the South African Translators’ Institute and was re- quested to take over the editorship of their newsletter. This was a fairly simple publication and I wasn’t paid for the work, but it gave me the opportunity to learn how to use a desktop publishing program. Once again, this skill came into its own further along my career path and enabled me to offer clients another service and to become involved in some interesting projects.
Similarly, my newest skill – working on Web-sites – has also come through my involvement with the Translators’ Institute. I’m still rather unsure of myself in this area, but the work is fun and satisfying and I know that the more I do the easier it will become. In time, I will be able to add Web authoring to my portfolio of services as well.
Just as my set of skills has been developed by following different paths, so my clients have come to me in a variety of ways. I firmly believe that word of mouth is the best form of advertising and so it is worth making an effort to attend meetings, get-togethers and workshops in order to meet others in the profession and make contact. As I said before, my former employers were also my first clients and they passed my name on to clients they were unable to assist as well. Through my work with the Translators’ Institute I have also got to know people and picked up some work that way. Other clients have come through PEG, through friends and family, and through clients themselves – doing a good job and keeping your clients happy pays dividends over time.
As the language scene in South Africa has changed, so I have found that the focus of my work has changed as well. Whereas I initially did mainly trans- lation, these days I do far more editing, as the trend is for non-mother-tongue speakers to write in English and have the document edited rather than translated. While it may appear that this would make the job simpler, this is not always the case; it is often quicker and easier to translate a well written text than to edit a poorly written one. I’m a generalist and so have clients in a variety of fields, which keeps the work interesting. The first few projects for a new client are always a learning curve, coming to terms with unfamiliar terminology, usage and content, but it is satisfying to find things becoming easier over time, which makes me understand why some people specialise in a particular field. Although I think I’m a fairly organised person (my husband wouldn’t agree!), lists and schedules don’t work for me and I find that no matter how well I try to organise my time I end up with a “to do” pile at my elbow and I simply move from one job to the next, keeping my schedule and planning in my head. Occasionally, when things do not go according to plan, I find myself digging something out from halfway down the pile that has to be done in a hurry, but generally this system works for me.
As a freelancer you can never rest on your laurels, thinking your client base is now large enough and you don’t need to take on any new work. The situation can change from one month to the next. At one stage I was doing large amounts of work for a big corporate client, which came in very regularly and kept me ticking over. At the start of a new financial year the client decided that the various business units had to pay one another for services provided, and overnight the supply of language work dried up! I spent several agon- ised months finding new clients to replace this source of work. This is an occupational hazard in our field; most people regard language work as an unnecessary extra – it’s nice to have if it’s available, but as soon as the financial pressure is on, out it goes! So it’s a good idea to establish a relationship with a colleague who can assist you in the times of plenty rather than turning away work and finding yourself with an empty desk further down the line.
I seem to have rambled on a bit … If you’re still with me, let me sum up. Freelancing is wonderful, but can be very stressful. Go into it with your eyes open and realise that you have to make an input too, and you can end up with a very satisfying career.