Although this post is almost 2 years old, it is more than relevant for freelance translators today. Paula gives excellent tips on how to find direct clients who are enoyable to cooperate with. Of course we should take into account some local differences and nuances. For example, in the city where I live there is almost no sense to look for local direct clients, because most of them are not able to offer you decent rates. Moreover, they offer rates lower than those on bidding platforms. But still we have a lot of online opportunities which can be used to the maximum.
Many years ago (as some of you might recall), there was a huge debate as to whether certain translation portals were directly decreasing translation rates through their bidding systems. Many of us raised serious objections to changes to their job boards and a lot of longstanding and well-respected members fled some of these sites –one site in particular took the most heat. But in that debate, I also remember many translators claiming that without such portals, we would not be able to find clients or get work. Of course, most of these claims came from newbies who could not account for how anyone made a living as a translator before the internet age. But even among those of us who had been around for a few years at that point, there were those who still depended on these sites for work. I was one of them.
The impulsiveness of my…
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Aleyna Voice & Translation 