Following on from my “How’s the Pay?” post a few days ago, I thought I’d mention working for free.
Recently, someone asked on Facebook about doing work for free and that reminded me of this great list from Katy Derbyshire. (Her whole blog is worth looking at, incidentally.)
Someone on Facebook also posted this website in response to the question about working for free.
Both links are helpful, I think.
In my opinion, when you’re starting out, yes, do some stuff for free or for discounted prices, but be careful about what you do and who you do it for. Later in your career, you might want to do work for free for a charity or because of the connections it might lead to or for some other reasons. But just like in any industry, translators are highly skilled professionals and there’s no need to do high quality work without getting paid. It’s not fair or right.
Jewish Literary Links
5 hours ago
1 comment:
Unfortunately there are many unscrupulous agencies who are happy to turn out work of any standard to make money and only want to pay freelancers a bare minimum that constitutes payment.
Similarly, there is a lack of knowledge on the part of many potential translation clients as to what a professional translator's task is, which entails great shock on their part when receiving a quote for a project requiring specialist knowledge and up to a week's work.
Education of those requiring translation services is essential to raising the status of translators and to ridding the profession of the unprofessional.
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