Through cooperation with the good folks at Routledge, ProZ.com members can now receive a 20% discount off their purchases of books at Routledge, along with free shipping. In addition, Routledge is offering a free chapter download from the book Being a Successful Interpreter by Jonathan Downie.

Jared Tabor

Once upon a time there were two translators, Jelena and Jakov. They decided to set up a boutique translation agency and named it Verbosari. Their goal was to provide a unique experience to clients requiring services in translation and localisation fields.

At the beginning, our workflow was quite small since we had just a few clients. However, during the years, our reputation grew owing to our unique professional approach and impeccable quality of our work. It started to reflect in the growth of our business and we needed to do something to boost our efficiency and facilitate the whole process for our clients. We wanted to offer them a unique personalized approach by giving them full monitoring of the process, from the price quote to the final translation. The process is completely transparent and based on 5 steps: direct contact with the translator, a single PM, a personalized customer portal, involvement in the whole process and providing feedback.

Jared Tabor

For those not familiar, a ProZ.com powwow is an informal, local get-together of language professionals. Any ProZ.com member can propose and organize a powwow in their area. Since 2001, thousands of powwows have been held around the world, in 110 countries.

So far, 454 powwows have been held in 63 cities in the UK, with 3,748 attendees total. At least 50 of those powwows have been organized by Victoria Burns and Alexandra Chapman. This May 5th, Alexandra and Victoria are celebrating 10 years of powwows in Cardiff by holding -- you guessed it -- another powwow!

I asked Alexandra and Victoria to talk a bit about how the Cardiff powwows got started, what the experience has been like, and what benefits they have been able to see from coming together in person with colleagues. Here is what they had to say:

Jared Tabor

World Book Day is April 23rd. To celebrate, Amazon is offering a selection of award-winning works from around the world, all of which have been translated to English, for free for Kindle. You can grab them between now and April 24th at https://www.amazon.com/article/read-the-world

(there may be geographical or other limits on who can get these books for free-- apparently they are free to US-based customers, and discounted in other regions)

Among the books, I spotted The Light of the Fireflies, by Paul Pen and translated by ProZ.com member Simon Bruni.

Jared Tabor

If you've been working in translation a while, chances are you have run into Mox somewhere, if you don't already regularly follow his adventures in translation.

"Best method to increase your productivity", from mox.ingenierotraductor.com

Jared Tabor

In case you had not noticed, you can now log in to your ProZ.com account using your Google, Facebook, or LinkedIn credentials. The Google and Facebook options have already been announced here previously, in separate posts.

Jared Tabor

• 55% of freelancers spend 3 hours a week on their online marketing efforts
• 51% of respondents considered marketing too time-consuming, and 41% felt marketing was too costly
• 83% are investing financially in online marketing of some sort
• 72% say they are spending less than but up to 100 USD a month in marketing (those who spend more than that report earning more)
• The average survey respondent had reached their income goal within two years of starting out

The survey sample were some 2,000 US freelancers of all types, so it is reasonable to expect those numbers to be somewhat different if we narrow it down to translators and interpreters, expand the sample to other countries, or both.

One number in particular that caught my eye was the monthly investment in marketing. 100 USD a month sounded pretty steep to me, but maybe I'm wrong. 1,200 USD in freelancer marketing a year. Do you spend that much on your marketing? If so, drop me a line, I'd be very interested in hearing about it and if you find it to be a good investment.

If you are already a paying ProZ.com member, you are spending between 12 and 18 dollars a month on marketing through your membership, though you get all the rest of the tools and opportunities available along with it. It's a kind of marketing that is easy to do, what we'd call passive marketing.

Jared Tabor

ProZ.com Plus membership comes with all the benefits members have come to know over the past nineteen years, plus a lot of new tools and opportunities designed with the serious freelance language professional in mind. This series takes a look at these additional benefits, one at a time.

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"The proof is in the pudding," I've heard, in response to the question "How do you show potential clients you can deliver what they are looking for, at the quality they seek?"

Jared Tabor

Since 2009, ProZ.com has hosted an annual, free, online event for language professionals in celebration of International Translation Day (ITD), September 30th. You can see past events at ProZ/TV. The name of the day notwithstanding, interpreters also deserve some of the spotlight at these events! Here is a selection of some recorded sessions from past ITD events which may be of interest to you if you interpret, or are considering getting into the interpreting field...

Jared Tabor

Giampiero Lungone is an industrial-technical interpreter in engineering training, working in Italian - Spanish - English. He recently joined the ProZ.com Interpreter Pool, one of the new pools of screened language designed to make it easier for clients to find experts. In this post, Giampiero talks about how he got started in interpreting, a bit about his work, and some considerations to keep in mind if you are thinking of starting a career as an interpreter.

Jared Tabor

ProZ.com Plus membership comes with all the benefits members have come to know over the past nineteen years, plus a lot of new tools and opportunities designed with the serious freelance language professional in mind. This series takes a look at these additional benefits, one at a time.

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An advantage, and, let's face it, sometimes a disadvantage, of the world we live in now is that everything is connected. Or it should be. Or could be.

On a professional level, this connectivity can be a great way to stay ahead. If you are in your CAT tool working on your latest project, why should you need to stop what you are doing and go somewhere else when you need help with a difficult term, for example? In another post I mentioned that you can send your query straight to the KudoZ term help network and get answers back without even leaving CafeTran Espresso, if you are using it. You can even get notified of future potential projects of interest while you are working on that project, and you have not left your CAT tool. You can log in to ProZ.com with your Facebook or Google account if you want to. This sort of inter-connectivity is what we have come to expect. Things that don't connect to other things intelligently, that stand alone (not the same, obviously, as standing out!), will lead an increasingly lonely and inefficient life online nowadays. And basically, we are talking about how well you are reaching and serving your clients, right? How many hoops does a potential client need to jump through to find out about what you have to offer, and contact you for work? Are you making it as easy as possible for this contact to happen?

Jared Tabor

As you may have already heard, the European language industry association (Elia) and ProZ.com have teamed up to broadcast this year's event, Together 2018. Together is an annual two-day event from Elia, where language service companies and independent professionals convene for open dialogue on industry trends, to learn mutually-relevant new approaches, to update technical skills and, ultimately, develop lasting relationships to serve their end clients better. This year, the event will be held on February 22nd and 23rd.

If you are a ProZ.com Plus subscriber, you will have access to the broadcast and recordings from this year's event for free.

Jared Tabor

ProZ.com Plus membership comes with all the benefits members have come to know over the past nineteen years, plus a lot of new tools and opportunities designed with the serious freelance language professional in mind. This series takes a look at these additional benefits, one at a time.

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The future looks bright for a certain type of translator, interpreter, or anyone providing language services.

These are the language professionals who are able to adapt to the changes that affect us all in general, and the changes that affect how things work in the industry. Some of these changes are related to globalization, some are tech-based, others have to do with how we have come to expect a service to be delivered, in terms of time, cost, and quality, and very often without even having met the person or persons providing the service.

Jared Tabor

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Today we're going to talk about... cats drinking coffee!

Jared Tabor