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(and these projects come up; for example when a company
wants their marketing slogan translated into fourteen lan-
guages), you still have to communicate with the client, issue
an invoice, deposit the check, follow up if the client doesn't
pay, etc. For this reason, most translators have a minimum
charge of somewhere between $20 and $50 for projects that
are under a certain word count, such as $25 for 200 words
or fewer.
Most reputable translation agencies will have every
Editing rate.
translation proofed by another translator, so you may be
interested in offering this service. Editing rates are normally
one-quarter to one-third of your usual translation rate.
Some of your clients will want
Translation memory discounts.
to make more money for themselves or their clients by ask-
ing for a discount when you use translation memory soft-
ware on a document that is very repetitive. Whether you do
this or not is up to you. Some translators offer no discount at
all, others only for 100% matches, still others offer a stepped
for example charging 60% of
pricing plan for fuzzy matches,
their regular rate for 75-99% matches, 80% of their regular
rate for 50-74% matches, etc. If you choose to offer this type
of discount, most translation memory packages have tools
to report the match percentages in your document.
4.3 Contracts or work for hire agreements
Many clients will ask their freelance translators to sign contracts
agreements before beginning work. While these are
work for hire
or
often quite harmless in nature and not something to be concerned
about, it's important to read what you're signing and to make
sure that you're not agreeing to a clause that you will later regret.
These contract clauses are mostly applicable if you work through
CONTRACTS OR WORK FOR HIRE AGREEMENTS 93
translation agencies. For example, you should carefully consider,
possibly with the advice of a lawyer, whether you will agree to
terms such as:
" Agreeing not to get paid until the end client pays the agency.
Of all the terms that translators are asked to accept, this is
probably the most difficult. In one sense, it's understandable
that an agency doesn't want to take the risk of having to pay
tens of thousands of dollars to translators for a project that
the agency itself is never paid for. In addition, if a translator
returns poor quality work, the agency doesn't want to be
responsible in the event that the end client refuses to pay. On
the other hand, the agency's role as a middleman between
the translator and the end client involves some financial
risks, such as non-payment on the part of the end client. If
you agree to this type of clause, it is important to realize
that you are accepting some risk of non-payment yourself.
" Agreeing to indemnify (hold harmless) the client against
lawsuits and/or claims resulting from your translation. If
you sign a contract with this type of clause, make sure that
you carry your own professional liability or errors and omis-
sions (E&O) insurance in case one of your clients is sued
because of an error in your translation. The client should
have a quality control system in place so that an error by
one translator doesn't have a disastrous effect on the final
project, but not every client will have this. This type of
contract clause is more of a concern if you work for direct
clients, who may be less likely to have your work edited or
proofread before distributing it.
" Agreeing not to accept or solicit work from the agency's
clients. Most intermediaries between end clients and free-
lancers, not just translation agencies, require this type of
non-compete agreement. It's perfectly reasonable to ask that
you not go behind the agency's back and ask the end client
to hire you to translate for them directly. However unless
you and the agency compare your client lists (something the
94 RATES, CONTRACTS AND TERMS OF SERVICE
agency will probably be unwilling to do) you can't really
know that you're not working for one of them.
" Agreeing not to subcontract work to another translator. This
is another fairly common and reasonable clause, just make
sure you read it before signing, and if you commit to doing
all the work yourself, don't share it with someone else.
" Agreeing to abide by confidentiality standards. Especially
if you work in legal, financial or patent translation, you will
probably come into contact with trade secrets, confidential
financial information, patent applications, etc. If you sign
this type of document, again it is important to read and
abide by its provisions. For example, financial translators
might be required to agree not to engage in insider trading
as a result of their knowledge of a company's financial in-
formation before it is released to the public. This type of
document is often referred to as a non-disclosure agreement
or NDA.
" Agreeing to submit to a credit check, criminal background
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