Feast and famine cycle - is it possible to break it? Book review

I just finished reading a great book written by Joy Mo called "Say Goodbye to Feast-or-Famine". Here's how it looks:

You can read a lot of posts about the advantages of being a freelancer. But are there any disadvantages? Sure! To many freelancers, those disadvantages concern money matters. And the feast-and-famine cycle is one of them. One month you are working like crazy and don't have time even to take a shower (speaking figuratively here ;)), and another month you are sitting at home all day long staring at your inbox and nothing comes in... I've been there. Thankfully, I am moving forward and haven't had any famine periods for the past year or so. But that's only because of marketing, and because I realized that my knowledge and experience can be used not only in translating, but in other spheres. And Joy is one of my top influencers. I've been following Joy's ezine for quite a while and I know she's not just a translator, but a real entrepreneur. She has a lot of useful tips ready for her fellow translators and she willingly shares her experience!

What do I like about this book most of all? - It's very practical. Joy doesn't just offer a vague piece of advice about something most translators are already doing anyway. She suggests specific steps and she's extremely practical offering her best knowledge and best tips, even including links to useful resources that can help translators grow their businesses.

So, is it possible to break this cycle of feast and famine? YES, it is! How? There are 2 main ways:

1) marketing

2) diversifying

That information is by no means new. But you will find a lot of specific tips about how to do both things. And you know that it's not all theory, but that everything in the book is the result of the author's life, her choices and lessons learned.

I do recommend this book to all freelance translators who want to break free from the feast-or-famine cycle and to become real entrepreneurs! There's a lot to think about for new translators, and as for more experienced colleagues, there are still quite a few practical tips that you can apply to your business and watch it thrive even more :)

About the author of the book: Joy Mo (@joymo91) is an expert translator and court interpreter residing in Vancouver, Canada. She is the owner of the http://www.translators-biz-secret.com/ website helping translators attract quality jobs and high paying clients.

Disclaimer: this is not a paid review. I just loved the book and I think it can be useful for many freelance translators ;)

10 interesting facts about the Russian language

In my previous post I promised to follow with the interesting info about some other languages. So here are 10 facts about the Russian language which might be of interest to those who are studying it. If you would like to have this list in Russian, please contact me and I will send it to you by email. So, what do I find interesting about my native language? 1. Russian has about 500,000 words, but only 2,000-2,500 of them are used frequently. 100 most frequently used words make 20% of all written and oral speech. A high school graduate's vocabulary usually has 1,500 to 4,000 words. Those who have graduated from a higher educational institution normally have a richer vocabulary consisting of approximately 8,000 words. 2. It's compulsory for all astronauts in the international space station to learn Russian, so we can call it an international language of space :)

15 interesting facts about the English language

I prepared this list for one of my English classes. And then it dawned on me that I can share it with you, too! So here are 15 facts about the English language that I find very interesting. Hope you do, too ;) Rudyard Kipling was fired as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. His dismissal letter said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language. This isn't a kindergarten for amateur writers." No language has more synonyms than English.

Clients vs translators: how do we show that we're honest?

This is a personal post, and I'd really like to hear the opinion of my colleagues about such situations and how to deal with them. My situation is kind of like the one described in Mox's blog . In December a new prospective client wrote to me asking about my availabiility for a new project. When I read the overall description of the project, I got really interested in it. But the client needed to know exactly how much time it would take and how much it would cost. No problem, just send me the text to look through or a part of it so I could get the gist of the style, level of complexity etc. In the reply that person just stated the wordcount, but there was no sample. I thought, maybe they didn't understand me. English is not my native language after all. In my reply, I stated the estimated time and cost based on the client's wordcount, but I repeated the request to see a part of the text. And then the person thanked me and ... disappeared.

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