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Happy New Year and merry Christmas, my dear readers! 10 years seems like an awfully long time. Yet it seems like it was yesterday. 10 years ago my daughter was 2 years old and I was frantically searching for some kind of work I could do while still staying at home with my child. 10 years ago I made up my mind to become a freelancer. I was scared, yet I knew it was the right thing for me. Today, I am managing translation CPD courses and working as a freelance marketing translator and editor in my favourite fields: education, tourism, and everything connected with pet foods. I feel real joy because I love what I am doing. I am truly blessed. I've had different times in my freelance life. Some were good, others not so good. But when I look back I see an exciting story unfolding. I can't wait to see what my life will be like 10 years from now. Some great things that happened in 2017: It was probably my best year financially so far. I was able to regularly donate some...

Hi everybody! Long time, no see! :) There literally wasn't any single day when I didn't think about you. All my readers are very special to my heart. Thank you for your messages and for your cards! I am very grateful for your kind thoughts. As you probably guessed, this is going to be a recap post. I shared a couple recap posts back in 2014, so it probably won't be big news for you if I say that 2014 was an extremely challenging year. Sometimes to the point that I thought I was losing my mind. But at the same time there have been some changes in my life, and I would love to share them with you . 1. Remember last September  I talked about another surgery? It happened last December and it went very well. My body has healed well and my soul is healing, too. 2. I am not a freelancer any more. I already wrote once that I became a part of staff in two agencies. Since then the situation has changed even more, and I feel it is a very good change. Now I manage Translators...

Creating a new post on a snowy, frosty day Hi everybody! How has your week been? Hope everything is great and you are ready to enjoy your weekend, be it a relaxing or a working one. I am going to share some news and a couple new personal discoveries with you. News first:

May is really a very special month in Sharp End Training. We are about to reach 1,000 members in our LinkedIn group called Marketing for Freelance Translators! So we thought and thought how to thank you for being with us and found two ways we can do that. First of all, we are declaring May the social media marketing month . That means that every Tuesday at 5 pm British Summer Time starting May 14th we are going to have LIVE webinars on social media marketing for translators . Here's a brief program: May 14th - Jonathan Senior teaching about strategic use of Twitter . I've been through this training and I assure you it is extremely useful, especially if you feel you are drowning in the sea of information there and you are starting to forget your goals and your vision as a marketer of your own freelance business. The webinar is already announced. It costs 25 USD. You can register here: http://sharp-end-training.ru/how-to-swim-against-the-tide-in-a-sea-of-clutter-a...

I decided to write this post thanks to my dear Twitter friend and colleague Sarai Pahla who mentioned once on Twitter that she honestly wonders how I find time for blogging regularly. Well, I am about to share my secret with you now. I am also going to share a couple tricks that help other blogging translators. Interested? Then read further.

First of all, Happy Valentine's Day to those who celebrate ! But I really couldn't be silent today for one more reason: The Take Control of YOUR Business Conference starts tomorrow! So I want to make sure that all my readers have grabbed their chance to register! If you are a member of our LinkedIn group you might have noticed that I have been doing something special this week. Each day I introduced one speaker. I'd like to do the same here, in my blog now. 1. Ewa Erdmann . Ewa Erdmann is a freelance translator and interpreter (English-Polish) running her own business – Transliteria . Ewa has linguistic and legal academic background, which enables her to specialize as a legal translator. Ewa works closely with a marketing company and runs her own group of Polish business owners. She actually wrote a guest blog post for our blog which you can find if you follow the link: http://sharp-end-training.ru/are-you-networking-with-the-right-people Ewa is going to speak...

Financial matters is the hardest part of freelancing for many people. And for me, too. It can be a real nightmare, because your income can change month after month. Hopefully this will be a good change, but there will also be slow periods with almost no work and thus no payment coming in. I am still learning to manage my finances. The fact that I am a registered individual entrepreneur motivates me to keep the budget and not spend all the money at once (though at times I do feel like spending it all on shoes, makeup and other absolutely necessary things ;)) So here are my financial tips or rather lessons that I've been taught. Please feel free to add yours in comments!

Do you remember me talking about interviews with great blogging translators? I said then that they were all a part of our new project. Well, now I am ready to announce that our Complete Blogging Translators' Toolkit is ready! It is a whole set of products including: 1. Full comprehensive  online video training in setting up wordpress – the most widely used blogging platform on the web. 2.  A parallel training course on what to avoid with wordpress . If you are new to DIY webdesign – The course will show you how to develop a knock out site – straight off the bat and keeping the newbie mistakes at bay. 3. Blogging translator star interviews – 3 x mp3 interviews with BIG HITTING blogging translators who share their blogging experience and useful tips.  4. A comprehensive pdf manual crammed with cheat sheets, links to blogging resources, shortcuts and time savers 5. 30 days free membership to our blogging translator support group . Every month we meet up onli...