Comments on: Surviving the holiday lull

By: Corinne McKay

Corinne McKay — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:55:19 +0000

I agree, the holiday lull is nice, but by the first full week in January, I’m ready for some intellectual activity. I find it relaxing to have a semi-forced break from the computer, time to enjoy the family without thinking about work, etc., but this afternoon I thought “enough games of “go fish” and listening to Magic Treehouse CDs, I’m ready to use my brain again!” Here’s to a healthy and lucrative 2009!

By: MT

MT — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:39:41 +0000

Fascinating! I’ve never had a holiday lull… Things always seem busier for me whenever the translators in Country X go on vacation (like xmas). Mysteriously, I’ve somehow never experienced the January payment lull either. I do a fair number of jobs for one of those behemoth translation agencies and said agency always takes about 45+ days to pay EXCEPT right at the end of the year. I swear there must be some tax benefit for them to pay me for stuff in the old year. It’s almost comical. Do a job for $5000 and turn in the invoice on December 27, receive the check in my mailbox on January 3rd. I’m exaggerating slightly, but they seriously pay much faster than usual right at the end of December/beginning of January.

So if you don’t like a lull over the holidays, don’t give up hope. You can find clients who don’t hibernate for as long. And I seriously don’t get why the BIG agency pays me so promptly at the end of the year, but there must be some reason. There must be other companies out there that pay bizarrely fast at the end of the year. Your task is but to find them!

By: Judy Jenner

Judy Jenner — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:34:23 +0000

Yes, the famous holiday lull. It’s been a bit slow for us as well, but thanks to our fabulous holiday special — 20% off until tomorrow — we have had some new clients find us to take advantage of the deal. We have a few things we are working on, and I did pass a project on to a fellow linguist today. and I will send out my last invoice of the year tomorrow.

An e-mail marketing campaign sounds great. I bet our web guru could design us a very cool HTML e-mail. Glad to hear your tendinitis is better, your financial cushion is alive and well, etc.! I (still) have a decent cushion, too, from being both a freelancer and an in-house translator until three months ago.