Job Discussion Forums

[Itsme]

Hello

Anyone experienced in writing/translating work?

I have someone asking me to write about 10,000 words for a new English book.

What is a good asking price for this type of work, per word?

They offered 2000 RMB for the job but I have a feeling that this might be too low. What do you think?

[adamsmith]

I would say it is way to low - what are they using the book for - is it going to be sold? (obviously) so they will make profits off of it. Dont forget that to look at your contract - if you are at a uni most of them have a stipulation in there that anything you write becomes their property.
Do you have to research for the writing? Take into account your research time. Normally if you are doing any of this type of work you would make good money as it takes a lot of time and creativity on your part.

[Itsme]

From what I was told so far, they want me to translate from Chinese to English, or at least the general idea is to take a beginning book that is written in Chinese and to translate it into English without having to actually uderstand the Chinese, whatever that means.

Assuming that it is some picture book and they just want me to make something up, what is a good price? In other words, a minimum of research.


I am not sure that this is a good way to do it but.. Let's assume that 200 RMB per hour is a good salary. That would mean that 2000 RMB / 200 RMB per hour is 10 hours. So I would have 10 hours to write 10,000 words which is 1000 words per hour or about 17 words per minute. Not too bad if I am just typing.

I am asking for people who have experience in this field. Perhaps they can tell me what to expect in terms of hours of work and a good price to ask.

[adamsmith]

I have experience translating but not in china. Ok, you have clarified what you are doing. I would agree that 200/hr is not a bad rate. But I would not settle for 10 hours work as when doing translations it can be much more difficult. Granted you can use software to get the basic translation done and then rephrase it to sound proper and use proper grammr etc which will save time. But I think you may find that it takes longer than 10 hours to do it. Especially as it is a childrens/low level book you will have to spend lots of time finding the right words to make it understandable.

An idea you might want to do is do a quick search for chinese/english profesional translations and see what they charge per hour - give them a discount so you are a little cheaper (undercut the competition) and keep track of your time you expend on the project.

[adamsmith]

Out of curiosity, I did a quick search myself and discovered that Chinese to english translation is charge out in the vicinity of 1rmb/word. So if you have 10000 words you would be at 10000RMB. A timetable for a project of this size is usually about 5 to 7 days (for professionals). This includes second person proofreading - something that you should also consider having done if you wish to do a profesional job for your client. They do not have to proofread the original but should do your english.
Give them a rate of say 8000rmb would be reasonable and give your proofreader his kick.