The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2023 - 13

Getting Started
Before creating a passive
income stream, it's
important to perform a needs
assessment not only for
your translation business,
but also for your ideal client.
Digital products residing at
the intersection of what your
business and ideal clients
need will offer the most direct
path to success. Common
business needs include:
y Increasing exposure to
ideal clients.
y Finding ways to stay top of
mind with clients.
y Creating extra income.
y Finding ways to showcase
professional expertise
and skills.
y Creating a diversified
portfolio of products and
services.
Most translators are a
one-woman (or one-man)
show with a limited budget,
so creating the digital product
yourself is the most realistic
way to get started. Just like
any other do-it-yourself
project, identifying your
strengths, weaknesses, and
applicable skills ahead of time
will yield the best results.
Think of useful things as
well as things that make you
unique. This could include:
y Unique knowledge.
y Desirable information to
teach others.
y Useful ways to help clients
organize information.
y Artistic abilities (e.g.,
videography, graphic
design, page layout, etc.).
y Computer skills (e.g.,
computer programming,
software competencies, etc.).
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Translators offer a unique
intercultural perspective coupled
with specialized professional
knowledge, which gives them
a strong competitive advantage
when it comes to creating one-ofa-kind
content.
y Knowledge of the internet
(e.g., SEO, social media
marketing, etc.).
There's no point in
creating something clients
don't need or want.
Therefore, it's vital to find
out or surmise what might
be useful to highly desirable
clients. Some freelancers
do this by interviewing
potential clients. Others
find success by putting
themselves in their clients'
shoes and deducing what
they might find useful.
Try to avoid explaining
translation to clients. The
reason they're hiring you
to do it is so they won't
have to. Information about
the nuances of translation
is unlikely to pique
their interest. Think of
secondary " symptoms " of
international business that
clients might face every day.
Perhaps they have trouble
writing effective emails to
clients in Italy. Maybe they
can't stop offending their
clients in France. Maybe
they need common Italian
phrases to use at their next
business meeting.
In a more general sense,
things to consider include:
y Types of media clients
prefer (e.g., videos,
books, digital books, blog
articles, etc.).
y Client challenges solved by
offering information.
y Client challenges solved
by helping organize
information.
y Useful tools clients don't
already have.
Choose a Passive
Income Type
After determining what
clients find useful, what
you can offer, and what
your business needs out of a
passive income stream, it's
time to choose the best type
of passive income to use. Pick
something that clients would
find unbelievably useful, is
in short supply among your
client base, and you would
also have the skills to create
relatively well. Below are a
few examples of content that
can showcase a translator's
professional knowledge,
meet client needs, and be
easily monetized.
1
Book Publishing:
Self-publishing a
book is inexpensive and
easy to do in today's digital
world, which makes it a
great way for a translator
to earn passive income with
their unique know-how.
Having your name on a book
remains just as impressive
today as it was 30 years ago,
giving the publication of a
book the potential to raise
your professional profile
considerably.
A book can also act as a
kind of unofficial interview-
giving clients a taste of the
knowledge and skill they
might benefit from when
they hire you to work on a
project. If the thought of
writing an entire book scares
you, start out with lowcontent
publishing. Lowcontent
publishing involves
creating the internal page
layout for simple, mostly
blank books that are filled
in by the user. This includes
planners, notebooks, logs,
and journals. There's a
great deal of potential in
this field for translators,
since translators are more
aware than anyone else of
what page layouts would
benefit clients working in
international environments.
y Skills Required: Writing,
graphic design, and SEO.
y Helpful Software: Affinity
Publisher, Affinity
Designer, Adobe Illustrator,
and Adobe InDesign.
y Further Information:
Rachel Harrison-Sund's
free guide, " 3 Steps to
Publishing Your First
Low-Content Book, " and
Amazon Kindleprenuer
Dave Chesson's course on
selling books online.
Instructional Videos
and Classes: Often the
first thing a person does
when they have a question
about something is to search
for the answer online. Videos
are harder to make than
other media and very easy to
consume, so video-specific
SEO will get you a long way
very quickly. Make videos
covering common questions
2
American Translators Association 13

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The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2023

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