As a freelance Italian translator should I be approaching translation agencies? I imagine that they must get many CVs submitted to them? but what else can one do to secure future and regular translation work?

What is your business plan, Toni? Or have you gone into business without a business plan? That is not the usually recommended strategy.

If you target direct clients then you have a certain price advantage. The owner of an agency has to split its income between itself, its personnel and its translators. I understand that as a general rule, the agency keeps at least 60% and the translator gets less than 40% of the agency's net income on each job.

If you deal directly with clients and maintain that price relationship you should be able to underbid the agencies without any problem. But to do that you will have to specialize because most agencies can offer clients certain services that you cannot.

If you work for an agency, you have the agency to effectively do all your marketing work for you, if you work for direct customers, you will have to do the marketing work yourself. Successful marketing requires some special skills which few translators appear to have.

It is all really one big trade-off. Your best bet is to do some work for selected agencies and some work for direct clients. I never heard of anybody having a problem contacting agencies. On my web site I state quite clearly that I do not work for agencies but they still ring me up with urgent jobs at all hours - and sometimes I accept them!

Derek

(I see that you have made only 2 posts so far, Toni, so I had better say welcome to the fray and that I wish you as much work as you can handle!) 

Hi,
 

I have been contacted by an agency (India) who are offering me a job for them to record 2x78 prompts in my language, Albanian. Before I start they would like to know how much would I charge for it.

Can someone give me an idea of how much should I charge for this type of work?

Thank you,

Vjollca