Today is day 1 of quarantine in our area of Brisbane, QLD. There were a number of COVID-19 cases in the high school next to us and it quickly spread to the primary school where two of my daughters go to school. The state government immediately determined us to be contacts and ordered us to not leave home for 14 days! While everyone else bemoans this or that about quarantine, I soon came to the realisation that quarantine means nothing to a busy translator. I don’t go anywhere more than once a week anyway, and that’s always at the cost of losing time to work. I’m even able to train (I’m a cyclist) here at home… the only panic we had was only having half a bottle of shiraz in the house! Soon friends from far and wide gave us their suggestions (and discount codes) for wine delivery. I kind of went overboard and ordered 6 bottles from ‘Jimmy Brings’ and 14 bottles (a case + bottle of Prosecco and chardonnay) from ‘Naked Wines’, this quarantine won’t be so bad after all!
“I soon came to the realisation that quarantine means nothing to a busy translator. I don’t go anywhere more than once a week anyway, and that’s always at the cost of losing time to work.”
Welcome to Ruminations of a Translator.
Translation is a job that I’m pretty good at. This last financial year, for example, was the first year I broke $300,000 in sales revenue as a freelancer and I think there are probably a few good things I can share with others to help them start earning to their fullest potential in a craft they also love. So here I start!
My name is Dylan J Hartmann, or DJHartmann. I’m a NAATI-certified Thai to English translator and Australian English localisation expert. I also handle a number of other related activities, but these two are what keep me busy most of the time. I’ve been NAATI-certified since 2017, I joined AUSIT later that year and became a committee member for the QLD branch in 2018.
I’ve also spent the last couple of years (since 2018) developing a technology called AcudocX that has been designed to assist busy translators (like myself) with handling requests from direct clients, which has now created a new product on the translation market called ‘self-service translations’ (I’ll get into how this technology helped me make certified ID translations profitable later on).
This whole professional journey has been like a wild ride, especially considering that I only became a full time translator in 2014, broke $100,000 after 2 1/2 years (2017), another 2 years later broke $200,000 and now in 2020-2021 made over $300,000 in sales. There mustn’t be many other careers out there that give you these kind of numbers so soon. As father of 3 children, who is also supporting their partner (who helps with PR and communications), income has been important. It may not be important to you but this blog should at least give you tips on how to earn more.
My goal with this is to take you on the journey that I took to get here, and share with you when we reach new milestones.
Click subscribe below and we’ll see how it goes!
Cheers,
DJH
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