Lukeh17 wrote:
I looked at the rates on here and German-English was between 0.8-0.11 cents (Euros) and Spanish-English was 0.7-0.10 cents for marketing. I don't want to do it for free obviously but I guess, I'm a bit nervous about taking the plunge and actually doing it for real! How much would you recommend?
Those sound sensible rates to me personally. I charge EUR 0.12 per source word for French to English marketing texts and I find that too high for most of the really big volume-driven agencies. That's fine with me as I never enjoy their production-line type of experience. The smaller, more specialised translation agencies, communications and marketing agencies, and direct clients are all happy with the rate - so I'm happy too.
Bear in mind that you're charging for the deliverable when you charge per word. If you don't feel capable of producing an adequate translation at the moment, it would be better to just practise for your own benefit, or perhaps contribute to cloud-based pro-bono sites such as TED, where others can edit your work (for better or worse). If you do feel confident about the end product, then take the job for a "normal" rate. You will actually end up with a lower hourly rate of pay than a more experienced translator, as you'll spend more time checking everything. You could also pay for a proofreader to start with. In either case, your rate per hour will increase automatically over time, without the need to impose a rate rise on a regular client - always a risky business.
The worst thing for a beginner is to feel they have to rush the work to earn enough to live on. That can start a downward spiral of quality complaints and a further lowering of rates due to not having a good reputation. You need time to do good translations, time to proofread them carefully, and - perhaps the most important - time to check on the clients before you accept the first job and time to check each and every job for content, instructions, potential file handling problems, etc. before you commit. Those tasks have an impact on both rate per word and delivery deadline, of course. Do check out the ProZ.com Scam Centre and the Wiki articles here on risk management, and always check with the Blue Board and similar places before taking on a new client.
Also with copywriting, I guess it would depend on the task e.g. there will be a huge difference between creating a leaflet compared to a brochure in terms of hours spent on the task. Again I still don't know how much to charge for these jobs though.
I'll leave that question for others to answer as it's not something I'll ever do. I often do extremely heavy editing, but faced with a blank sheet of paper absolutely nothing happens.