This is the sort of question that the Department of Justice would probably rather I don't discuss, as it could be construed as anti-trust, but I'm probably on their shitlist anyhow, so here goes.

How do I figure units of work?

There is no single system for assessing the length of a translation. Very few translators bill for their translation on the basis of time: almost all bill based on the length of either the source text or the translated text. Sometimes there is non-translation work involved in doing a translation (research, DTP, etc), and this is the sort of thing that might be billed on a time basis, if you can convince the client to pay you for it at all.

Your client may already have a preferred basis for calculating the length of the job. If so, you'll probably want to go along with that. If not, read on and decide on a system that makes sense for you.

The ways to determine the number of units of work in a job seem to be as various as translators themselves. J-E translators that bill based on the length of a source Japanese document will usually bill by the 400-character genkou youshi. Using the source as the basis for billing has the advantage of being readily understood by the client--in fact, the client can know in advance how much you will charge. It also does not penalize the translator for concision, or reward him for verbosity. One disadvantage is that not all jobs come in a form that makes it easy to count the number of characters.

Billing based on the translated text gets more complicated. This may be by the word, by a certain number of characters (for instance, 1000), or by the page. Calculating the page length raises another question though. Some translators call 200 words a page. Some call 1000 characters a page. Some use an actual printed page that is laid out, for example, 60 characters wide and 25 lines long (assuming use of a monospaced typeface, of course). For that matter, I have heard of calculating one word as being six bytes, not a string of letters that sit between spaces on a line. But of course there will be variations in the exact numbers used. With work being more and more electronic, using a printout as the basis for billing a job seems a bit archaic, but can work to your advantage if the printed pages are sparse (as is the case with spec sheets).

Anecdotal evidence is incomplete, but gives us a general sense of billing practices in different countries. Translators in the USA and Canada seem to charge by the English word, for both E>J and J>E translation. In the UK, translators commonly bill in units of 1,000 Japanese characters for translations in either direction (though I also heard from an E>J translator who bills in units of 1,000 English words). Translators in Australia bill either by the English word, or in units of 100 English words. In Japan, most J>E translation is billed by the page, where a page is variously defined as a certain number of words (ranging from 200-250), or a certain number of characters (anywhere from 1,000 to 1,300), or even as a physically printed page. E>;J translations may be billed by the number of words in the English source, or by 400-character translated pages.

It is worth noting that if you are using your word-processor's word-count feature to help you calculate your bill, you should be aware that not all word processors will give the same word count for a given document. Some will not count numbers as words, which can be a significant consideration. Some don't count hyphenated words as multiple words, which can really set you back if you are given to oh-so-extended-hyphenated-phrases.

Another consideration is whether or not to bill for translator's notes. Again, different translators approach this differently. If you are using footnotes as opposed to inserting your notes in the main body of the text, your word-processor's word-count feature can probably report the length of the footnote text separately, allowing you to separate it out if desired/required.

How do I estimate the length of a translation?

Let's assume you have the source document, preferably in electronic form, so that you can do a character/word count easily. Without the source, it is pointless to try guessing the length of the translation.

I have analyzed a few of my past jobs to determine a ratio of Japanese characters to English words, and found the ratio is 3.46:1 at the high end to 2.24 on the low end. For the purposes of giving advance estimates, a good rule of thumb is 2 Japanese characters for 1 English word. This will usually give you a little slack, and is easy for the customer to understand.

How much should I charge?

The short answer is "as much as you can." In the USA, I have heard of rates ranging anywhere from 5 cents per word (from scummy translation job-shops) to 30 cents per word (for specialty work done by a certified professional in that field). Agencies commonly pay from 10 to 15 cents; direct customers usually pay somewhere in the ballpark of 20 cents, although there are some direct clients that deal with their translators very much like agencies do, and pay them agency rates. In Japan, low-ball agency rates may be as low as Y2,500 per page, and at the pinnacle of the profession (where the job is more like writing copy than translating), I have heard of Y10,000 per page. Y3,500 or a little higher is quite common, with Y5000 evidently being the upper limit of commonly-available rates. Japanese clients tend to pay somewhat higher rates than do American clients, although the the end of the bubble era has pushed rates down in Japan as well. Rates in Australia may be 20-30 Australian cents per word, or higher for specialized work. Rates in England range from 35 to 90 pounds per 1,000 Japanese characters, which works out (very roughly) to 10 cents to 25 cents per English word (assuming about 2 Japanese character per 1 English word). These figures are anecdotal.

Everybody has their own logic in setting rates, but a generally-agreed principle is that you should charge a rate that keep you busy with work you want to do. Some people accept fairly low rates because it allows them to gather large quantities of work that they can do very efficiently, so they wind up making a good deal of money on an hourly basis. Others price their services high, allowing them to work more slowly--perhaps because the nature of the work precludes speed--without compromising their earning power. Other factors that figure into people's logic are whether or not they have a proven track record, pride preventing them from taking a low rate, etc.

Ideally, of course, you will get work that both pays well and permits quick work. Inevitably, you will wind up with clients that pay different rates, and the trick becomes juggling them so that the cheap work does not crowd out the more lucrative work. Just remember that a job is not lucrative just because it has a high unit rate: other factors (illegible manuscripts, convoluted writing, difficult clients, etc) may make it much slower or more frustrating than other work, negating any perceived advantages.