The Entrepreneurial Translator is for freelance translators, editors and copy editors who want to future-proof their business. Expect weekly tips on finding direct clients, using AI tools smartly and building sustainable income—without overwhelm or fluff.
[#41] The Bronze Age started with two ordinary metals
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I grew up in Birmingham, central England not reading. Not properly, anyway. Every book penned by Enid Blyton - who which doesn't count - and not much else. Books felt a bit like homework. Something other people did. What got me though was language. The precision of it. The way one word in the wrong place changes everything, and the right word in the right place stops you cold. That obsession has never left me. It's why I became a translator. It's probably why you did too. At some point - I can't pinpoint exactly when - I started reading to answer a question I couldn't quite name. The question turned out to be: what is this, and how do I build something real out of it? This business. This life. This version of a career that doesn't look like the one I was handed. The books on my reading list are the answers I found along the way. Not all of them are comfortable. A few came via therapists during one of the harder chapters of my life - navigating recovery from severe childhood enmeshment. I was doing down rabbitholes at 2 am, chasing anything that made sense of something that didn't. Attached. Stop Walking on Eggshells. Books I didn't expect to need, and couldn't have done without. Others are straight-up business fundamentals - Ogilvy, Cialdini, Pressfield. The kind of books that don't age because they're built on human nature, not fads. A few rewired how I think entirely. Taleb on antifragility. Frankl on meaning. Naval Ravikant on wealth and time. Harari on where we came from and where we're headed. And some are simply great stories, told by people who built something worth building - Phil Knight, Matthew McConaughey - whose paths were unconventional and unsanitised enough to actually be useful. One important note before you dive in. Finding a book valuable doesn't mean I endorse everything its author stands for. We read to widen our thinking, not to adopt a creed. These books shaped how I think. They're not a manifesto. I've organised it by category - business, marketing, philosophy, memoirs, meaning, relationships, fiction - so you can go straight to the area that's pulling at you right now. My suggestion: do the same exercise yourself. Compile every book that has genuinely shifted something in you. The patterns that emerge tell you more about who you are and what you actually believe than any personality test ever will. Looking at mine, I can see exactly what I'm drawn to: fundamentals over tactics, systems over hustle, the inner work that makes the outer work possible. That shows up in how I run The Entrepreneurial Translator. It shows up in my medical translation practice. It shows up in everything. What would your booklist say about you? I'd genuinely love to know - top books, newsletters, fiction, YouTube channels, whatever's shaped your current thinking. Hit reply and tell me. Let's help each other grow.
Last week's free online training: Last week I gave a 45 minute online training, How to Become a Key Translator of Influence. From invisible to influential: a live training for freelancers Check out the recording here. Don't dilly-dally. It will be taken down in a couple of days. To your online success, Jason Willis-Lee Founder, The Entrepreneurial Translator Forwarded this email? Sign up here |
Beyond Words. Smart Business for Language Pros
The Entrepreneurial Translator is for freelance translators, editors and copy editors who want to future-proof their business. Expect weekly tips on finding direct clients, using AI tools smartly and building sustainable income—without overwhelm or fluff.
You got faster. You read more. You took the specialist courses. You built up ten years of domain knowledge - the kind that lets you move through a dense clinical outcomes assessment without stopping to look anything up. And here's what that earned you: less money per project. Not because the market doesn't value expertise. Because you're pricing by the hour. The billable hour has a hidden logic that works against you every time you improve. A junior translator takes six hours to work through...
You got faster. You read more. You took the specialist courses. You built up ten years of domain knowledge - the kind that lets you move through a dense clinical outcomes assessment without stopping to look anything up. And here's what that earned you: less money per project. Not because the market doesn't value expertise. Because you're pricing by the hour. The billable hour has a hidden logic that works against you every time you improve. A junior translator takes six hours to work through...
There's a conversation happening before you even open your mouth. Before the scouting call. Before the proposal. Before the first e-mail exchange where you talk about the project, the timeline, the complexity of the terminology. The moment a potential client sees your rate, they draw a conclusion. Not about your price. About you. And here's the uncomfortable part: they're usually right. A low rate doesn't just signal low cost. It signals low stakes. It tells the client that you're not sure...