I dropped out of Fiverr and I came back

[adrianj]

Because I still hope that Fiverr should work.

Yet there’s one thing I’ve learned and is that being a newcomer at Fiverr sucks.
Why? Simple.
Buyers look for services and by default they will see best sellers, and obviously they want the best service so newcomers are just thrown into oblivion.

https://www.fiverr.com/share/xE9e0a This is the link to my gig btw, if you want to make any constructive criticism, and help me understand why I didn’t get orders.

It was clear to me I wouldn’t be able to get orders the conventional way…waiting for customers to just come when you are a newcomer, it just doesn’t work.

You could say yes, maybe buyer requests are a thing, but I never see a single one for translation services.

So what could I do if I do not appear in their searches and basically I do not have buyer requests? Exactly, you can do nothing.

After some months now, I’ve reached to the conclusion that the only reliable way to try and get your first clients is actively trying to look for them. And that is the reason why I came here, to ask you where could I find people interested in English-Spanish translations, which is my field.

Thanks for your time, and let’s see if I will drop out of Fiverr again…time and experience will say.

[eoinfinnegan]

At this point your only selling point to people searching is price. Nothing else. Unfortunately given your gig type, you will have quite a bit of competition on already low prices from countries where $5 goes a lot further.
I hate advising someone to compete on price, I really hate it, but there are not many ways to differentiate yourself from the competition. You don’t have reviews and you don’t see buyer requests yet so you are in a bad situation to try compete any other way.

It was how I started by the way; doing endless hours of work for $2-3 an hour. However, doing that gave me reviews and that meant I had the social proof to show I could do what I said. After 10 reviews I put prices up, after 20 I went up more, after 50 I put them up to my current level and am considering a price increase on some services now. Unfortunately there are still no guarantees with this method but it’s the only one that’s realistic at the moment, unless you source your own buyers and bring them to Fiverr.

[adrianj]

At this point your only selling point to people searching is price. Nothing else. Unfortunately given your gig type, you will have quite a bit of competition on already low prices from countries where $5 goes a lot further.

I hate advising someone to compete on price, I really hate it, but there are not many ways to differentiate yourself from the competition. You don’t have reviews and you don’t see buyer requests yet so you are in a bad situation to try compete any other way.

It was how I started by the way; doing endless hours of work for $2-3 an hour. However, doing that gave me reviews and that meant I had the social proof to show I could do what I said. After 10 reviews I put prices up, after 20 I went up more, after 50 I put them up to my current level and am considering a price increase on some services now. Unfortunately there are still no guarantees with this method but it’s the only one that’s realistic at the moment, unless you source your own buyers and bring them to Fiverr.

At this point your only selling point to people searching is price. Nothing else. Unfortunately given your gig type, you will have quite a bit of competition on already low prices from countries where $5 goes a lot further.

I can’t really lower the price since 5$ is the minimum possible in Fiverr, so I guess that what you mean is, I should offer more translated words for the minimum price right?

It was how I started by the way; doing endless hours of work for $2-3 an hour. However, doing that gave me reviews and that meant I had the social proof to show I could do what I said.

Makes a lot of sense to me, and also I believe it’s the realistic way of doing things. I was copying what the best sellers were offering in terms of prices, but that didn’t work at all.

I guess you are more than right with your statement.

At this moment I offer 300W for 5$, maybe if I raise the word limit to 500 will suffice?

[imagination7413]

Do you have any other skills you could build a gig around?

Making money on Fiverr is becoming more difficult these days, with so many new people joining up hoping to earn money on Fiverr quickly. Here are my thoughts on this - and, yes, it involves some work and thought before publishing a gig!

[adrianj]

Do you have any other skills you could build a gig around?

Making money on Fiverr is becoming more difficult these days, with so many new people joining up hoping to earn money on Fiverr quickly. Here are my thoughts on this - and, yes, it involves some work and thought before publishing a gig!

Currently I’m a computer science student, but I also study English at C1 level.

I wanted to focus on translation since it’s the most realistic thing I would be able to do.

[imagination7413]

What about stuff you already know how to do, not stuff you’re currently learning?

[eoinfinnegan]

At this point your only selling point to people searching is price. Nothing else. Unfortunately given your gig type, you will have quite a bit of competition on already low prices from countries where $5 goes a lot further.

I can’t really lower the price since 5$ is the minimum possible in Fiverr, so I guess that what you mean is, I should offer more translated words for the minimum price right?

It was how I started by the way; doing endless hours of work for $2-3 an hour. However, doing that gave me reviews and that meant I had the social proof to show I could do what I said.

Makes a lot of sense to me, and also I believe it’s the realistic way of doing things. I was copying what the best sellers were offering in terms of prices, but that didn’t work at all.

I guess you are more than right with your statement.

At this moment I offer 300W for 5$, maybe if I raise the word limit to 500 will suffice?

I was copying what the best sellers were offering in terms of prices, but that didn’t work at all.

Yeah, it only makes sense to price yourself with the bestsellers when you are at that level and have the reviews to prove it.

Honestly, to have any chance of competing with English to Spanish, you would need to be looking at $5/1000 until you get your first 10 reviews. Your competition are all other Spanish speaking countries where some have very a low cost of living and pricing. You may want to tell me to shove it with that price but you have to be able to look past the price for those first few orders. Essentially, you are working to get reviews, not get paid.

I would also suggest that you offer a Spanish proofreading service.

[adrianj]

What about stuff you already know how to do, not stuff you’re currently learning?

Well, I’ve been studying English since I was 6 years old and I’d say my proficiency is not bad at all.

Currently I’m at the C1 level, but the fact that I study doesn’t mean I’m not able of translating.

Studying serves a purpose: to make you do stuff.

EDIT: Studying doesn’t mean I’ve always studied tho. I’ve been in direct contact with the language since that time. Basically, the only thing I do in Spanish is speaking with natives here. Every other aspect of my life, I do it in English since It’s such an essential language to me.

[adrianj]

I was copying what the best sellers were offering in terms of prices, but that didn’t work at all.

Yeah, it only makes sense to price yourself with the bestsellers when you are at that level and have the reviews to prove it.

Honestly, to have any chance of competing with English to Spanish, you would need to be looking at $5/1000 until you get your first 10 reviews. Your competition are all other Spanish speaking countries where some have very a low cost of living and pricing. You may want to tell me to shove it with that price but you have to be able to look past the price for those first few orders. Essentially, you are working to get reviews, not get paid.

I would also suggest that you offer a Spanish proofreading service.

Yeah, it only makes sense to price yourself with the bestsellers when you are at that level and have the reviews to prove it.

I didn’t take into account this little detail, that’s why It didn’t work and makes a lot of sense.

Honestly, to have any chance of competing with English to Spanish, you would need to be looking at $5/1000 until you get your first 10 reviews. Your competition are all other Spanish speaking countries where some have very a low cost of living and pricing. You may want to tell me to shove it with that price but you have to be able to look past the price for those first few orders. Essentially, you are working to get reviews, not get paid.

Sacrifices should be made always in order to gain something, so I won’t have a problem doing that. If what I tried previously didn’t work, it was for a reason.

What you are talking about sounds pretty realistic to me so I’ll modify those values since it’s true that otherwise, I won’t be able to get reviews at all.

I would also suggest that you offer a Spanish proofreading service.

You mean that I should create a separate gig for this service right?

[visualstudios]

I would advise against translation. Extremely saturated field, impossible to stand out - your work as a translator won’t look “amazing” in a portfolio, no matter how good it is. If it’s perfect, it will just look… like normal text. There’s no “wow” effect in translation, like you can get with music, photography, design, video. There’s no emotional connection with a piece of translated text.

That means prices are not elastic. The best translator can’t charge 100 times what an average translator charges. There’s no market for that. You can’t improve on a “correct” translation. If it’s correct, it’s correct. So if competition does the job competently, how can you stand out? You can’t - except on price, where it quickly becomes a race to the bottom.

However, the best graphic designer can and does charge 1000 times more for a logo than some random designer. Because what he does can’t be “correct” or not. It’s subjective. It’s art. Therefore, it’s essentially priceless - the value is in the eye of the beholder. And that’s what you want as a seller.

All this to say - translation is a bad field if you want to make real money. Look into something else, it will be better for you in the long run. The more creative, the better, since you’ll have more pricing control and way higher chances of standing out from the crowd with an unique style.

If you absolutely must go with translation, the best bet in terms of value would be highly technical subjects, where you need to be an expert to translate properly. That can make you stand out from the crowd, and raise your value, since competition will be much lower. However, the market will also be much smaller. A hard balance to strike for sure.

[imagination7413]

Translation on Fiverr is a bad field.

Multi-linguistics in other industries can be a great thing to have, if you’re proficient.

[eoinfinnegan]

Yeah, it only makes sense to price yourself with the bestsellers when you are at that level and have the reviews to prove it.

I didn’t take into account this little detail, that’s why It didn’t work and makes a lot of sense.

Honestly, to have any chance of competing with English to Spanish, you would need to be looking at $5/1000 until you get your first 10 reviews. Your competition are all other Spanish speaking countries where some have very a low cost of living and pricing. You may want to tell me to shove it with that price but you have to be able to look past the price for those first few orders. Essentially, you are working to get reviews, not get paid.

Sacrifices should be made always in order to gain something, so I won’t have a problem doing that. If what I tried previously didn’t work, it was for a reason.

What you are talking about sounds pretty realistic to me so I’ll modify those values since it’s true that otherwise, I won’t be able to get reviews at all.

I would also suggest that you offer a Spanish proofreading service.

You mean that I should create a separate gig for this service right?

You mean that I should create a separate gig for this service right?

Yes, that’s right. Have a separate gig for proofreading

[eoinfinnegan]

I would advise against translation. Extremely saturated field, impossible to stand out - your work as a translator won’t look “amazing” in a portfolio, no matter how good it is. If it’s perfect, it will just look… like normal text. There’s no “wow” effect in translation, like you can get with music, photography, design, video. There’s no emotional connection with a piece of translated text.

That means prices are not elastic. The best translator can’t charge 100 times what an average translator charges. There’s no market for that. You can’t improve on a “correct” translation. If it’s correct, it’s correct. So if competition does the job competently, how can you stand out? You can’t - except on price, where it quickly becomes a race to the bottom.

However, the best graphic designer can and does charge 1000 times more for a logo than some random designer. Because what he does can’t be “correct” or not. It’s subjective. It’s art. Therefore, it’s essentially priceless - the value is in the eye of the beholder. And that’s what you want as a seller.

All this to say - translation is a bad field if you want to make real money. Look into something else, it will be better for you in the long run. The more creative, the better, since you’ll have more pricing control and way higher chances of standing out from the crowd with an unique style.

If you absolutely must go with translation, the best bet in terms of value would be highly technical subjects, where you need to be an expert to translate properly. That can make you stand out from the crowd, and raise your value, since competition will be much lower. However, the market will also be much smaller. A hard balance to strike for sure.

All this to say - translation is a bad field if you want to make real money. Look into something else, it will be better for you in the long run. The more creative, the better, since you’ll have more pricing control and way higher chances of standing out from the crowd with an unique style

From what the OP has said, it seems like they are looking to work in computers and that their Fiverr gigs will be a side gig to keep them going while studying. I don’t see the point in advising them to begin studying something else while already studying computer science and English. They want to make some money now, or soon at least.

As for not making money in translation, sure, there’s probably a limit to how much can be made but that’s not to say there’s no money in it. Also, how many graphic designers get to the level where they are charging 100 times what the rest charge; not too many I would imagine.

[visualstudios]

All this to say - translation is a bad field if you want to make real money. Look into something else, it will be better for you in the long run. The more creative, the better, since you’ll have more pricing control and way higher chances of standing out from the crowd with an unique style

From what the OP has said, it seems like they are looking to work in computers and that their Fiverr gigs will be a side gig to keep them going while studying. I don’t see the point in advising them to begin studying something else while already studying computer science and English. They want to make some money now, or soon at least.

As for not making money in translation, sure, there’s probably a limit to how much can be made but that’s not to say there’s no money in it. Also, how many graphic designers get to the level where they are charging 100 times what the rest charge; not too many I would imagine.

I didn’t say he would necessarily need to study anything else. They are not professional translators anyway, they just have enough skills to give that a try. Surely they have enough skills (specially given they study computer science, so they must have good computer skills) to try something else. A programming gig, for example, would be way better, and a better fit for them in all likelihood. Discord bots seem to be all the rage atm, for example. Pretty natural side hustle for a comp sci major.

[adrianj]

All this to say - translation is a bad field if you want to make real money. Look into something else, it will be better for you in the long run. The more creative, the better, since you’ll have more pricing control and way higher chances of standing out from the crowd with an unique style

From what the OP has said, it seems like they are looking to work in computers and that their Fiverr gigs will be a side gig to keep them going while studying. I don’t see the point in advising them to begin studying something else while already studying computer science and English. They want to make some money now, or soon at least.

As for not making money in translation, sure, there’s probably a limit to how much can be made but that’s not to say there’s no money in it. Also, how many graphic designers get to the level where they are charging 100 times what the rest charge; not too many I would imagine.

Exactly my point is not to actually make a living out of it, but using the knowledge I already have translate in the free time I have because that’s more productive that doing nothing.

Also it’s not like I’d spend the money on parties or whatever, I have more realistic objectives like trying to get money for a private psychologist since the public system in my country doesn’t work at all for that matter.

[adrianj]

I didn’t say he would necessarily need to study anything else. They are not professional translators anyway, they just have enough skills to give that a try. Surely they have enough skills (specially given they study computer science, so they must have good computer skills) to try something else. A programming gig, for example, would be way better, and a better fit for them in all likelihood. Discord bots seem to be all the rage atm, for example. Pretty natural side hustle for a comp sci major.

Programming is not my field, is systems administration specifically.

[visualstudios]

Programming is not my field, is systems administration specifically.

But still, I would assume you know the basics, or are familiar enough to pick it up quick? We’re not talking rocket science here, it’s all pretty basic stuff. I’m pretty sure a sys admin will know at least some programming languages, even if it’s just scripting.

[adrianj]

But still, I would assume you know the basics, or are familiar enough to pick it up quick? We’re not talking rocket science here, it’s all pretty basic stuff. I’m pretty sure a sys admin will know at least some programming languages, even if it’s just scripting.

Scripting specifically in bash I’ve had to learn it yes, and PHP but that’s about it.

[enunciator]

It’s damn hard to start on Fiverr, especially in an over-saturated field that has so many desperate, new, incompetent sellers who think using Google Translate qualifies them as worthy of being paid.

Trying to compete in the technical/linguistic categories of Fiverr is something I completely avoided and instead went straight to the creative/artistic categories where individuality is far easier to showcase.

[nicsonboss]

Not too sure I will be successful in Fiverr; There is so much Competition.

I will try for another few weeks after that most probably I am going to give up.😳

https://www.fiverr.com/nicsonboss