I Ended Up Translating an Erotic Ebook on UpWork.
My first freelance job was very interesting.
I will tell you a little story, how I ended up translating an erotic ebook from English to Spanish, as my first freelance job.
Mom, I want to be a freelance.
Friends, freelance life seems like the perfect life to me, and I wanted it, but I didn’t know how to get it. So, I entered my holy information bibles: Google and YouTube.
I saw a thousand videos and read a thousand articles — well, that’s how it felt — about how to be a freelancer and where I could work for it, and well, in both sources of information I found UpWork. It had very good reviews, so I decided to give myself a chance to try my luck with it.
I did what I had to do, like create the user account and everything that entails, and well, magically I already had a freelance account. However, I was a freelance who had no craft.
I didn’t know what I would do or what I was good at. I was only for the love of the idea of ​​being one.
If you don’t know, investigate.
I felt like a lost teenager without knowing what I was good at or what I could do to help people — and get paid for it. So again I went into my bibles and looked for ideas to work on Upwork.
I found everything: community managers, virtual assistants, administrative assistants, graphic designers. None of my talents. Until they mentioned a translator. My life lit up.
I know how to speak Spanish and English! Freelance life, here I go.
Poor Lluvia.
It’s not that easy.
Well, I already had the account created and my talent found. Now, I needed to find a job to do.
I wrote in the UpWork search engine, very sure of myself: English to Spanish translation.
There were many offers, and I wanted to take advantage of what I could. I tried not to get too picky, as I was new, I could not afford to collect lots of money, if I was just a person who had just found her talent a few hours ago, haha.
I sent, sent, and sent. No response. And of course, I didn’t have reviews or something similar.
Until two days later, someone did respond.
Viva Italia.
In the middle of the day, while I was shopping, an email arrived telling me that I had an unread message from an Italian man — I won’t say his name, for reasons of confidentiality — I was very excited.
As soon as I got home I entered the platform. This man had accepted my proposal to translate an ebook, so he was contacting me to reach a price agreement. It was a 37,500-word book.
What? They were a lot. My first job and it was big. And worst of all, I didn’t know how much to charge.
Quickly, I looked up similar jobs in Upwork and saw how much clients paid for document translation jobs, so based on that, I calculated the approximate amount I should charge for that number of words.
Anyway, I took a chance and gave him a price. I was not sure if it would seem very expensive, and more because I was new, but to my surprise, he accepted it. But, he only gave me less than a month to get the job done. I was a little scared, but organizing myself well, of course I could do it at that time.
Sorry, I didn’t mention it was erotic.
On my excitement, I forgot to ask what the book was about, although it did not seem important to me, as soon as I had the document, obviously I would know what it is about.
I open the document. Title: sexy bundle stories. Ok, nothing unusual so far.
I reviewed the document very little, I just wanted to know how many pages it was to organize myself and plan how many pages I would do a day to finish the book on time. There were around 15 different stories.
I immediately started with the first story. Everything normal, I translated the story of two friends who long ago did not see each other and met at a party. Until one of the boys gave the other a blowjob. Ok, there you see me finding the right Spanish word for dick.
My face turned red immediately. I am not a saint, I mean that sex does not seem taboo to me or something like that, but I could not help but feel shame for explicitly writing the sex — very good, by the way — that these characters had.
What are you writing about?
As soon as I realized that I was translating an erotic book — and a lot — I told my friends. They laughed when they saw my face red when I told them.
Quickly they began to ask me to pass the book and many other things, just to annoy me. Obviously, like a first-time professional, I said no and went to continue working.
However, when my mom or family asked me what the book was about, I just limited myself to saying that it was a compilation of stories and changed the conversation.
I wasn’t ashamed of what I was doing, after all, it’s honest work, but the problem was my mom. She is a somewhat conservative Mexican mom, so if I said to her: hey, mom, I am translating an erotic book, could you tell me a synonym of dick? I just have a translator lock.
She will kill me.
So I just flowed and kept doing my job.
Enjoy the stories.
Little by little, my face stopped turning red, and I translated everything more naturally — as it should have been from the beginning. I was enjoying the stories, I even became attached to the characters.
Also, at times I felt very grateful for having coincided with that work, it seemed so different! Maybe that topic is very normal for you, but for me, it wasn’t.
Was I becoming an open-minded sex expert? Hell yes.
Just kidding, I wasn’t an expert in sex, but I did learn new things that broadened my mind, because each story touched on different things, such as homosexuality, the monotony of a relationship, polyamory, cybersex, there was even a story of a man that he met an old love and they had sex — the girl was dead before — but it was a very nice story.
Thank you, Italian sir.
Anyway, after an adventure with red faces, a more open mind, and varied stories, I finished my work. I swear to you that I was fond.
The man who hired me was satisfied, he paid me and I earned money and a unique experience for me. We agree to work together again.
I was able to learn about sex, fulfill my freelance dream, and tell you this story that seems to be funny. Thanks, UpWork.
