PROOF READERS AND TRANSLATORS
Style proof reading and editing

Due to lack of literacy in magazines in the Croatian market, Mr. Ivan Ćesić established EDITOR PLUS - Centre for language editing and translating

Written by: Bojana Božanić
Photo by: Željko Jelenski

As a student of Croatian studies, Ivan Ćesić came up with the idea of promoting literacy i.e. good quality writing in the Croatian language, mostly motivated by the lack of literacy of the majority of magazines in the Croatian market. Centre EDITOR PLUS grew from Lektor, a non-profit organisation, whose task was to promote literacy. After this had turned out to be insufficient, according to the opinion of Mr. Ćesić, he decided to start up his own business. One of the moving forces of Mr. Ćesić when he was establishing his own business was his wish that a number of foreign titles be translated into Croatian with top quality. The initial goal were services of style editing and proof reading of translations. This young company, established in May 2005, currently offers services of editing, proof reading, translations, graphic elaboration of texts and elaboration and finishing of cover pages.

EDITOR PLUS has more than 300 collaborators who perform services of translation to and from 34 foreign languages, including Hindu, Flemish, Esperanto, Modern Greek and Arabic.

The Centre has currently 45 permanent clients, including adriatica.net, Dalmacija cement RMC group, Shipping Institute, McCann Erickson Croatia, Nukleus, VIPnet, Sokol Marić, and in addition to preserving the current clients, the goal is to retain new ones as well. "The plan is to extend the scope of our work and also to engage new collaborators. We see a large opportunity in the entry of Croatia into the European Union, as this will entail a larger demand for our services", Mr. Ćesić states.

As advantages of his business, Mr. Ćesić states availability 24 hours a day, seven days a week. "We can process orders of large volume in a short time and it is of no importance whether an order is made at 8 o'clock in the morning or at midnight - it shall be treated with equal quality and according to the same price", Mr. Ćesić says. The Centre most often cooperates with marketing agencies who mostly sent press releases in order to make sure that texts are well prepared before being published in the media.

"Most of agencies offer services of style editing, but only as a secondary activity - while this is our most narrow specialisation", Ćesić says.

EDITOR PLUS offers services of simultaneous translators engaged by various companies when inviting guests from abroad to seminars, conferences and similar manifestations. "In order to remain competitive, it is vital to educate our staff" considers Mr. Ćesić, and regularly sends his collaborators to attend seminars for them to get to know highly specialised translation areas. Although there is enough free market space, each new competitor is to be taken seriously.

"By the entry into the European Union, we shall become one market - foreign agencies will come, and with them new clients as well. Only then will the Croatian companies start to cooperate more with foreign companies and will increasingly demand translation services", Mr. Ćesić says. A segment on which EDITOR PLUS will work in its future development is marketing presentation, since his marketing has been mostly done through Internet.