Freelance Translators from Scratch

As I have stated elsewhere in (on? - correct prepositional phrase in the blogosphere?) my blog, I am attempting to launch a business as a freelance translator from Japan, although my source and target languages are German and English, respectively (at least until my proficiency in the Japanese language reaches a much higher level of proficiency - 頑張りますよ).

This situation presents me with a number of immediate problems to tackle as I carefully consider how to get started in the business. The most obvious difficulty being, of course, how to find clients.

Although I have yet to look into this, I would assume that there aren’t any translation or translation-related professional associations in Japan that would allow me to join as a translator not working with Japanese in a language pair. Now, I could be wrong and, if I am and you know it, please point me in the right direction!

I need to figure out how to market myself as a truly globalized business person; as someone who is outside national boundaries; someone whose identity as a translator exists almost entirely through the internet medium. This may deny me (temporarily) some of the benefits of being able to network locally and in person. But there must be a way to make this work.

The question is this: How do I effectively market myself? The first things that come to mind are having a business website, using blogging for networking, and accessing the online portals such as ProZ and TranslatorsCafé. These methods are clear to me.

But landing those first few clients under these circumstances will prove tricky because I cannot make some quick contacts in person to help me connect up with people or companies in need of my services. I want to know what other people in similar (perhaps not exactly the same) situations have done to assertively pursue clients when cold-calling in your city/state/country is pretty much out of the question.

Are you someone who lives in a country other than the one in which you are a citizen (EU people, I mean your ‘home country’, taking into account that your EU passport categorizes you as citizens of the European Union)? Are you operating in a language pair that isn’t closely connected with the country in which you live? If so, how have you been locating clients?

What else will I want to do, in addition to the aforementioned marketing techniques that really every freelance translator should be engaged in? Given the fact that my situation is quite unique, I’d like your help in brainstorming to solve this problem, if you have a moment to give me your advice.

I could have all the knowledge, resources, time and office space necessary to succeed as a freelance translator and yet never get the business off the ground if I can’t first figure out how to find the marketplace in which clients can find me and vice versa.