Translate please…
and I thought getting it right in English was tough.
Have you thought about translating your brook into another language? It offers another revenue stream, but be aware, like everything else in publishing, it's not all smooth sailing. Other than the revenue stream, you should ask yourself why you want to do this? You are going to sink substantial amounts of money into this venture, and if you are going to do it, you should know why.
1. Do you want to change the world, and will your book do that? Is there something inherent in your book's theme that may resonate with the people of this particular country?
2. Will having your book translated into a different language make you feel successful?
You aren't writing a code for a nuclear bomb or providing instruction for brain surgery, so no one will die from reading your book in this translation. Still, at the same time, it's hard enough to pull off some of the sex scenes we write. Imagine them translated into German or Spanish. Well, you get the idea. You definitely want it done right, but here's the problem, if you don't speak the language, there's trust involved and perseverance on our end in locating the best person for the job.
Ways to go about it:
You can hire a translator in a work-for-hire capacity, which will require payment upfront in an escrow account (Upwork.) A translation can cost from pennies a word to more than $3000.00, depending on the language desired and the length of your book. You can hire translators on Upwork on a work-to-hire contract, but the first thing to sort out is who owns the rights to your translated text. Some translators believe since they are involved with translating the words of your book into another language, they are now creatively engaged with creating new work. Therefore, they share the copyright. Even the copyright office may consider it a derivative work of art. You need to work all this out upfront and get something in writing that you own the copyright and the royalties of this new translation.
Remember that AI has entered the picture, and the price has dropped considerably, but there is no guarantee you aren't getting work without glaring mistakes. Even Amazon offers translation now, but I wonder if it holds up.
Another way to do it is to put no money upfront but share your royalties with the translator. Essentially, your translator becomes part author of your book. For this, you can reach out to a company like Babelcube. They offer translators in fifteen languages and provide hundreds of online subscriber retail channels for distribution.
You will pay more if you want to hold your copyright, but translation is only part of the picture. You will pay to have the book description translated and your bio, too. You may need further editing after the fact by someone who speaks and writes that language before releasing your book. Consider hiring a beta reader who reads both English and the second language to read both versions and get back to you with anything they found glaringly wrong.
Like I said at the beginning of this article, there's more to translation than one thinks about, and it may be a good idea to start with translating one of your most successful books that is already getting attention from a different country. Studying your bookfunnel mailing lists and seeing where your readers are coming from may provide a clue as to what language is worth pursuing or if it is at all. If you don’t already have readers coming from another country it may not be worth pursuing, unless you have a marketing person in that country who might be willing to beat the drum for you.
At the very least, one could make a case to offer a Spanish version of your book since, as of 2022, there are 42.5 million Spanish speakers in America. How many are romance readers, I cannot say.
Have a great week!