Translations - Writers Forum

ampersand · 11-28-2006, 02:11 AM

Out of curiosity, around how many copies does a book need to sell in order to be translated into other languages?

aspiring · 11-28-2006, 04:01 AM

It doesn't work like that. I can only talk about children's fiction, since that's all I'm familiar with, but deals with publishers in other countries tend to happen before the book is even published. It works in a very similar way to submitting to publishers in your own country, except that the submitting is done by your publisher or by subagents (if you have withheld world rights - subagents are networked to your own agent).

Of course, if a book does phenomenally well, then other countries are likely to jump on the bandwagon, but it is not simply a question of how many books you need to sell.

My picture book has been translated into Hebrew and as far as I know it has only sold around 3000 copies in this country. However the deal was done very early on, before it was possible to predict how sales would go.

mammamaia · 11-28-2006, 11:52 AM

sales do play a part in whether publishers in other countries will want to pay for the rights to your book... if it's a huge best-seller in its genre, other markets may notice it and want to jump on the band[money]wagon...

but there's no set number of sales that will make that happen... other factors such as media coverage and how relevant/of interest it will be to readers in other countries also enter into the picture...

Mike C · 11-28-2006, 04:29 PM

It can go both ways. If the book's considered 'hot' an agent may try to make sales overseas through sub-agents/affiliates (bigger agencies often take care of this in-house - The Folio Literary Agency in NY has recently taken on an agent who deals purely with foreign sales).

Strong sales in your home country can also trigger foreign language sales. Sharon Maas's (www.sharonmaas.com) books have been translated into I think 5 languages. Bonnie Shimko's (www.bonnieshimko.com) first novel has just been released in China.

Small Fish · 11-29-2006, 04:49 AM

Why the rush?

For short stories, I've found that a couple of the bilingual 'review' fiction magazines offer a decent translation as payment, if that's of any help. The Barcelona Review is one.

Mike C · 12-01-2006, 09:10 AM

Good lead, small fish. On shorts I was lucky - a Dutch magazine read one of my stories a while back and asked me to write for them. They bought translation rights only, so I was able to sell the story twice more in English.