Translating Your Book – Is It Worth It?

There are a lot of people in the world who do not speak English as their native language.  Even most of the people who can get by in English on vacation or for business reasons probably prefer their native language when it’s time to kick back and read a book.

So clearly, if your book is available in their language, it’ll sell more copies! “Where can I get started?”

Not so fast – translating a book is a difficult, time consuming endeavor that is going to cost a lot of money if done properly.

It’s not enough to sort of speak another language – the translator must be a native speaker of the language they are translating to.  For instance, many years ago when I did translations, I would only translate to English (my native language) from Italian (the other language I speak) even though there’s probably more of a market to translate into Italian from English.  To properly translate something, you have to read it and understand it completely – the nuances and subtle meanings and everything else – and then rewrite in your own language in a way that both preserves the original meaning and sounds good.  Most people know that literal translations are not very good, but beyond that, you need to capture the tone and style of the author as much as possible, while still writing something that sounds good in the target language.  Even the reading part of the process, let alone the rewriting, is fairly involved, as you can’t just cruise through the book, enjoying it.  You have to read and fully digest every single phrase.  Then you have to go through, again, reading, writing, and reorganizing, a bit at a time.

It’s a very time-intensive process, but one you don’t want to try and get done on the cheap, because the people reading the results are going to think that the shoddy work is probably your fault, as the author.  Even determining who is a good translator and who isn’t is not an easy process – without speaking the language, you can only go on reputation!

In other words, the whole thing is a headache that you, as a new author, don’t need.  Build up some profits from your writing, and worry about translating when you’re comfortably established as an author, and can afford to get things done properly.