›
Welcome to Writers Talkback. If you are a new user, your account will have to be approved manually to prevent spam. Please bear with us in the meantime

Anyone been translated?

MarkHempshellMarkHempshell
edited January 2015 in Writing
I have! One of my books was translated into Slovakian (beat that)! Only made pennies out of it though.
I also had a Singapore edition of another book published which did reasonably well (as the selling price was higher than the UK edition).

On a serious note though, I wondered if anyone has had any luck with selling rights like translations or foreign editions. Is there a big market out there which many writers don't exploit?

Comments

  • Stan2Stan2
    Two of my books were translated in Czech.
  • LizLiz
    edited January 2015
    Poetry is very hard to translate, but rhyming picture books, since Julia Donaldson, are being accepted more.

    I have translator friends. It's a real skill - how would you know, if self-published, if the translator had caught the spirit and the craft with which you write?

    I know the foremost seller of foreign edition rights for children's books, he sells into more territories than anyone else. Also a skill, and one for which you need connections.
  • BalazsBalazs
    No wonder you didn't sell many in Slovakia, Mark. I'm from Hungary so I know that Eastern Europians can't afford to by many books. And if you compare the price of a book to how much you earn in the UK this ratio would give you a terrible figure in Eastern Europe. Just to give you an idea, let's say Hungary's national currecy is pound sterling and Average Joe earns £20k/annum. If we assume the real ratio of wages and book prices, in this case a random fiction novel would cost Joe £30-£40. No kidding. And it's not even Afrika. I didn't buy many books when I lived there either.
  • MMWriterGirlMMWriterGirl
    My publisher has sold rights to my Marilyn Monroe book to Russia, Bulgaria and Poland. I am very grateful to have my book published there, but to be honest, without the publisher's help, I would have no idea how to tap into these foreign markets. That side of thing is quite a mystery to me!
  • LizLiz
    Balazs, is that the same for ebooks?
  • BalazsBalazs
    I don't know to be honest. Ebooks are not very popular in that region, because of the same reason I guess. Many people would need to work for 2 weeks to earn the price of a Kindle.
  • LizLiz
    I was thinking that several families could buy a kindle together and share it so that their children for instance have access to reading material and research. Are there internet cafes? Is the internet used at all? And what are literacy levels like?

    I'm wondering because f the argument about free libraries in this country. People who want them shut think that all knowledge and every book is available from the internet mow.
  • BalazsBalazs
    edited January 2015
    Haha, of course the internet is used. I think most families now have internet at home. Poorer ones probably don't but they have access to internet at cafes or libraries. There aren't cafes in small villages but as far as I know they can use the internet at the local community centre which is run by the council.
    Each school and university has its own little library which costs nothing for the students. Public libraries aren't free but they are very cheap. It would be a pretty bad idea to shut them in any country.
    I think most people don't read a lot but students have compulsory readings at school which include a pretty wide range of novels and poems. They actually have to learn loads of poems by heart which I think is a stupid idea as they forget them straight after the oral exam. But at least they end up with an amount of lexical knowledge much larger than students have in western Europe or in the USA. That's just how the education system works in Eastern Europe due to former Soviet influence; they want to make every one a nuclear scientist :)
    Of course, there are drawbacks too. The amount of biology, chemistry, history, geography, maths, etc I had to learn, and I haven't used since, is enormous. But I wasn't taught how to write a riport or an essay or how to prepare for an interview. They don't teach basic psychology or social skills.
  • ClaudiaClaudia
    That's a very interesting insight about Hungary, Balazs.
    (I don't really agree that learning poems by heart is stupid - the ones I had to learn at school are the only ones I remember. :) )
  • BalazsBalazs
    I envy you memory :)
Sign In or Register to comment.