Fiction Book Translations

[Darren Grey]

Diverting this into another thread:

Tell me, please, whether produced translations of the books on which writers are working? (I'm interested in a Russian translation, of course.)

From what I understand there are no plans to translate any of the books beyond English. As you probably know a good translation isn't very easy, and there's a lot of text in a book. Plus capturing all the nuances of fictional text when translating is a very special skill that only a few people possess. This is nowhere near as easy as translating Frontier's news announcements.

Looking up some details an 80k word novel takes about 3 months to do a polished translation. Consider how much a professional translator's salary would be for 3 months :-/ You're talking about the same level of money as most books received for their whole Kickstarter campaign, if not much more. For that cost to be worth it would need thousands of buyers in the target language.

So, uh, yeah - not looking great :-/

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

wouldn't a translation be classed as a second book and therefore outside the remit of the original one book writers pack in any case?

 

[DobrijZmej]

Oh, believe me, I know how hard it is to create a translation.
And the more of fiction. That's why I asked the question in an existing forum thread, and did not create a new one.

And one more question to the authors. If I want to buy and translate your book - I'll have to pay for that extra money?
I do not plan to sell it (though who knows what will happen in the future?).

 

[psykokow]

Oh, believe me, I know how hard it is to create a translation.
And the more of fiction. That's why I asked the question in an existing forum thread, and did not create a new one.

And one more question to the authors. If I want to buy and translate your book - I'll have to pay for that extra money?
I do not plan to sell it (though who knows what will happen in the future?).

You could not translate it and distribute it without permission... as technically you are causing confusion of the creator of it... its an infringement on the copyright and intellectual property.

If they commission you to do it, then THEY will distribute it..

The other way is by licensing, you license the book to translate and distribute in russian.. meaning a % payment to the author


All are very different..

 

[Selezen]

Oh, believe me, I know how hard it is to create a translation.
And the more of fiction. That's why I asked the question in an existing forum thread, and did not create a new one.

And one more question to the authors. If I want to buy and translate your book - I'll have to pay for that extra money?
I do not plan to sell it (though who knows what will happen in the future?).

As far as I know, the translations of a book are counted as the same book. So we should be allowed to do translations. I'm sure Michael will jump up and down on me if that's wrong...

 

[Darren Grey]

wouldn't a translation be classed as a second book and therefore outside the remit of the original one book writers pack in any case?

I doubt this would be an issue - I see it as no different than Kate making an audiobook version. Of course if any author wants to consider translation then they'd best clear it with Frontier first.

And one more question to the authors. If I want to buy and translate your book - I'll have to pay for that extra money?
I do not plan to sell it (though who knows what will happen in the future?).

I'd say from the Anthology's perspective if someone made a fan translation of the book then we'd send a digital copy to backers that wanted it. We wouldn't want a translated version being freely spread though, unless the book itself ends up eventually becoming free.

 

[DobrijZmej]

Thank for answers.
Sorry, if my questions seem silly

 

[Ian Phillips]

I have actually translated a book and have learnt a few things about translating....

Firstly you always translate into your native language.
You need to speak (read) the other language very well.

Google translate is a useful tool that gives you a starting point for translating a sentence. Do not - ever - believe that what google gives you is a correct translation of the sentence.

I am in no way a professional at translating and reckon that 1500 words per day, translated, checked, proof-read and corrected for readablility, flow and timing of the piece is an excellent result. But that is a whole days work for me. 6 hours reading, translating and the rest giving my eyes and brain their needed down time away from the screen.

 

[drew]

Translations are allowed by the Frontier contracts we're working on. In my case my publisher retains the rights to publish in other countries and languages for a period of time. If there is a demand it will be done. If not the rights will return to me after a while and I could engage someone (paid or volunteer) to do it.

It would be a large undertaking though.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Horsk]

I think only one of the X universe books was translated which is a pity as I have always wanted to read the others.

I was very surprised to find that there are two English versions of the Harry Potter books, they edit certain words they think Americans cannot understand which is odd as this week radio 4 was saying Americans have now started using the word ginger due to the books.

H

 

[Darren Grey]

American publishers often make big changes to British books. Same with many movies in fact. The reverse sometimes happens too.