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7 Ways How Writers Can Benefit From Foreign Language Skills

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All writers can benefit from foreign language skills and authors, who aim for international self-publishing success, have even more advantages. Read on to learn more.

 

1. Become a better writer and editor in your own language

Language structures can vary a lot and if you are new to learning foreign languages, it may feel odd when you find out that you cannot simply translate word by word. You may also come across metaphors that are very different from the ones you are used to. But all of this is great for authors, as you have to think outside the box and develop the skill to juggle with language in a new way, which enables you to express yourself more creatively in your own language as well.

2. Boost your brain power

Scientists have found out that foreign language skills can contribute to developing a sharper mind, improved memory and your overall creativity may benefit as well.

In addition, people with a predisposition for Alzheimer’s usually develop the illness later, if they speak a foreign language, regardless whether they learned it as a child or as an adult.

It is not enough, however, if you acquired your knowledge in the past and forgot about it later – you have to actually use it. But don’t think you are ever too old to learn a language or brush up on rusty skills: I have seen students at retirement age who were better than many young people. In my experience, motivation and passion are more important than anything else.

earth-in-leaf-scaled3. Discover new markets and earn more money

If it has never occured to you to publish a book in a foreign language, you may want to reconsider, as it can give you extra income.

What if your book could be as popular or even more popular abroad than in you own country, because it covers something that people are particularly interested in elsewhere? Wouldn’t you regret missing out on this? Well, if you don’t speak the language, you might never know…

You have three options to check out foreign markets: you could hire someone to do this for you and the second way would be to wait until information about your area of interest becomes available in English, but this might never happen. The third alternative, i.e. doing research yourself on foreign markets in the language of the country, is by far the most efficient one. It gives you the added benefit to stay up to date with any new developments. As we all know, things are changing very fast in the publishing world.

And when it comes to international book fairs, Frankfurt is certainly the most important one. Last year, they offered a two day programme for self-publishers in English. In addition, there was a lot more information available in German during all 5 days of the Fair, which I found really useful.

Germany is also currently the most promising country to self-publish a book after English-speaking markets, although I am sure that other countries will catch up. Many people find the language scary, though, as the grammar is not the easiest in the world. But if you want to learn it, don’t be discouraged, there is a rather pleasant way to do this. And consider this: German has fewer words than English, which means it becomes easier when you progress.

4. Find a translator of your choice

English native speakers have an advantage when it comes to getting their book translated, because there are more translators out there who translate from English than from any other language. However, is is not necessarily easy to discover them.

Most experienced translators can only be found via websites and social media in their own language. I do have a few links to other translators on my blog, if you click on “Links” above. If you have skills in the relevant language, you can use it to find translators yourself and check out what kind of books they translated in the past. Reviews on Amazon and other sites might then tell you whether these books have been successful.

Recommendations from other authors can help to find translators as well, but these writer colleagues may specialize in a different area and ideally you want to find someone who is good at translating exactly your type of book.

If you are not a native speaker of English, on the other hand, and you want your book to be translated into English, you will often have different challenges, which can be overcome. I have written another article about it.

5. Publish and market your translated book yourself

Once you have your book translated, you might like to have full control and upload it to platforms yourself, which is a lot easier if you know at least a little bit of the language. You might then also get occasional emails from these platforms, which are naturally always in the language of the country. And as far as marketing is concerned, most self-publishers are doing it themselves and even those who are with publishing houses are often doing a lot of it themselves, provided it is a language they are familiar with. If you can contribute at least a bit to it in another language, you have a distinct advantage. Your own contribution comes with the added benefit that you have more say in how exactly you would like to be perceived elsewhere in the world.

6. Read reviews

Once you have published your book in a foreign market, you certainly want to know what people think about it and read your reviews, which won’t be in your native language either.

cross cultural flags7. Gain cross-cultural knowledge

Learning a foreign language is not just limited to speaking the actual language itself. It also provides more insight into another culture. You discover that certain ways of human behaviour and interaction that you always took for granted can be quite different in other parts of the world. This knowledge can help to understand how your book is received elsewhere, even if you acquire only basic skills and any actual communication takes place in English. Accessing a culture through its language can provide a broader view and you will see more cultural nuances that go beyond the general stereotypes.

 

And finally some words on Google Translate

Google Translate and other automated translation can sometimes help, but you will very often see strange or even funny results. These are not the biggest problem, because you can immediately spot that something is wrong. It is worse to deal with translations that seem right, but are actually not. You assume you know what this is all about, but you don’t. Therefore an actual knowledge of the language, however modest, is always an advantage.

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How I Learn Foreign Languages Easily and Efficiently

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My frustration about the lost language

My native language is German, I have lived in England for many years and there is hardly any better way to learn a language than living in a country where it is spoken in everyday life. English is also useful as a lingua franca in many other parts of the world. So why would I bother with another language?

My frustration started when friends from France came to vist me and I was not able to say just one sentence in French, even though I could speak at an intermediate level in the past. I was determined to talk French again, but because my life was busy, I almost gave up on it. Things finally changed when I started teaching German and I found out several things about learning languages…

Grammar is important and it doesn’t have to be a pain

In my experience, most people dislike learning grammar and therefore some of my students had avoided it as much as they could before they began learning with me. They had been studying German for quite a while and were able to make themselves understood, but they made many grammatical mistakes. Because the errors had not been corrected, they had become so ingrained that it was very difficult to get rid of them. These students could have saved a lot of time and money if they had learned grammar early on.

Some language learning programmes promise to teach languages without any grammar and claim that you can learn it simply by communicating with native speakers, but I don’t agree with this. The students mentioned above were all regularly in touch with native speakers. Unfortunately they still didn’t have anybody to correct them. Native speakers generally use grammar subconsciously. They acquire the language automatically as a child, and hardly anyone is able to explain the rules or answer more than basic questions. Here is the good news, though: You can actually learn grammar in an enjoyable way and I will tell you more about it further below.

I prefer translated vocabulary

Grammar is not the only important thing – about 70% of learning a language is vocabulary. In textbooks, new words are often only listed in the foreign language. Students are then expected to use a dictionary and translate the words which they do not understand. I have never met anyone who likes doing this, including myself, because it is boring and time-consuming.

In addition, so-called “false friends”, words which seem to have the same meaning in the other language, can be easily overlooked and mistunderstood. The German word “Roman” is an example: it has nothing to do with the city Rome, but is related to books and means “novel” in English.

Admitting mistakes can be embarrassing

Everyone makes mistakes and especially those who do not learn as fast as others often feel uncomfortable in a group when others become aware of it. Even one-to-one students sometimes feel uneasy when they are corrected.

Most people have little time

And last but not least, learning languages can take time and is often not regarded as a priority in our busy lives. When work gets in the way, students are easily tempted to give up.

Due to my own irregular working hours, traditional language courses were not for me anyway. But after learning what works well and what doesn’t for my students and thinking about my own needs, I searched online, read reviews, tried out several courses and eventually I found what I was looking for.

Learn Languages Easily and Efficiently With BabbelBabbel

The online language course Babbel convinced me for various reasons:

Professional structure

Babbel allows you to learn grammar as you go in a playful way and it can be applied immediately.

You learn all the vital elements including listening, writing, speaking and reading.

After finishing individual courses, you know where you stand, because they are structured according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. This scheme determines which kind of knowledge you are supposed to have at which level and if you want, you can download certificates after finishing courses. In addition, you could even switch to traditional courses afterwards if you wanted to, as the Framework is generally acknowledged in language schools.

And not only that:
The EU sponsors the programme through the European Regional Development Fund – they have recognized the benefits.

Efficient spaced repetition of vocabulary

Before I started with the programme, I was already familiar with the flashcard system according to Sebastian Leitner, which I find really useful. You are reviewing flashcards with vocabulary translations at increasing intervals (called “spaced repetition”), and the words that you don’t remember are repeated more often than others. Babbel integrated this system into their online programme, which makes it is even more efficient.

More variety helps to learn better

Babbel does not just teach you to read and write, but you can practise your pronunciation with audio files, and there are images as well – using many senses is an efficient memory tool. You will find dialogues early on and advanced learners may write texts and answer questions relating to what they have just read or listened to. All of this makes learning more varied and interesting. In addition, you can choose specific courses if you want to, for example for holiday or job purposes.

Freedom and flexibility

As mentioned before, I wanted to learn at my own pace. Once I even took a longer break and was able to continue easily just by repeating a bit more. The option to repeat anything at any time is also useful if there are certain things that you find more difficult to understand.

Another advantage of Babbel is the fact that your learning progress is secured in a Cloud. You can work with different devices  and switch between them, like PC, Mac, laptop, tablet or Smartphone, whatever suits you. I personally prefer my laptop with a bigger screen rather than using my Smartphone.

The courses are also well suited if you learned a language at school and want to brush up on your knowledge. I am refreshing my French right now and was very happy when I started being able to speak the language again! I can speak to friends again and as France is in the focus of the world public at the moment, I am glad that I can read French news websites to get to know a bit more about what is going on in this country.

I have been a Babbel user for a while now and I like it so much that I am now learning Dutch and Turkish as well. Dutch comes rather easily as it is similar to both German and English. Turkish is a challenge with a very different structure and vocab, but I am loving it. And my multi-language subscription gives me the added benefit of English. I am using it for words that I find hard to remember. You can add words yourself, by the way. If you are not a “language junkie” like me, though, you might consider using Babbel just for one language, or at least start with one language, especially if you are new to learning languages.

Some more tips on Babbel from my experience:

  • Even in case you only manage to learn 10 minutes per day, you can benefit a lot if you do it regularly.
  • Don’t get upset when you make mistakes – use them as learning opportunities instead – nobody else needs to know about it. (If you knew how many mistakes I make in Turkish…)
  • There are different options to learn vocabulary, so think about what you want. In Dutch and Turkish I decided not to write the words and sentences anymore, when I repeat them, as it is faster like this. Alternatively, you can also work with audio speech recognition. You will see what I mean when you give it a try.
  • At some point you should start speaking with real people in the foreign language. One way of doing this is by attending so-called Meetups, which you can find in various languages in many cities worldwide. You can talk to others in a relaxed atmosphere there and most of these meetings are free. This allows you to improve your existing skills, even if you decide not to do any language course. Alternatively you may also use Babbel’s forum to get in touch with people that speak the language of your choice and help each other to make progress.

And here is my most important tip:
Find out whatever works best for you and have fun with it!

Learn languages easily and efficiently with Babbel

Did you know that foreign language skills can even help to make you a better writer in your own language?

I will tell you more about this and other benefits for authors in my next article.

 

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20 Reasons Why I Love E-books

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I can’t do without e-books anymore and here are my reasons:

1. Buying Foreign Books Is Easy

You don’t have to pay expensive postage for foreign e-books and can start reading straigthaway. The German satire novel “Look who’s back” – “Er ist wieder da” (translated into English by Jamie Bulloch) is an example: it is available as an e-book in different languages around the world.

 

2. Learning Opportunity Through Dictionaries

You may come across unfamiliar words while you are reading. Monolingual dictionaries are usually preinstalled – my Kindle has the Oxford Dictionary of English, the New Oxford American Dictionary as well as the German Duden Universalwörterbuch and some others. Dictionaries are particularly useful when you are reading books in foreign languages and you can buy additional bi-langual ones for e-readers.

In the pre-ebook era I rarely looked up unfamiliar words, because it would have been too invonvenient and I usually understood the vague meaning from the context anyway. This didn’t really improve my language skills, but now I am learning a lot more each time I am reading a book in a foreign language.

3. Further Learning Opportunity Through Wikipedia

Some books mention unfamiliar concepts that can’t be found in dictionaries and are often not necessary to understand if you just want to grasp the basic meaning of something, but I have a lot of information at my fingertips through Wikipedia on my e-reader when I am connected to Wifi. This would be another wasted learning opportunity with print books because it is the same as with dictionaries: I find it too tedious to use an external encyclopedia.

4. E-Books Are Often More Up To Date Than Print Books

Changes can be implemented quickly into e-books, especially if they are written by self-published authors, who are able to do everything themselves. New books can be launched faster as well. I am sure this will be even more important in future, since the information we rely on is changing more and more rapidly.

5. Benefits for Self-Publishers And Their Readers

Self-published e-books are usually cheaper than those from publishing houses, as self-publishers have lower expenses and are still able to earn good royalties.

In addition, self-publishers have more flexibility in various ways and are for example free to decide the length of their books. I read several good quality self-published non-fiction e-books that focussed on the essence of a topic and saved me some time.

Translators can be publishers as well, sometimes finding interesting books that nobody else would publish.

6. Special E-Book-Offers

Certain websites are featuring special e-book offers for limited time periods, for example bookbub.

7. Free Classics

A lot of classics are permanently free for Kindle, among them one of my favourites, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

8. Marking Text And Adding Notes Is Easy

I love marking text – whenever I want to read the most interesting parts of a book again, I just flick through the marked text. In e-books I can add markings and notes quickly and may change or delete them just as easily.

9. Text Passages Can Be Found Quickly

In print books, I can sometimes find certain parts of the text only after an extensive earch, if at all, even if there is an index. The search function in e-books makes things a lot easier.

10. Easy Relocation And Mobile Life

When I moved to the UK many years ago, I arrived with just one backpack and one suitcase, I left a lot of books behind and most of the weight that I carried consisted of print books as e-books did not yet exist back then. That was quite a pain and I am glad I will definitely take all my e-books with me when I am moving again.

Paper books can also take up a lot of space in moving vans. And just think of the modern nomads who are living without a permanent residence nowadays  –  unthinkable without an e-reader!

11. Spending Less For Accomodation

Some might think I am exaggerating now, especially those who don’t read much or who are lucky enough to live in a large home, but I am not joking: accomodation costs are an issue for me as well. London is one of the most expensive cities of the world, but I believe that those who are based in smaller towns can also reach their limits with print books if they cannot or do not want to spend more than necessary.

12. I Always Have My Whole E-Library On Me

When I am out and about reading at a cafe, a pub, in a park or wherever I go – I always have my whole e-library on me.

13. Convient On Holiday

On holiday, I can buy as many e-books as I want in advance and download more at my holiday destination, provided I have WiFi access. I don’t have to carry print books and on the plane I save extra charges for heavy suitcases.

14. Reading Comfortably With One Hand

It is easy to hold an e-reader comfortably with one hand, whenever this comes in useful.

15. Unobtrusive Background Lighting

The background lighting of e-readers is an advantage when you don’t have sufficient light. In case you are sharing your bed with someone and one person is sensitive to light and wants to sleep and the other one prefers to read late at night, this unobtrusive lighting may be very useful. But make sure you buy an e-reader that actually has background light or buy an e-reader cover with integrated lighting.

16. More privacy

I like the fact that people cannot easily see from the cover what I am reading, and I am not even talking about certain adult novels 😉

17. Cover Look

Some people say they wouldn’t want to do withouth those wonderful looking print book covers on their bookshelves. I have had a look at all my covers again and must admit that I do really like some of them, some are kind of okay but there are others that I find dull or ugly. With an e-book cover of my choice, however, I will always have one that fits my taste.

18. Touch

And then there are people who say they love to hold a print book in their hands and wouldn’t want to use an e-reader for that reason. Again, I prefer an e-reader cover of my choice. They come in many different kinds of of textures, even fluffy onves, if you fancy them.

19. Smell

Oh, and the smell… Don’t you think that print books emit a wonderful odour? I personyally disagree, as I read a number of books that smelled horribly, probably due to cheap paper, not to mention really awful smelling books from public libraries and I prefer the neutral, non-smelling e-experience.

20. Adjustable Font Size

And last but not least you can change the font size of e-books. When I showed my e-reader to my parents, this was the feature they liked best. It is very handy for people who have problems with their eyesight and might otherwise have difficulties reading any books at all.

 

So, that was me and my reasons. Did I miss anything that you find important? If so, I would love to hear from you.

 

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Impressions from the Buchmesse 2014

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As usual, there was a lot on offer at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the biggest book fair in the world: gazillions of publishing houses and other companies with stalls plus anything else related to books including an increasing number of self-publishing events and suppliers.

Frankfurt Book Fair Poppy J. Anderson Marah Woolfe Frankfurt

Poppy J. Anderson and Marah Woolfe: “Connecting To Readers” for self-published authors

I attended several events for self-publishers in the German language area. The picture shows two successful German authors, Poppy J. Anderson on the left and Marah Woolf in the middle. They discussed how to connect to readers and both speakers are very much in touch with their audience. Apart from strategies like social media, Poppy mentioned one of her quirky ideas: she once hired a handsome male model who dressed up as an American Football player since her books are dealing with this topic. Her apporach seems to work since several of her books are ranking high in the Kindle charts.

At another event, Sophie Schmidt of Berlin-based Epubli came up with some predictions regarding the future of self-publishing for the year 2020. Here are two of her assumptions:
– Format will not be important anymore, content is king, and there will be more and more interaction with content.
– Many joint projects with more than one creator will come into being.

Interesting stuff for thought, and both points are positive for self-publishers including those who are into international self-publishing because cooperating with people in different parts of the world is so easy these days.

Then I attended an event with self-publishing service providers Tom van Endert of Ruckzuckbuch and Sönke Schulz of  Tredition. Both websites are only in German, though. Sönke Schulz mentioned if you really want to have a chance to get into German bookshops, it is not just important that your provider makes sure it is in the “Verzeichnis lieferbarer Bücher” (list of German books in print), but you need to get your books to wholesalers, too. Both Tredition and Ruckzuckbuch provide this. Theoretically, German bookshops can also order from “Verzeichnis lieferbarer Bücher”, but it involves more hassle for them and they prefer not to. Tredition and Ruckzuckbuch are cooperating with each other, and whereas Tredition have more experience dealing with digital, the people of Ruckzuckbuch have a print tradition using eco-friendly resources and they offer a personal customer service plus a free paperback book with lots of information on self-publishing in general and their service in particular (only available in German).

I had a lot of disscussions with translators in Frankfurt as well, and some of those that I met had already worked with indie authors. There are three models: The majority are being paid a fee, a tiny minority are doing a royalty-split with the author, and then there is the hybrid model, that is receiving a fee, but doing a bit of marketing as well. For authors who want to have their book translated on a split-royalty basis, the platform Babelcube currently still seems to be the most promising way forward. Even after the Fair, I am now still discussing with translators and authors the best possible ways of cooperating with each other.

It didn’t come as a surprise that translators who are native speakers of English are the ones who have been approached by indies more often than anyone else – having a book in English is popular (See also my previous article). I learned about an extreme example in Frankfurt: one author had not been able to pay for a translation into English, but was so desperate to achieve this that he offered the translator to share not just the royalties of the translation, but the royalties of the original book as well!

I also talked with authors at the Fair, and one of our topics was the fact that a lot of English-language books are now written with American spelling using American words, even though the authors are British, because authors usually have more American than British readers. There is another group, however, who feels strongly about keeping their Britisch conventions. I am curious to know from everyone who is reading this: does it really bother you whether you are reading books in “English English” or “American English? And there are even more options, for example Australian and Canadian English…

If you would like to read more about the Fair from the perspective of self-published authors, I recommend the excellent article  Frankfurt For Indies – An Abundance Of Abundance  by Nerys Hudson of the Alliance of Independent Authors.

And here is a picture that is representative of the last couple of days at the Fair. It hosted the German National Cosplay Championship that made everything more colourful and fun – you could see many young people in fancy costumes, which is the whole idea of “costume play”: to dress up like characters from books, films etc. (Look at their ears ;-).

Young people in fancy costumes at Frankfurt Fook Fair

Cosplayers at Frankfurt Book Fair

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5 Reasons Why Self-Publishing Could Help To Get More Books Translated Into English

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Many books are translated from English into other languages, but not vice versa. A certain rumour is wrong, though: There is no “stigma” attached to translations in the English-speaking world… they can be just as popular as original English books.

The last London Book Fair was an eye opener for me: A bookseller told us, that is a group of literary translators, readers did not care at all whether they were reading a translation or not, they read all books like originals. Nonetheless not many foreign books make it into English and I am going to tell you why I believe, self-publishing could be a game-changer.

1. Self-published authors don‘t depend on publishing houses where nobody speaks their language

Learning foreign languages is not high on the agenda in most English speaking countries as English is the lingua franca of the world and therefore it doesn’t come as a surprise that the staff in publishing houses are often not able to read foreign books to find out whether they would be worth translating. This is even more relevant for books from so-called “smaller languages”. Let‘s say you have written a great book in Bulgarian: It is still less likely to be accepted by an English publisher than a book in a “bigger” language like Spanish or German. But authors can successfully self-publish in translation, regardless of their native language.

2. Online bookshops provide plenty of space for everyone

I hear this reason all the time: Too many books are published in English and there simply isn‘t enough space left for books in translation. This is only true for physical bookshops, though. Self-published books are usually sold via online shops with lots of space, even for translations.

3. English social media may support books worldwide

Authors are nowadays expected to do a lot of their own marketing, even if they are with a publishing house. Most of them have their own website, blog or social media, sometimes all of it – but in their own language. I suspect this could be another reason why most English language publishers prefer to just stick with the large number of English language authors instead of foreign authors who require them to do more work.

Do You Speak english correctedSelf-published authors are usually dealing with all of their marketing on their own anyway and could benefit from doing some marketing in English as well, even if this isn’t their first language. They could start with a platform that they feel most comfortable with and doesn’t require too much work – e.g. some authors like Twitter best. English marketing might also be an advantage if your book has been translated into more languages. Readers from all over the world could get in touch with you, because English is so widely spoken as a second language. I see this happening with music videos on Youtube: fans communicate in English, no matter where they are from. And don’t believe you need to be perfect – I am certainly not perfect myself and if you point out mistakes to me, I will even be grateful 🙂

4. Self-published authors can work with translators who are on their wavelength

In case an author does have an English translation contract with a publishing house, their publishers are usually the ones who choose the translator. But what if the author doesn‘t like the translator‘s voice? In most cases he or she will only find out when it is too late. A director of a London publishing house told me they stopped doing translations, because their foreign authors often spoke English reasonably well and were not always happy with the results.

Self-published authors, on the other hand, can look for their own translators who they feel comfortable with. When looking for someone, it is a good idea to find out which genres translators specialize in and read parts of their past translations to get a feel for their voice. Not only could this lead to a far more satisfying experience, you may also build a long-term working relationship which would make subsequent book translations easier.

translate-TasteA book should ideally be translated by someone into their native language, but provided your English is very good or your native language is a rare one, you might even consider translating the book yourself and working with a good editor. I recommend editors in any case, even if there is a translator involved. In addition, I would always do sample translations and specify from the start how you want to work with each other – especially who has the final say – to avoid misunderstandings.

5. Translators could play a far more pro-active role

Roles are a lot more flexible in self-publishing than in the traditional publishing world. Not only can authors be publishers now – translators could be publishers, too. And don’t underestimate your potential power if you are a translator and your native language is English – most foreign authors would love to be translated into English. Not only does this global language promise a large audience, but once the book is in English, it can also be more easily translated into other languages.

As a translator, you could look out for books that you like and get in touch with the author. If a translator really likes the book, the work is more fun and the translation is usually much better as well.

After the work is finished, translators could even promote the books on their own or in cooperation with the author. This would be quite different from their usual invisible role (see my article “Translation is like housework…)

As someone who translates into English, you might also like to look out for books of foreign publishing houses – even the vast majority of them are not picked up by an English language publisher, so why not offer your services via self-publishing if it is done in a professional way including editing, proofreading and marketing? I wouldn’t be surprised if you had some success with this.

And then there are the translator-authors who may promote translated books alongside their own…

I believe there are much more opportunities these days if everyone is prepared to think outside the box!

 

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What Do Translators Want?

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I have had interesting discussions with other translators following my last article and Joanna Penn’s interview with me on her blog, therefore I am now writing a bit more about creative translations.

Most of the literary translators I have talked to really like their work and none of them has been in it for the money – well, at least I do not know anyone who got rich by translating, if this is the case for you, then please let me know how you are doing it 😉

Film subtitling – better paying alternative for creative translators?

When I first moved to London, I wasn’t earning enough money with literary translations to make a living in this expensive city and I was looking for alternatives. After a while I discovered subtitling, because many films were put on DVD and there was a demand for subtitlers at that time. After a while, though, the subtitling agencies had found enough translators and the demand decreased also because all the old films were already on DVD. Now the companies gradually started lowering their rates until they were so low that I quit again and took on different work. However, something interesting happened recently: I was contacted again and was offered a higher rate, due to the fact that Netflix needs a lot of film subtitlers who translate into German and probably into other languages as well these days. If you are looking for work like this and especially if you have experience, you could for example contact IMS.

Zeichnung verschiedene WeltsprachenIt is all about demand and supply and tough negotiation

Even though there is a demand for subtitlers right now, I suspect this is going to change sooner or later, as subtitling is rather popular. You are watching films all day and you even get paid for it, right? It’s not that easy, though, and it does need some skills. Nonetheless, I do understand why it is popular. If you are someone who is just starting out and wants to learn something related to translation, I would rather go for a more general type of course like the MA in translation, interpreting and subtitling  at the University of Esssex instead of a course in subtitling alone. I have no doubt that the industry will change again and the more skills you have, the better.

Some female literary and subtitle translators are saying they love what they are doing so much, because it is something creative that allows them to work from home with small children and they have a husband who is the main bread-winner. This is very understandable, but there is a problem with this – if you consider translation only an additional income and don’t rely on it to earn a living, you might be willing to accept low rates and this will affect the standard rates in the industry. And there is another very unpopular, but nonetheless relevant issue: The divorce rate is nowadays so high in most countries that you might not have a husband forever…

People can often earn more money if they are not afraid of tough negotiating. This does not come easily to most women who were taught to be nice girls and don’t demand too much. I admit that I have problems with fighting for my rights all the time as well and therefore I prefer a different long-term solution.

My own alternative: self-publishing

As mentioned above, you can read more about my own choice and the translation process in self-publishing on Joanna Penn’s blog.

 

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“Translation Is Like Housework…

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…it is only visible if it has been badly done.”

Pieke Biermann, German literary translator and author, said this in an interview many years ago and there is a lot of truth in the statement. In a way, being invisible is actually required. The translation should be a good read in the same way as the original and you are not supposed to guess straight away that you are not dealing with an original work.

housework vector graphicThe vast majority of readers do not even care whether they are reading a translation, let alone who translated the book and I am not just talking about average readers. A friend of mine teaches creative writing and literature and when we happened to talk about a book she had worked with in one of her classes, it turned out I was the translator – she had not noticed.

Even though translations are vital for the success or failure of a book in another language, they are not just usually invisible, but also generally poorly paid. The housework metaphor fits here as well – housework is important, but what about the money? Poor payment does not exactly encourage a great outcome if the translator needs to make a living and thus has to finish the translation as fast as possible. This is especially true for translations into languages other than English. Into English pays better, since there are simply not as many translators who can do the job – translators are usually translating into their own language. English native speakers are often not encouraged to learn foreign languages, therefore these translators do not have as much competition as their colleagues from other countries.

But despite the low income, most literary translators are still doing a great job as they are usually really passionate about their work. I believe that self-publishing can be an interesting alternative for them that might provide more long-term income, if they are prepared to participate in book marketing and play a much more visible role than they are used to.

I am cooperating with author J.F. Penn and we have recently self-published her first thriller Pentecost in German on a split-royalty basis, which means we are sharing the income. This is a risk, but at the same time there is more potential than going the traditional route with publishing houses if it goes well. Another way would be to be paid a fixed fee. I suspect most translators would currently still want to choose this route, because their low income does not allow much risk-taking. They should bear in mind, though, that they have the freedom to choose a self-published book which they really like and find worthwhile for translation.

If authors and translators are working on a split-royalty basis it is in the translators‘ own interest to contribute as much as possible to the book marketing. I must admit that this does not come easily to me – I am just not used to being visible. Therefore I am glad to work with an experienced self-published author like Joanna who has such a great positive attitude and I intend to share more of my experience on this blog.

You can read my interview with Joanna Penn on her blog.

And here is the German book trailer:

 

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Frankfurt Book Fair: New Programme For International Self-Publishers In 2014

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If you have never considered attending Frankfurt Book Fair as a self-publisher, you might want to think again.

Apart from being the biggest book fair in the world, it is also the most important one when it comes to foreign rights. And this year there is even more: on Friday 10 and Saturday 11 October, they are offering a new international self-publishing and author programme in English. If you speak German, there are 5 days packed with events for self-publishers. As for the programme in English, you can find more information on the book fair‘s website

It is always advisable to book a hotel room as early as possible, because there is usually a shortage in the end due to the masses of fair visitors.

In case you are used to the size of, let‘s say the London Book Fair, you might be in for a surprise. The area in Frankfurt is so huge that they use shuttle buses to take you from one hall to another. I would advise women who love wearing high heels to think twice whether you really want to torture yourself – I saw ladies suffering badly in the past because they underestimated the long ways.

Due to the dimensions in Frankfurt, I would not advise to just go there to stroll and look whatever you can find. To make the most of it, I would plan ahead. Therefore I think the programme for self-publishers and authors is an interesting one and I intend to visit the fair myself.

 

 

 

Related article:

Impressions from the Buchmesse

 

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