| Páginas sobre el tema: < [1 2] | Translate ebooks in exchange for revenue share Autor de la hebra: barelon
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Jane Proctor (X) 
Francia
Local time: 00:00
francés al inglés
On the face of it, possibly yes.. Could you tell us a bit more about your role and business interest in all this Carlos?
| | | | barelon
España
Local time: 00:00
PERSONA QUE INICIÓ LA HEBRA | Thanks for your comments!! | May 15, 2013 |
Many thanks to all of you who have replied, both those who liked the idea and those who didn´t
Let me explain my role in all this: recently I have been able to read several english books written by self-published authors and some of them were excelent. I wanted to recommend them to some of my spanish friends but I noticed that no spanish translation was available (and there was no hope that one would eventually be available). This got me thinking about the business of publishing tr... See more Many thanks to all of you who have replied, both those who liked the idea and those who didn´t
Let me explain my role in all this: recently I have been able to read several english books written by self-published authors and some of them were excelent. I wanted to recommend them to some of my spanish friends but I noticed that no spanish translation was available (and there was no hope that one would eventually be available). This got me thinking about the business of publishing translated succesful ebooks.
I have a close friend who is a translator and I asked her for the costs of translating books. With the information she gave me I quickly understood that most self-published authors could not afford to translate their work. I am a very entrepenurial guy who has set up different succesful business in the past, so I thought of ways of overcoming this obstacle and my idea was to look for entrepreneurial translators who might be interested in sharing the risk of publishing translated ebooks.
This is why I asked this question and, though some of you didn´t like the idea (I expected that) I am glad that many of you did.
My idea would be to set up a platform where succesful ebook authors could contact potential translators. Payment of the translation work would be (wholy or in part) in the form of shared revenues. The authors would have to provide information (sales figures, book ranks...) which could be used by the translators to decide if they wanted to risk accepting this line of work. The platform would act as publisher of the translated work, distributing the revenue between the author and the translator as agreed (with a small cut for the platform itself) and in this way assuring that everyone got their share.
To give you an idea of the potential amounts involved, Kerry Wilkinson sold 100,000 copies of her first self-published book "Locked In" in just three months in Amazon UK. The book sells very cheaply at just $0.99 and Amazon pays 70% of that. If a translated version sold just a third of that, that would mean $23K to share between author and translator. And this would be just in its initial launch, the potential income over the full run of the book could be much larger. Kerry has published three more books in the series and I am sure that if she was happy with a translator she would continue working with him/her. And Kerry is not an isolated sample, there are many more succesful authors like her in the ebook ecosystem and we will see more and more of this.
On the other hand a recent survey found that half of the ebook publishers don´t make more than $500 a year, so obviously you would need to look carefully who you work with, but your gamble could pay quite beautifully.
I would like to point out that there is currently a similar deal being offered to ebook publishers to help them create audiobook versions of their books. The platform (acx.com) was built by audible.com and offers a 50/50 split of revenues between the author and the audio producers of the book. Amazon acts as a partner, so this cannot be ruled out in the case of translation.
Right now this is just an idea in my head. I will continue investigating it and looking at the possibility of building a real bussiness out of it (I have asked authors about their opinion as well). Will keep you posted!
Regards,
Carlos ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I don't think Amazon is geared for it yet | May 15, 2013 |
Years ago, I translated a BA undergraduate textbook for a large publishing house. It had been written by two professors, and I had a chance to notice that, from the strikingly different writing styles, one of them wrote the odd-numbered chapters, and the other wrote the even-numbered ones.
So I'd assume they'd split the royalties 50/50. As I see it, Amazon's system doesn't have the possibility of automatically splitting royalties between people/accounts.
The paradigm is... See more Years ago, I translated a BA undergraduate textbook for a large publishing house. It had been written by two professors, and I had a chance to notice that, from the strikingly different writing styles, one of them wrote the odd-numbered chapters, and the other wrote the even-numbered ones.
So I'd assume they'd split the royalties 50/50. As I see it, Amazon's system doesn't have the possibility of automatically splitting royalties between people/accounts.
The paradigm is simple. My life insurance policy has a list of people and their corresponding percentages, i.e. when I'm outa here, who gets how much of it (wife, kids, etc.).
When they have it in place, it will be easy to divide automatically the money from royalties between co-authors, author/translator in any preset proportion, even if they are located far apart, in different countries.
No idea on how to suggest it to Amazon, though. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Excellent idea for newbies | May 15, 2013 |
I think this is a great way to break into the language industry. Even if you do not translate the next great American novel, you will have the start to a solid portfolio, a real commission and a reference, three things which are difficult for me to garner for myself. I would hop on a Danish novel without hesitation, even if I only get my name in the credits for the translation and permission to use the translation as an example.
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Jane Proctor (X)
Francia
Local time: 00:00
francés al inglés
| Yes, do please! | May 15, 2013 |
barelon wrote:
Will keep you posted!
| | | | | English -> Russian | May 15, 2013 |
Understandably, the potential market for a good book would appear to be huge. The matter is this book may become available on torrent sites, peer-to-peer networks, etc. within weeks (or even days in the worst case scenario) after it has been released/ offered for sale...
| | | | | I Make Money Translating | May 16, 2013 |
I put my daughter through college working as a translator - from home. I had to brag - so I built a small website about it www.workastranslator.com. I hope everybody enjoys it and has a great day
| | | | Sabrina Bruna
Italia
Local time: 00:00
Miembro 2013
inglés al italiano
+ ...
| English > Italian and French > Italian | May 16, 2013 |
Carlos, your project, now that you have explained it in details, looks really interesting and completely new on the web: it might indeed be successful.
Quite a few of us could be willing to work for this proposal so keep us updated!
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| I love books | May 17, 2013 |
I love the idea of translating books. I've being translating books for myself and my family for a lot of years, not as a professional of course. I work in the technical area and no agency give you a dime when you don't have the necessary professional experience in this area, and I think that this is a good way to get it, as a newbie. I'll do it if I have the chance.
| | | | | Ebook piracy | May 17, 2013 |
As it turns out, editing is disabled 24 hours after posting... therefore, a new posting was called for.
I have looked at the piracy issue from a quite different (legal, to be exact) angle (I guess my background as an in-house legal translator with a law firm does show sometimes).
Vladimir Pochinov wrote:
Understandably, the potential market for a good book would appear to be huge. The matter is this book may become available on torrent sites, peer-to-peer networks, etc. within weeks (or even days in the worst case scenario) after it has been released/ offered for sale...
Below are some relevant hard facts:
1. Authors may choose to apply Digital Rights Management (DRM) to their eBook (PDF or EPUB) in order to prevent their work from being copied, distributed, or printed.
2. Ebook piracy, like software piracy, etc., is mushrooming...
3. Pirates, such as the notorious Pirate Bay, do not generally sell pirated stuff.
4. Notwithstanding point 3 above, the Pirate Bay trial (a very interesting read, if you ask me) proves that individuals and/or entities "promoting the copyright infringement of others" may be sued successfully.
Here is where the new legal twist in my thinking comes in.
It is quite likely that suing individuals and/or entities involved in promoting the copyright infringement might prove to be much more profitable potentially as compared to the author's likely pecuniary rewards from the online sales of his/her ebook (whether DRM-protected or not)... In the Pirate Bay trial, the four defendants were all found guilty and sentenced to serve one year in prison and pay a fine of 30 million SEK (about €2.7 million or US$3.5 million). Man, aren't these figures a treat for the eyes?..
Carlos, being an entrepreneurial person you seem to be, you might consider discussing the above with an intellectual property (IP) lawyer. Prior to that (if you do decide to proceed), make some reasearch to get better understanding of IP, including but not limited to copyright, issues. A good starting point is Copyright Law 101.
| | | | | An old thread coming back into actuality | Apr 13, 2021 |
Hello everyone !
This is an old story, but it comes back into actuality with a new (and still small) publisher, TekTime, from Italy, even if ultimately they distribute their books via Amazon and other such platforms too for a larger reach.
The business model is the same : no upfront payment to the translator, but shared revenue between the original author, the translator, and the platform (starting at 75% for the translator and going down over time, 15% for the author a... See more Hello everyone !
This is an old story, but it comes back into actuality with a new (and still small) publisher, TekTime, from Italy, even if ultimately they distribute their books via Amazon and other such platforms too for a larger reach.
The business model is the same : no upfront payment to the translator, but shared revenue between the original author, the translator, and the platform (starting at 75% for the translator and going down over time, 15% for the author and going up over time, and only a fixed 10% for the platform. See more details under https://www.traduzionelibri.it/traduttori.asp?Voce=2).
About if this is a good deal or not, it may be risky or not to spend time on that job, depending on how well the sales go, and ultimately the translator as well as the original author will feel the urge to participate in the joint promotion of the book, which is good for both (or more), actually.
Just as the original author spends time in writing his/her book with no upfront guarantee that it will sell even one single book, the translator will be a secondary author of the same book, and he/she too will take the risk of selling nothing.
But why not translate books during idle times ? Between other jobs ?
And choosing a subject you actually like and enjoy translating ?
Then the time is not wasted at all, and the return can only be positive
[Modifié le 2021-04-13 18:05 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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