THE BUSINESS OF WRITING

Parlez-vous Français? Sprechen sie Deutsch? Could translating your self-published books bring in more readers and cash? Simon Whaley explores the business of translation.

There are approximately 510 million English-speakers around the world, which is a vast market for those of us writing in this language. As well as the UK, we may have readers in Ireland, North America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. We may also benefit from having readers in India and some African and Caribbean countries, where they still use and understand English even though it isn’t the nation’s first language.

With a market this size, why would any writer go to the bother and expense of getting their self-published books translated into foreign languages? It’s because we’re looking for more readers who enjoy reading the genre in which we write. Not every one of those 510 million English-speaking people are book readers, let alone readers who enjoy our genre.

However, before we embark on translating our books into every language on the planet, investing some time in research will always prove beneficial.

While we’ve had ebooks and ebook readers in the UK for over 15 years, that’s not the case everywhere. Markets in other countries are less advanced. The five biggest markets for ebooks are the USA, Japan, China, the UK, and then Germany.

Like English, other languages are often used in several countries too, so it’s worth thinking where else you might sell a translated copy of your book. For example, Amazon has a German store (Amazon.de), but that store also serves German readers in Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Lichtenstein.