Of course the idea of creating a social network of translators on the web shouldn’t be restrained only to the literary world. The thing is that generally literary and technical translators perform their jobs in very different ways and in different contexts. But there is no reason to not come up with a way to organize a network that could have space for both.
See the first post here.
3 Comments
8 November 2009 at 3:21 pm
I’m wondering if anyone out there has some advice on how to get a potential publisher to read your proposal and translation sample. Finding the right publisher for a translated book or a good literary agent for translators is not an easy task. I’m bilingual (English-French), have a Ph.D. in French lit and a solid background in translation, so a year ago decided to launch myself into my professional dream: literary translation. My network of contacts is expanding here in France where I currently reside; it already includes a fair number of French authors, foreign rights representatives and editors. I’m finding it far more complicated to make personal contact with American publishers. I’ve read all there is to read on the Pen American Center’s web site (it’s great), plus the ALTA Guide and numerous others. Au secours, any suggestions?
9 November 2009 at 5:25 pm
Hi Leslie, I imagine the difficulties you’re facing. Unfortunatelly nowadays most Publishers don’t rely on the opinion of translators when they make theirs publishing decisions. I’m also not an expert in the North American market but as far as my knowledge permits I would advice you to try to get in touch with Publishing Houses that already publish translations and similar books in genre, specially the smaller ones, which are normally more open and have a more flexible and open workflow. It’s also important to give them as much information you can about the book, specially reviews (if any) and other news (even if they are in French!). Finnaly, it could be a good idea for you to have a blog where you publish extracts of translations of the authors you are trying to bring to the US (with permission of the authors, of course) and other information related to them, so you leave a door open for people you have no idea could get interested about it. It might sound a lot of work, but it can be worthwhile. Good luck!
9 November 2009 at 5:58 pm
Thanks, Camilla. I’ve done everything you suggest except putting up extracts of my translations on a blog. Some of the authors with whom I work are already published in English, so recognition of their work and its appeal to English-speaking readers is not an issue. Still, I like the blog idea and think I’ll try a spin off of it, with info on authors, their writing styles, themes, story lines, and translation extracts — there may be intellectual property issues to be researched first on that aspect, since I own the translations but the authors/publishers own the original work. It’s likely legally possible to quote a short passage from a book, in the original language, along with my translation. I don’t think the original language necessarily needs to be quoted, though; I’ll have to give that more thought. Thanks for your input.