Consider your story/book in another language reaching another culture

I am a professional translator (Spanish <> English ) and I had the time of my life translating a self published author's successful bilingual children's book. I was very hands on working with the illustrator and author on their intentions to make sure that my language was the same as the author's and I provided cultural consultation. I helped the author with marketing we performed signings in two languages (the bookstores loved this) and I got the book into markets. bookstores and countries that otherwise the author would never have been able to reach. But I did find out that most authors rely on the publisher to have their book translated when they sell the international rights instead of hiring a translator directly. Qualified and experienced literary translators can make your book bilingual or help you create a whole second book to sell. I would love to discuss this process more and I would love to translate more children's stories.

Publishers and International rights

Hi Moondance;
Oh yes, and thanks for the tip. We literary translators do market ourselves to publishers and yes the good ones do qualify us. But as a writer I found that this process takes the original work out of the hands of the writer. I do know of cases where authors have withheld the sale of your international rights or the translation portion thereof and handled that themselves.
A translation of your book is as important as the original manuscript.
I have seen and corrected some shockingly poor translations whih had resulted in loss of sales and even ruining the reputation of an author in some markets. I also know of translator sweatshops where untrained, unqualified and thus poorly paid bilinguals pump out translations of specifically childrens books for schools. They are cheap and grammatically incorrect, incorrectly translated and confuse the children. I see this a lot when I volunteer to do bilingual readings at elementary schools.
So with a publisher you can ask to see the credentials of the translator(s) and monitor the sales in diferent geographic markets.
One test for published authors is to have a look at their translated editions and have them back translated ( from the foreign language into English). I start with the title alone whih is a fun exercise in itself
Thanks again for the tip.
Talkwrite.