Sending to a publisher a story in a foreign language. In this case English is foreign

HourglassMemory · Dec 7, 2007

I was wondering if any publishers here in Portugal, where I live, would accept my book in English.
Obviously I do no expect you people to know how the business works in my country but what do you think is the likelihood that they'll accept my story as it is, and by this I mean written in English?
Would I have to go to a publisher that dealt with foreign works and publish it as if it came from outside the country?
It would take me a long time if I had to translate the whole thing. Would they do that for me?
I really don't feel comfortable writing in Portuguese, and for the story I'm writing it just destroys the feeling I want I to have.
What should I do?

a_sharp · Dec 7, 2007

Keep it in English and see what happens. If they like it well enough, they may have it translated for you. The fact that it originates in English makes it accessible to the larger markets of America, the UK and Europe. I've no idea how the Portuguese publishing world works.

pdr · Dec 8, 2007

Get it...

published in the UK and then go to those EU publishers dealing in foreign rights and translations. I believe there are some in Portugal which accept and publish in English and translate to Portuguese.

wayndom · Dec 8, 2007

HourglassMemory said:
It would take me a long time if I had to translate the whole thing. Would they do that for me?

Can't answer your other questions, but my novel Thor was published in German, Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian. In every case, the publishers bought the right to publish and translated it themselves, but it must be said that they bought the rights from St. Martin's Press, which is a reasonably prestigious American publisher. If I'd sent it to them myself (without it being published in America), I doubt they would have looked at it.

I do notice some very minor grammatical errors in your posts, so you might want to have a native English speaker go over it first, but I'd suggest you try to get it published in America or England first.

Sending to a publisher a story in a foreign language. In this case English is foreign

HourglassMemory

a_sharp

Somebody give me an A

pdr

wayndom