[Translation svcs] Babelcube

Translations through Babelcube, or otherwise.

Hope someone can help here. I posted my self-published book, Sons of Gods, on Babelcube in the hope of finding translators. I've found someone who will translate into Spanish, and I'm happy to go with her. I would get the Babelcube contract looked at by the Society of Authors, but in the meantime, I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with them? Are they legit? Could someone take a look at the contract, especially the royalty rates (page 14) and give a quick initial assessment? Might it be better, now that I have contact with the translator, to go private with her and use our own contract? It seems to me that Babelcube gets 15% of net, just like an agent.
Perhaps this post is better off in the Bewares and Recommendations forum; if so, please feel free to port!

BUMP!

So....did either of you use them?

aruna said:

Might it be better, now that I have contact with the translator, to go private with her and use our own contract? It seems to me that Babelcube gets 15% of net, just like an agent.

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Doubt they'd be OK with that, although there's nothing to stop you doing that away from BabelCube but I think generally most translators out there work based on pay for translation, not royalty basis. Besides you would have to take of the admin of paying royalties to all the different translators / languages.

You always own the rights to the translated version but BabelCube own distribution rights to it for 5 years, after which you can do what you like. Been thinking about using BabelCube myself. I think the higher % for translators is reasonable considering they are taking on the risk and given that most translators will usually make more in a translation only contract, any less and they wouldn't attract translators I think. Once cumulative sales reach over $2000 it goes up to 45%. http://www.babelcube.com/faq/revenue-share. 45% of something is better than 100% of nothing and my books not being translated so it's a matter of convenience too. Organizing all of it myself might take more time.

My main curiosity with BabelCube is the quality of translations. Having looked at what the translator community thinks I see mixed views, many saying it's not worth the money compared to being simply paid for translation. My books are technical non-fiction with less text than novels etc. so that might make it different? One of my books sales are over 50% in markets where English is not the first language so that seems like an obvious choice to start with. Aside from that, having researched a bit, foreign markets can be a lot less saturated / competitive than the english speaking ones, at least in my genres.

Might give it a go with one book see how it goes. Any more views and experience with BabelCube very welcome please!