How does a book translator get paid?

Quickbread

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For U.S. publishers of foreign works, how does the translator get paid? Is it by the word, flat fee or a percentage of royalties? Or does it depend on the publisher? If it's the latter, how does that normally work with independent and academic publishers?
 

Brickcommajason

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Never royalties, at least never in any case I've heard of. I know two professional translators. One works by the hour, and has done some projects for a flat fee (based on an estimated number of hours, times her hourly fee). The other does it by the page.

Note that neither of these people translate books. One does business documents. The other does public works (think those multi-lingual signs you see at zoos, museums and government offices).

Hope that helps.
 

kaitie

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I used to be friends with a guy who translated manga for Dark Horse. He was paid by the page, and from what he said that was pretty standard.

He also said that it's very difficult to make decent money doing translations unless you're very fast as a result.

Kaitie would also love to do literary translations. She has yet to figure out how to actually get into that, though.
 

Brickcommajason

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Thanks, Jason. That does help. I'm wondering specifically about literary translation. Is that also by the hour? What are the going rates?

My understanding is that freelancers work by the project, but if you manage to be an employee it will usually be by the hour (or a salary based on a theoretical hourly rate).

FreelanceDaily has a whole host of translation jobs most days...typically paying about $20 an hour. Only occasionally literary. I suspect it's nigh-impossible to make a living as a literary translator. You make your living as a translator, and some of your work is literary.
 

kaitie

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I think a lot of people have outside jobs, similar to how most writers have outside jobs.

I've actually found it incredibly difficult to break into the freelance translation market as well. I have a hard time believing many people are able to really make a living doing it. Maybe I'm just missing the boat, though. Then again, it might also depend on what languages you're translating.
 

Quickbread

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I think a lot of the big-selling literature in translation, like Haruki Murakami's, is done by professors and linguists. Translating literature as art seems somewhat different to me than business translation, although there's definitely crossover. I'd think literature might require someone more well versed in rhythm and pacing and subtleties of meaning, as well as subtextual sorts of things.

I'm actually working on a translation now, which is why I was asking. We're working in my foreign language class (3 of us total, including the professor) on the translation of a short story collection. We did it, with the approval of the author, for the initial purpose of using the text as a learning tool. But now, my professor and the author are both in talks with a couple of publishers, and we're wondering how to get some sort of retro-compensation for the many hours of translation work we've done.

I don't care to even count how many hours it has taken so far, so yeah, I can imagine it's tough for a translator to do this work full-time and have it be lucrative. That's why I thought maybe they got a small fraction of royalties.
 

kaitie

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That's pretty awesome, Quickbread. What a great project! I've done some translations myself, and it can be tough, that's for sure. Though I definitely feel more comfortable with literature than something like legal documents, which is probably partly why I don't do as well with freelance stuff. Most translation work I've found has been medical or legal, and I just don't have the vocabulary for those and I'd be terrified of getting it wrong. Then there's the problem of building a reputation and being able to win a bid with several other people with more experience bidding at the same time, but that's another story.

I actually think writers would make wonderful literary translators because we understand how to write well. Many translated books I've read have either good writing or good translations, but not often both.

Thanks for the links. I'll check them out. :)
 

Anna L.

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I have a university teacher whose side-job is translating the works of an English author into French. After graduating with a degree in translation, she found this English author she liked. She approached the author's literary agent for permission then translated part of the author's first novel and started making the rounds of local French publishers, submitting pretty much like normal authors do. It worked; someone wanted her to translate the whole thing for publication. Now she's now got a dozen novels to her name as a translator, all from the same author.

In Canada there are federal grants for novel translations. Perhaps you could look into that for your own country?

ETA: Hadn't seen the subsequent posts by OP. I don't know how it would work in that specific case, sorry.
 
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