On 7/30/2002, "Terrill Lankford" <
lankford2000@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>
markhall@gol.com wrote:
>
>>
>> Have you really tried pricing competent to damn
good translators
lately?
>> As a gaijin living in Japan who only has a
child's command of
Japanese,
>> I consider myself lucky when I end up paying
about $400 US per 10
double
>> spaced pages. I also know from first hand
experience, when proofing
>> translations from Japanese to English, I get
$10/page. So sit down
and
>> think about the costs in a 400+ page
novel...
>
>All I know about this is the fact that foreign
publishers pay pretty darn
well
>for American authors' books. In my own experience my
advances from both
Japan
>and France were only about 1/3 lower than my U.S.
advance and THEY had to
pay
>someone to translate the books into their native
language on top of what
they
>paid me. My second book, ANGRY MOON, is being
released in Japan this
month.
>Considering the numbers you're throwing out there,
I'd rather have been
the
>translator than the author, but they still paid the
author very well. The
idea
>that U.S. publishers couldn't afford to do
translations is just silly. I
think
>it is more a matter of cowardice and laziness than
anything else. And I
think
>they're missing a good bet.
>
>TL
I am not necessarily saying they can't afford to do it, put
it won't be cheap and it is not as cheap as some folks make
it sound. And that price will be passed on. (When I am at
home, I'll have to dig around and compare prices on some of
these books).
you also have a risk factor---some of these authors, while
genre afficianados will love, won't easily be translatable to
a more general market, and might actually turn a lot of genre
afficiannados off. While not hard-boiled, Haruki Murakami
comes to my mind---a very distinctive type of magical realism
that often turns off magical realist fans. And then there is
my complaint about a lot of Japanese fiction I read in
translation---great mood and setting, but where the hell is
the plot???
In the case of Japan, I think you have an exceptional market
for books though. With about half the population living in
the Tokyo-Osaka strip, and most of those folks having
anywhere from a 30 minute to 1 hr. train ride one-way to
work, you have a very captive market for reading materials.
But having said this, the publishers here are tightening up
and cutting back on offerings (both Japanese and from
translation).
best, MEH
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