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
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