Translation of books is a matter for real professionals!
Have you written a book and want to introduce its contents to foreign readers? Today, there are all opportunities for this. For example, many aspiring authors begin their journey to literary success with self-publishing on electronic platforms. In addition, nothing prevents you from offering the manuscript to a serious Western publishing house. But there is one "But!" If you are not a world-renowned writer, you will need to translate the book into the audience's language.
How to translate a book not losing the meaning and style?
It is clear that you have invested time, effort and money in your work. To get an adequate reward for this, you need to ensure high quality of translation. Only under this condition, you will be able to acquire fans of your work abroad and get a decent fee.
Works of fiction often contain slang, idioms, the meaning of which cannot be conveyed by translating individual words. It is even more difficult to convey the general atmosphere of a novel or story. In addition, how to preserve the style of the original, so that readers feel a sense of empathy for the characters of the work or appreciate the writer's humor?
Google Translate and other even the most advanced technologies will be useless. Only professional book translators with a literary education can handle the work. You will also need a philologist editor who will check whether there are any errors in the text. Ideally, they should be native speakers with good experience. With the help of such specialists, you will get a high-quality literary translation of the book and with it a reputation as a talented writer. In turn, this will allow you to quickly return your investment and get the expected profit.
What texts are most often translated?
In addition to translating fiction, including children's literature, translation of memoirs and scripts, song lyrics, articles, scripts, and even subtitles for videos is in demand. Handwritten and printed texts are accepted. There are more and more orders for e-book translations.
Frequent customers are people who want to make a scientific career and defend their doctoral dissertation. They traditionally seek to publish their works in foreign publications. Moreover, here you cannot do without a translator who knows the terminology, understands the specifics of the material, and sometimes even works in the relevant field.
Professional translation of books: distinctive features
Perfect command of the original language, the ability to convey all the features, intonation features of the author's style, complete preservation of semantic content - these are standard requirements for a specialist who undertakes literary translation.
It requires the most accurate interpretation of the figures of speech used in the work, including phraseological units, metaphors, and allegories. It is often necessary to understand the readers' mentality and speech characteristics of a particular historical period. All this certainly affects the cost of translating a book, but the amount always remains within a reasonable range.
Therefore, we can sum up. You should not risk contacting people who cannot confirm their native language skills and do not have a specialized education. You need to be very careful about offers to translate books at a low price.
There is a concept of profitability and the services of good translators simply cannot be very cheap. Most often, such offers come from freelancers who require a partial prepayment and disappear without a trace after receiving it. There are also situations when the customer waits for a long time for the result, and then finds out that the freelancer did not even start working.
You can only entrust the translation of your work to a native speaker who has the necessary knowledge and skills, correctly assesses the complexity of the task ahead, and is able to complete the work on time. Given that the time for work is usually limited, such personal qualities of the performer as responsibility for the project and punctuality are also mandatory.
The best option is the translation of books in a specialized company that provides official guarantees for both quality and deadlines. Only in this case you can be sure that the performer will fulfill all the obligations assumed, even if you have to translate a multi-volume novel into a rare dialect. You will receive an artistic translation of your book, preserving its aesthetic and semantic value, with an equivalent emotional message.
How much does it cost to translate a book?
How much will it cost to translate my book? This question is natural, because the author must correctly calculate their budget. Usually, you can only talk about the price of translating any book after you have read its content and evaluated the complexity of the text. No less important is the volume of the work. The calculation is based on the number of standard pages, and this one is approximately 1800 printed characters. The translator's level, specific language pair, and deadlines are important. Thus, to determine how much a literary translation of a book costs, you need to know many nuances. You can contact our consultants to find answers to all your questions!