It’s not for nothing that household names such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Margaret Atwood or Stephen King have had their works translated into numerous languages. It would be wrong to conclude from this, however, that you need to first achieve the same level of acclaim as The Lord of the Rings before going down the route of translation. Quite the opposite is true – translation itself can help you to build and reinforce your status on the literary market in the first place. In this article, we share some snippets of advice for editorial translation.
Sharing your story with the world
British author Simon Beckett, whose books have been translated into an impressive 29 languages, is a case in point. It is in no small part thanks to translation that he has gained the reputation he enjoys today. The crime writer is arguably better known in Germany – a huge market for crime fiction – than in his native homeland: Indeed, his latest novel THE LOST rocketed upon release to pole position in the DER SPIEGEL hardback charts, where it stayed for five weeks. In German-speaking countries alone, Beckett’s earlier David Hunter series has sold around 12 million copies.
In a similar vein, Irish author Caimh McDonnell, whose books have sold over a million copies and been translated into several languages, published his fantasy novel Ursula und das V-Team in German in spring 2025. The English edition is yet to be published. This timeline, with the German version hitting the shelves before the original, is very telling of the value that editorial translation holds.
The moral of the story is that book translation is a worthwhile endeavour – one that bolsters the author’s reputation on the global stage and helps boost those all-important sales figures. Literary translation is not without its pitfalls, however. In this article, we share some tips for successful multilingual publishing.
Don’t rush into it
You most likely didn’t write your book in a hurried scramble. It’s safe to say you made conscious, deliberate choices and took your time to ponder on the specific wording and the overall narrative. And although a translator naturally doesn’t change your story, they still need to take the time to find the right phrasings that do justice to your original work. It is therefore important to allocate adequate time for translation. If there is a fixed deadline, say due to a scheduled printing date or an upcoming launch event, make sure to notify your translation provider early on so you can get the ball rolling, avoid any last-minute rush and minimise the risk of unnecessary errors. With a comfortable timeline, your translation provider can conduct the necessary quality assurance checks. This is always wise – particularly when it comes to printed publications.
Share the brief
Don’t hold back on the details. It’s always insightful to discuss your expectations and objectives. Think about questions such as who your targeted readership is. Different social groups have different expectations and habits when it comes to storytelling. With regard to translation specifically, there is an added complexity to consider: Imagine you have written a publication on an artistic movement well known within the Arabic-speaking community and you now wish to bring this book to the English-speaking world. This new audience might require further explanations to ensure the same level of comprehension. On top of that, there are cultural sensitivities to consider, with certain subject matters and turns of phrase being more or less acceptable from one market to another.
Reference materials
If your book features any imagery, it is key that the translator has access to those so that they have the bigger picture. So if you’ve designed a guide or book within, say, Adobe InDesign, it’s standard practice to share the finalised PDF rather than just the plain text. This way, the translator can see how the text is placed and study any accompanying images. Without such reference materials, the translator is not in the best position to choose the best-suited wording. Most publishing houses also tend to have their own style guide. To ensure compliance with the relevant style conventions, it’s imperative to give the translator access to this from the get-go. If you are translating from English into another language and the publisher has an English style guide only, it’s still useful as we can draw inferences from this, e.g. with regard to inclusive writing.
Be open to questions
While textual interpretation is an integral part of the reading process, translators need to be careful not to interpret too heavily when crafting their translation. Doing so can skew the meaning and deliver a story different to the author’s intentions. The best way to prevent this – aside from working with a reliable translation provider – is to allow space for dialogue. It is not uncommon for one word to have multiple possible translations and, if we cannot determine the exact meaning from the context, it is helpful if we can raise the matter with the author. What’s more, texts may feature references to someone or something very specific to your culture that means nothing to the new audience, for example if a character talks about a local musician or tradition. It’s important that we can ask you whether you’d like to remove such reference entirely, educate the reader and highlight the foreignness of the matter in question, or find a dynamic equivalence (replace the reference with an equivalent from the new target culture). These are all significant discussions that shape your book in its new form.
How we can help
First Edition Translations is a certified translation provider headquartered in Cambridge with a core focus on editorial content. Over the years, we’ve translated all sorts of publications – from cookbooks and children’s stories to museum guides and sports literature. We offer both monolingual and bilingual services for the translation, editing, proofreading and typesetting of publications. We cover a wide range of languages and are a trusted partner of many agencies and organisations such as Arcturus, Bolinda, Cambridge University Press, DK, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Orion Publishing Group. You can explore some testimonials on our website or email us at enquiries@firstedit.co.uk to find out more. We are always happy to give advice and provide a no-obligation quote.