From manuscript to multilingual: what happens when you translate a book?

Book translation is a process that hinges on creativity and collaboration. Over the years, we’ve translated all sorts of publications – from cookbooks and children’s tales to museum guides and sports literature. Our client portfolio covers cultural organisations, publishing agencies and authors directly. In other words, we know a thing or two about translating books. In this article, we give you a behind-the-scenes look at the workflows and people involved.

Before we can sink our teeth into the translation process, it’s important for us to get an idea of your publication specifically and your expectations generally. We will start by asking questions centred around your book’s genre, tone and target audience, not forgetting of course your overall objectives. The matter of timeline is essential too – are you working towards a fixed publication date or perhaps you are looking to launch at an upcoming event? This preliminary step enables us to understand your expectations upfront, line up the right people for the job, and determine the timeline, budget and deliverables.

Choosing the right translator is vital, which is why we have built up and refined a vast pool of qualified translators, each of them offering different language combinations and specialisations. A publication on cancer treatment options is a whole different kettle of fish compared to a romance novel: Whilst the former calls for a solid understanding of oncology, the latter is more about preserving emotion, nuance and the author’s voice. So when an author or publisher comes to us with their book, we often already have a good idea of which member of our translation team we should turn to.

Once the fundamental details have been hashed out and the work assigned, the translator sets to work. Any idioms and cultural references are carefully adapted for the new target market to ensure the text still flows naturally and readers fully understand the context at hand. Due consideration is also given to any cultural sensitivities and taboos that may exist among the new target audience. Translators may raise pertinent questions, for example about the intended meaning of a phrase or they may flag potential errors. Being open to engaging in dialogue and discussing translator queries is the best way to ensure successful literary localisation.

Once the translation is complete, it goes through professional editing and proofreading true to what you may know as the four-eyes principle. This is where an editor reviews the translation, checking for clarity, flow and accuracy. This quality assurance step catches any inconsistencies or errors – you can think of it as a sort of safety net. Editors and translators will often also discuss matters amongst themselves to ensure they are on the same page.

Where relevant, our translators provide notes and explanations for certain choices. For example, we may decide to leave out a very country-specific cultural reference that would simply go over the heads of foreign readers. Other times, we may suggest changing the name of a character if it proves jarring or too difficult to pronounce in the target language. Or we may advise to tone down some phrasing to adapt to cultural sensitivites on your chosen market. All the same, you are always free to suggest changes, ask questions or seek further clarification – it is vital you are happy with the end result. Such communication and collaboration ensures the final version stays true to your vision.

After revisions, we offer an optional desktop publishing (DTP) service. As a result of translation, during which sentence length tends to change, it is highly likely that formatting tweaks are required. For example, you may need to extend text boxes or move images around so that everything still fits neatly onto the page. This is particularly relevant when switching between left-to-right languages (e.g. English or French) to right-to-left languages (e.g. Arabic or Urdu): In such cases, we strongly advise you allow a DTP specialist to take care of the formatting as things can get fiddly when converting scripts. Once the typesetting is done and dusted, your book is ready for publishing, printing or digital distribution.

Once everything has been wrapped up and you’re happy with the outcome, it’s time to share your story with a whole new readership. Multilingual publishing enhances your outreach, unlocks fresh opportunities for international publishing deals and helps build your reputation on the global stage.

First Edition Translations is a long-standing language service provider headquartered in Cambridge with a core focus on editorial content. We offer both monolingual and bilingual services for the translation, editing, proofreading and typesetting of publications. We cover a wide range of languages, closely collaborating with vetted professional translators and reviewers. We’re 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.