So You Want to Translate a Book? Here’s Everything You Should Know

Translating a book is a huge career move! It allows you to reach new readers, touch more souls, and increase your book sales. But how do you translate a book? Where do you start? We’ll help you out with that!

After so much time and effort that you’ve put into your book, it’s completely normal that you want to have it translated with the same dedication. If you’re not fluent in another language, translating a book becomes a challenge. Since you cannot do it yourself, who can you trust to adapt your book into another language? That’s what book translation services are here for! Without it, the global readership would miss out on a lot of stories.

Our experience in translating books for international authors has taught us everything there is to know about successful book translation. Today, we decided to share all that knowledge with you, step by step. Here’s what you have to do to translate your book for another market.

Set your goals

Put some thoughts into your career goals. What do you want your book to achieve on the global market? Do you want to increase sales or grow your brand? Having a clear and precise goal for your book journey will allow you to accomplish everything you set your mind to. Without an objective, you’ll be shooting in the dark, so make sure you know what you want and then go for it!

Identify your target market

Now that you’re entirely confident of your goals, it’s time to analyze the global market. Ask yourself these questions:

• Which countries do I want to target?
• Where are my competitors present?
• What’s the preferred book genre in the countries I want to reach?

Try to do extensive market research before starting your translation. Understanding the global market will save you a lot of time and money in the long run. Not only that, but it can even boost your future sales if your book genre turns out to be popular in your target country.

For example, professional and business books are trendy in Indonesia, while Turkey prefers language and education books. Another thing you’d want to know is that South Korea is one of the biggest book importers in the entire world, with more than 40% of their bestsellers being translated titles.
Knowing these statistics will benefit your book’s success and give you the much-needed context when deciding on the best market.

Hire a professional translation agency

Hiring a professional translation agency is the best way to ensure your book gets translated accurately and adequately.

Please don’t throw away all the hard work you’ve into your book by risking its translation quality. An inadequate translation could cost you a lot!

Your translation provider should be a native speaker of the target language, with a background in translating books for their market. Apart from that, a professional translator knows how to adapt content to resonate well with the target readership culturally. Let’s not forget about the importance of the cultural aspect! Only a native-speaking translator can communicate the message without compromising context correctly.

Try to find a book translation company with both the experience and the expertise to provide you with high-quality translation.

Proofreading is a must

Being an author yourself, you already understand the importance of proofreading and editing. After the translation is finished, a proofreader is assigned to fix mistakes, check for errors, and amend anything that might not work.

A professional book translation company will cover this for you. Most translation services include proofreading as a mandatory part of the translation process. With a translation partner like that, your book will be in safe hands.

Publish your book and monitor performance

You are almost done! After you’ve had your book translated, it’s finally time to publish it and promote it to international audiences.

Make sure you find a way to analyze sales in your target market. Monitoring your book performance will help you calculate your return on investment. This is also great for your further expansions because you’ll know what to change and what to keep.

Translating a book is a massive milestone in your career. Make sure you choose a professional translation agency that will support you in this new chapter of your life.

Language Buró is the top book translation company with a global team of experts and book lovers. We’re proud to say that we can provide fast, accurate, and reliable book translation, no matter the genre or format.

Thanks to our Quality Assurance Approach, we guarantee your book will remain as good as the original. We only work with native-speaking professional translators who have proven experience in book translation. If you want to talk to us, reach us today for a free book translation consultation. We’re eager to hear more about it!