Turns out AmazonCrossing isn't just one of the bigger transltion publishers in the US but as of now, the biggest. (If a few dozen titles a year can be considered big.)
This and a few other (grudging) nuggets can be found here, in a rather sniffy piece from the NEW REPUBLIC:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1...slation-amazon
Quote:
And what about that $10 million? Where exactly is it going? In a press release, AmazonCrossing announced that the money would go “toward fees paid to translators over the next five years and increasing the countries and languages represented on the AmazonCrossing list.” When I reached out for comment that somewhat cloudy statement was reiterated, though with an indication that AmazonCrossing also intends to increase the number of titles it publishes, something it’s done every year since its inception. The money for translators will presumably pay more translators, given the increase in production, but as Susan Bernofsky notes on her indispensible blog Translationista, there’s no reason for translators to expect a sudden windfall as a result of this announcement—rates are just as likely to decrease, she argues.
Given the wiggle room and the timing—it was clearly engineered to garner attention at Frankfurt, where Amazon has struggled to get meetings before—it’s entirely possible that the announcement is significantly less significant than it appears. For all we know, AmazonCrossing committed a similar amount of money to acquiring and translating international literature last year. $10 million, after all, is a rounding error for Amazon. What does seem to be significant, however, is that AmazonCrossing is proving that Amazon can run a publishing house its way—based on data analysis and staggeringly low prices—and succeed.
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