Quote:
Originally Posted by James_Wilde
By 50:50 do you mean that they split the 20% in your example as 10% each? I'm thinking that an Indy author is his own publisher, so your 10% as translator is the same as Scott is offering.
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That sounds as very, very little to me. Those I know that translators get between 2k and 5k euro fixed for the translation of a standard fiction book, or some ~30% of royalties. Mostly, I've heard of publishers in the smaller, north european countries paying 1500-3000 euro for the publishing rights of a book--that pays the author and original publisher. The translators either also get an up-front payment, or a royalty, but I don't know how much.
Most awkward, it seems that in most European countries the copyright of the translated work lies with the translator, even if paid an upfront lump sum.
Offering 10% of the royalties for a country with between 5 and 15 million inhabitants won't make it worth for any translator to translate a book that won't be a bestseller. That's even more the case if there's not a publisher involved that takes care of the editing and formatting -- because this will take a translator even more time.
Looking from a different angle, a translator grosses between 20 and 30 k euro a year, if translating a book takes 1 month, ~2k euro should be the prospective income.