7 Tips to Find the Right Literary Translator for Your Self-published Books

7 Tips to Find the Right Literary Translator for Your Self-published Books

Now that we have shared what a literary translator is, what background, training, and skills they possess and why they charge seemingly high fees, if you are still with us, it is time to take the next step in your journey to a new market: finding the right literary translator.

No matter what language you are considering translating your titles into, there are some things you simply need to get right from the beginning. Whether or not you hire the right professionals (at least one translator and one editor) to develop your products for a foreign market will end up playing a major role in your success. Finding the right literary translator will not only save you tons of headaches, but it is crucial for ensuring that the essence and quality of your books are preserved in the target language.

Luckily, to help you avoid disaster, here are some tips that will set you on the right path and help you determine if you’ve found the right linguists.

Tip#1: Review Their Qualifications and Experience

There are a few things to bear in mind when it comes to assessing a linguist’s qualifications and experience. Strange as it may sound, not all great literary translators have a translation degree and not all literary translators with a university degree make great professionals, and indie authors must dig deeper than simply examining the linguist’s credentials.

Fortunately, living in a globalised world where almost everyone has easy access to the Internet makes matters easier for authors. A good starting point is checking if the translator has formal education or training in translation, literature, or languages. Next comes the experience.

Yes, easier said than done. But don’t panic! We are here to walk you through the process and even provide examples.

Thanks to platforms like LinkedIn, Amazon Author Central, Goodreads, Translators Professional Associations, such as CEATL or The American Literary Translator’s Association (to name a few), and Translator’s Communities such as Proz.com or Translator’s café, translation experience can be easily verified. Try to check your translator’s profile on some of the most relevant platforms, paying especially close attention to reviews of their work from paying customers, volunteer projects they were involved in and readers.

On professional platforms like LinkedIn, customers can write recommendations for the freelancers they hire. To access these recommendations, click on the translator’s profile, scroll down and find out what other authors’ experience was working with this linguist. Here is an example of my profile (Psst! Feel free to connect with me):

Unfortunately, when it comes to literary translators and self-published authors, not many authors are on LinkedIn, so in reality these sorts of recommendations, though not impossible to find, are not that common either. Nevertheless, it is worth checking.

Other platforms such as Goodreads and Amazon allow authors to have their own profile, bio, website, blog, etc. Make sure to check your translator’s portfolio (if available on a website), their translated titles, and, above all, reader’s reviews (remember these are your potential customers, so you want to make sure they trust your translator).

As a translator, I rely a lot on Amazon.com for reviews of my own work. Like many authors out there, when a book I translated is launching, I anxiously keep track of reviews for the first couple of weeks (sometimes even months) to make sure readers are connecting with the story and are having the same feelings the readers got reading the original manuscript (or the source text), and that there are no big issues, such as typos or inconsistencies in the story. I do this even though I have an amazing translation editor who works alongside me on every project and has a keen eye for details (and you can connect with her, too).

Ultimately, my Amazon translator profile allows readers who love the books and genres I translate to follow me and get notifications whenever a new book launches. For example, as of September 13^th, 2024, I have 427 followers.

For an author, this is especially important if you have translated books for several markets; readers from one market may be put off by notifications about releases they cannot read. This may mean they are not following you, but if they follow your translator, they will be notified of the book launches they are most likely to buy.

While you check up on a translator’s experience, you should also consider their specialisation. Make sure to hire a linguist who specialises in your book’s genre, subgenre, and even your niche if possible. As a writer, you know that each genre comes with an audience of fans. Each audience has specific expectations of the books they love, and even in the same genre, books can be widely different, which is why niches are so important.

An experienced translator in your genre, subgenre and niche knows your target foreign audience as well as you know your home audience. As such, they know what words, expressions, tone, and literary devices to use in order to deliver the product your audience wants.

Tip#2: Examining Their Portfolio

Did you find someone promising? Do their credentials check out? It is time to look into their portfolio!

What previous works have they done? If you request a sample of their work and the translator cannot provide it, bear in mind that they might be complying with NDAs and other contracts they might have signed with other authors (which speaks well of their professionalism, but we will get there later on).

Most professional literary translators have a website or a professional platform (like LinkedIn) where they list some (if not all) of the projects they worked with and relevant links to online vendors or review platforms. You can check out our Portfolio page for an example.

Published translations can be a good indicator of a literary translator’s credibility and skill. Check their work with different vendors, research reviews in the target language and find out what the target audience thinks of the translated titles they have released so far.

Tip to assess translation quality: If readers are talking about the plot, the characters, the settings, the unexpected turns, the swoon-worthy hero, the tension-packed scenes, etc., chances are you found a great translator!

Readers will only mention translations if:

They are bad, poorly edited, full of typos, hard to follow, too literal or foreign-feeling to them.
They are translated to a language variant they don’t prefer (think American English vs British English; Latin-American Spanish vs Castilian Spanish). This doesn’t necessarily mean there is something wrong with the linguist or the translation, but rather that the reader prefers a different language variant. If reviews are generally good, I would keep this linguist in mind.

Tip#3: Asking for References

Some literary translators will have a Recommendation section on their LinkedIn profile or maybe a Testimonial on their website, such as this one in our Home page:

Ask your linguist for references and contact previous clients to get an idea of their working style and reliability, availability to meet deadlines, and professionalism.

Tip#4: Assessing Their Language Skills

Even though it sounds hard for an author to assess the source and target language proficiency of a translator without speaking a foreign language, you should at least make sure that:

Your translator is a native speaker of the target language.
Your translator has a high proficiency in the source language (this should be evident in the way you communicate with each other via email, chat or videocall). If your translator is not good at communicating in your mother tongue (source language), do not waste your time.
Your translator should have a deep cultural understanding of both cultures to translate idioms, humour and cultural references effectively. Additionally, your translator should understand what to translate and what not to translate.
A good example of this is my decision not to translate the word “Highlander” in the series by international best-seller author Mariah Stone “Al tiempo del highlander”. Several aspects led me to this decision (keywords and marketing reasons, for instance), but the biggest factor was my knowledge of the target audience and the fact that I didn’t want to underestimate the Spanish readers who pick up a historical romance book set in the Scottish Highlands and understand perfectly well the kind of romantic hero they are getting/craving.
After all, a Highlander is a native of the Scottish Highlands, though, in this particular context, they are a very special kind of hero or heroine—they are steadfast warriors devoted to their family. They are fair, loyal, and honourable, and they fight for a cause they believe in deeply, for their country, for independence, for love, and for their family. They are brave and stubborn.
Translating this instead as “montañés” or “montañesa” (“mountain man” or “mountain woman”) or “guerrero/a” (“warrior”), which are some typical translations for this word in Spanish, would have deprived the text, and the whole plot actually, of key meaning. It would have let down audiences – and worse, it would have talked down to them. On the other hand, translating it descriptively, “habitante de las Tierras Altas de Escocia” (inhabitant of the Scottish Highlands, or “Highlander”) would have sounded foreign, overly long and strange, and it would have kept interrupting readers’ engagement with the story, especially because of its length.

Tip#5: Testing Their Work

Let’s be honest. Starting any new relationship can be hard, and trusting a complete stranger can be difficult, too. And a professional relationship is no exception to this.

Luckily, if all the previous steps led you here, there is something else you can do before signing any contracts and spending any money on having your books translated into a foreign market.

Request a sample translation of a chapter (if short) or a few pages of your book. If you know someone bilingual, ask them to compare it to the original to see how well they capture the language nuances. If you know someone who is a native speaker of that foreign language, ask them to read the sample text and ask them relevant questions about the story so far and how they are responding to it.

Tip: A free sample translation should be 300–500 words at most. A blurb translation should suffice to assess a translator’s skill.

Tip: If you don’t consider the blurb a long enough sample, you can always consider paying for a sample translation of a longer portion of the text to assess your linguist’s skills. Do not expect a professional linguist to translate a few chapters for free (and be cautious if they agree to do it).

Tip#6: Communicating and Collaborating

Good literary translators communicate effectively and respond quickly to your questions and concerns. Additionally, experienced literary translators can provide authors with information, tips, or other services they might not have considered yet (defining SEO-keywords in the target market, assisting with marketing campaigns, or setting up a special Newsletter for the foreign audience, for instance).

Professional literary translators should be willing to collaborate and consult with you to understand your vision and expectations, and to clarify ambiguities related to the text. For instance, if you write in a series and there are some unresolved issues, cliffhangers, or plot twists that need further clarification in order for your translator to make the best translation decision for the next instalments in the series to make sense. After all, when it comes down to it, translating is a decision-making process.

Tip#7: Showing Professionalism

A literary translator’s professionalism can be measured in a variety of ways. Without any doubt, first impressions and the way they communicate with you as an author are the best way to assess their professional behaviour, but it doesn’t end there:

Deadlines: When you ask for references, you can ask other authors the linguist worked for how good they were at meeting deadlines
Contracts: As established by Article 2 of the Berne Convention, your literary translator is the copyright holder of your translation as they are the author behind the translation. As such, both parties have the responsibility to draw up a fair contract and provide clear terms regarding:

Payment.
Timelines.
Rights, exploitation rights, and any limitations on their use.
Royalty share: In addition to a flat fee, literary translators are entitled to a royalty share to be agreed upon between both parties.

Final Thoughts:

If you are still here, you might have learnt that finding a professional translator who possesses both the necessary qualifications and skills to translate your books for a foreign market is no easy task. In fact, the more research authors do when hiring a literary translator, the better chances they have to find the one they should be working with.

Literary translation is not only a matter of skill and experience, but similarly to the writing business, it is a matter of niche and specialisation. It is a matter of developing storytelling techniques to conquer foreign audiences, meet their genre-specific expectations and deliver the book your foreign readers want to read.

The process might be long and excruciating. It will definitely require a lot of patience and devotion from your side, but once you find the right literary translator for your catalogue, you will want to hold on to them: this can, in fact, be the start of a very fruitful professional relationship.