Local character and the publishing biz, part 1

Anyone can see that publishing is in upheaval. I've mostly experienced it as a reader, one who's daily offered new opportunities to discover and read books (e-readers, web distribution, social platforms like Goodreads) while other means of access are closed off (Borders goes belly-up, indies struggle, conglomerates squabble). These changes are usually laid at the feet of technology, as though we have no control over it, and as though the really disruptive contemporary changes in the economy (of publishing as well as everything else) are only some minor annoying side-effect of Pure Technological Progress.

So I was surprised and glad to see the reaction last week to major press coverage (The Guardian) of England's new small press And Other Stories as a possible savior of translation publishing. Surprised, because I called it two years ago (but I guess that would assume anyone read my blog); glad, because the responses were genuinely pleased and welcoming.

But two years is a long time to wait for just one newspaper feature. Publishing is still messed up, translation publishing perhaps most of all, and AOS can't fix it all by themselves. That's why I'm thinking more and more that I might as well give it a try myself.

The problem

According to apocryphal but persistent statistics, translated works account for less than 3% of the US publishing market, versus 40% and up in pretty much every other developed country. The work is underpaid, often working out to $10 an hour or less. Except for a dozen or two superstars (who attract steady work and can demand per-unit royalties rather than a flat rate), literary translators have to have day jobs—either as commercial translators or, usually, as academics—to make ends meet. With profit thus off the table as a possible motivating factor—and because they still have to justify their work to tenure and promotion committees—many translators tend to choose to translate works which are interesting academically, rather than entertaining and engaging stories. Which then just helps keep the market and readership small.

Some people have made a fuss lately about AmazonCrossing, which is a publishing imprint launched by the e-commerce giant to produce both Kindle and print books translated from other languages into English. They use their global sales data to find out what people buy and read in other countries, then bring it home to the Big Daddy market. (Disclosure: I've done some sample translations for them, for which they paid a fair rate—and if they offer more work in the future, I'll probably take it.) But it's not something they're doing for the benefit of translators; it's a move against the giant New York conglomerates (Random House/Bertelsmann, HarperCollins, Penguin/Pearson, Simon & Schuster/CBS, Hachette, Macmillan/Holtzbrinck) and the remaining big-box chain (Barnes & Noble). Amazon wants to take money away from those competitors by cutting out their middleman roles, and if that means they need to give translators a little more work and pay them a little bit more, well, they can afford it. They are squeezing efficiencies out of the existing tired business model, not inventing a new one. It's not about the technology, either; Kindle is just a marketing device which happens to display text.

The real problem is that there are books and readers out there who don't find each other. Many Americans really do want to learn about the rest of the world—hell, about non-corporate culture within their own country—but they have few opportunities to do so. Language is a barrier, but a superable one. The real impediment is the (economic) structure of the publishing business.

[to be continued]