As mentioned in a previous blog post, I have used the website babelcube.com to find a translator for my India-inspired book „Tweeting in Tuk-Tuks„. Babelcube matches writers with translators and pays the latter in form of a revenue share model. Now, the giant player Amazon seems to also invest heavily in the field of book translations: According to a recent press release, Amazon commits 10 million dollars to translate foreign books into English.
(c) Amazon
As it seems, writers will be able to register their works with the service called „Amazon Crossing„, and Amazon will choose which books to translate. The 10 million dollars will be used to pay the translators and to conquer new markets. You can propose a book for translation via this link.
AmazonCrossing is now accepting submissions in mystery, thriller, women’s fiction, historical fiction, literary fiction, memoir, science fiction and fantasy categories.
Amazon Crossing is already a large publisher
Already today, AmazonCrossing is one of the largest publishers of translated literature in the United States, with 77 titles from 15 countries and 12 languages to be published in the United States in 2015. Translations since 2010 have included more than 200 titles by authors from 29 countries writing in 19 languages.
So far, Amazon has translated works which were already successful in their home country, such as German author Oliver Pötzsch’s million-copy best-selling Hangman’s Daughter series, Korean author Bae Suah’s acclaimed novella Nowhere to Be Found and Turkish author Ayse Kulin’s Kindle best seller Last Train to Istanbul.