4 ms·

Do you think I could offer English->German translation services to indie authors as a reasonable side income? Do you know a good place to get to know them or s

Do you think I could offer English->German translation services to indie authors as a reasonable side income? Do you know a good place to get to know them or start out building some connections? I have been doing it in the past (mostly for ads and other marketing content) but it paid very little (was working freelance for an agency) but I enjoyed it a lot.

drakonka 3y ago
To be honest I'm not sure. It seems like _a ton_ of work to put out a high quality translation. I do not know how much time and money translators spend on each project but can imagine it being a lot. For example, some authors may expect a legit highly-paid translator to work with their own German proofreader etc to ensure quality of the output. (Tangentially, I think Germany has some special laws that you as the translator would need to be familiar with. For example I think the translator needs to grant rights to the original author to republish the work. Not 100% sure on this, but worth checking!)
- sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
  Unfortunately there is not much information for this online (atleast from a quick search I didn’t find much) Most seems to be related to working together with publishing houses (I loathe the German publishing houses so that’s definitely no option). I would prefer working directly with an independent author - when I have a bit more time I’ll check out how to best get in contact with them. Not sure about the legal side of it, but I have a friend who works in German copyright and who could probably help figure that part out.
  - drakonka 3y ago
    One place to get started might be the Alliance of Independent Authors: https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/ https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/ They are author as opposed to translator-focused, but maybe reaching out to them can be a first step in getting the lay of the land? They might have some information about how their authors tend to use translation services. Although I'm sure there must be some translator communities out there that could provide even more focused info.
    - sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
      Great advice, thanks! I’ll try out some stuff let’s see how it goes.

drakonka 3y ago

To be honest I'm not sure. It seems like _a ton_ of work to put out a high quality translation. I do not know how much time and money translators spend on each project but can imagine it being a lot. For example, some authors may expect a legit highly-paid translator to work with their own German proofreader etc to ensure quality of the output. (Tangentially, I think Germany has some special laws that you as the translator would need to be familiar with. For example I think the translator needs to grant rights to the original author to republish the work. Not 100% sure on this, but worth checking!)

sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
Unfortunately there is not much information for this online (atleast from a quick search I didn’t find much) Most seems to be related to working together with publishing houses (I loathe the German publishing houses so that’s definitely no option). I would prefer working directly with an independent author - when I have a bit more time I’ll check out how to best get in contact with them. Not sure about the legal side of it, but I have a friend who works in German copyright and who could probably help figure that part out.
- drakonka 3y ago
  One place to get started might be the Alliance of Independent Authors: https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/ https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/ They are author as opposed to translator-focused, but maybe reaching out to them can be a first step in getting the lay of the land? They might have some information about how their authors tend to use translation services. Although I'm sure there must be some translator communities out there that could provide even more focused info.
  - sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
    Great advice, thanks! I’ll try out some stuff let’s see how it goes.