New book review is up now. Japan has new weird of our own, heralded by Akira Higashiyama. See http://www.26to50.com/en/review/kidtherabbit_20141225.html

Dying job of the Translators

The book publishing in Japan is declining fast and especially that of the translated fiction is in terrible state now. What we usually do takes a day for 5 pages, which means it takes ten full weeks working on a 350 page long novel plus two weeks for proofreading and a week for corrected proof reading. Three full months’ work and still most of us get just two or three titles a year. If the assigned works are no too demanding we can do a title in two months, but nobody now gets six titles a year. There is not enough market in book publishing alone to support us.

OK, then comes severe economy. Most of us are paid royalty, thanks to our long history of learning things from foreign cultures, which used to be 8 % and on the basis of printing numbers. But these days, it varies from 3 to 8 %, if royalty at all, and average is 6. Mass market bunko paperbacks usually priced at $8 for translated fiction, and the initial printing number is also diminished to 10,000 copies. Well, the original authors would get average advance of $3,000 to 5,000 against 7% royalty these days which looks terrible comparing with the past $8,000 against 7 to 9 % but it’d be the author’s secondary income. The problem is the sales figure, and it looks terrible, too. Most of the paperback originals would sell about 3,000 copies and be gone from the bookstore shelves in a month. Yes, there’re stronger ones that would sell 6,000 to 8,000 and stay at the shelves, but only very lucky ones would go back in print again. So the publishers are demanding bigger titles, with less demanding contents for broader audience. Well, there come smaller indie publishers for hardback edition. Small publishers would publish hardcovers priced at $29.50 with 1,500 copies. Most of them sell only 300 copies or so, but they try very hard to keep them on the shelves. The economy looks the same in any other countries, including USA.

Here comes our job. 6% royalty of $8 edition with 10,000 copies would earn us about $5,000 which is a full three months’ job. Most of our apartment rent in Tokyo is $1,000 a month. We could still spend $2,000 for three months’ food and bills. But if only we have the titles to work on every month. If we get three titles a year, we can spend $3,000 to live for a year. $8 a day, including tax and utilities. Can we manage it? NO! OK, we still can go to the Indies. There are few Indies who are willing to pay royalty but the model should be that way if we should keep our future income. The hardback edition would guarantee about $2,700 for, again, three full months’ work. Which won’t pay the rent! How can I recommend that kind of job to the talented ambitious young people who love foreign fiction?

Well, I actually teach at a school for translators with fewer students every year. There used to bright young students there, but now they only attract middle-aged housewives who are willing to do the demanding works as one of their hobbies. It doesn’t look as a job even to the lay people.

My ex-students would complain that they can’t go on like this. I know. But severe economy aside, it’s a great and rewarding job. Through translation, we could enrich the readers, supplying them with alternate landscapes, alternate views, diverse way of looking at things, while we still could declare that we do it for love, not just for money. And it is. Translating process is something like a dance with the authors. If we’re not in love, we could step on each other’s foot and eventually start kicking each other. But if in love, we could dance perfectly, attracting audience, and find more love. Reward? If we could be allowed to work on the titles we really love, it could stay in those few readers’ mind, if only not in the shelves, and that experience would eventually be revealed and expressed, making the works go back in print. And then we could say we’re changing the people’s lives, changing the world and making it rich. And we do it for love.

Love for trade? Yes, why not? It looks like well-practiced one in human history. And it includes the magic word, love. We don’t get fooled with numbers and capitalist economy. We’re building a new way of life based on love. So the authors in the world, please give us the works we really can love!