Report on LBF's "The Translator as Agent" Forum
http://publishingperspectives.com/2014/04/the-translator-as-agent/
“You have to be willing to do things for free at first,” said Tobler. “It’s only after you’ve got the editor’s interest that you might get a contract. If you’re starting out as a literary translator and you can’t be bothered to translate some extracts, well then, you’re not passionate enough! Getting into literary translation, every hour is not going to pay financially. You get into it because you love literary translation and then down the line it all works out.
Comments
Looks to me like this forum was dominated by agents and publishers, and the quote above is typical of what you get as a result. It's basically about what you, the talented and passionate translator can do to help agents and publishers find winning titles for kudos rather than $.
That said, I wasn't at the forum and only know of it via this report in "Publishing Perspectives."
Issues translators care about, however, include:
How can I get paid for translating an excerpt, and overcome the tiresome "but everyone does it for free!" argument?
How can I earn $ for the work I do in identifying and marketing works to agents and publishers?
What strategies are there for avoiding a situation where I "discover" and successfully market a work to an agent or publisher, only to see the book-length translation assigned to another translator?
Under what circumstances am I likely to be seen as a competitor by professional literary agents, who may then cease commissioning translations from me?
Bruce , April 15, 2014, 6:11a.m.