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The translator is a unique link between a literary work and its audience in another language. Both the publisher and the book’s readers should recognize his or her status as a collaborator with the author. One of the principal ways to assure this recognition is by according translation the full status of a literary endeavor. This recognition begins with the agreement made between the translator and publisher.
Translation is an intrinsically collaborative undertaking. A successful translation can be created only when each party––translator, author, publisher––assumes its responsibility and respects the rights of the others. To prevent misunderstandings, copyright infringements, and abuses, the Translation Committee strongly urges translators to negotiate for royalties, subsidiary rights income, and copyright.
When negotiating a contract, the translator should keep in mind that, without the translator, the book will not exist in English and that the terms of a publishing contract, like those of any contract, are negotiable.
The specific points of this discussion and of the Model Contract apply primarily to the translation of belletristic prose. No standard guidelines exist for the translation of poetry. The translation of drama, whether translation or adaptation, whether for the stage, the printed page, or both, is always a complicated matter, involving more parties than translator and publisher. (The Translators Association in London has developed a “Code of Practice for Theatre Translations and Adaptations.”)
What Do You Want?
Copyright
It is now standard practice in the United States for the translator to hold or own the copyright of the English translation and for U.S. publishers to acknowledge the copyright of the translation in the name of the translator.
Retaining the copyright in the translation (and assigning that copyright to the publisher for whatever term is agreed on in the contract), although a derivative right (one that depends on the copyright in the original work), benefits the translator in several ways:
1) It provides recognition for the translator’s work as collaborator and author.
2) It affords additional protection and continuing control over the work if and when subsequent editions appear.
3) If the translator has licensed or assigned the copyright to the publisher by contract for a specific time period, the translator’s ownership of the copyright places the rights to the translation back in the translator’s hands when the term specified in the contract ends, or—more usually—when the book goes out of print, or if the publisher goes out of business.
Fees and Royalties
The translator may be given a percentage of royalties and subsidiary rights income in addition to the one-time fee for the translation. Obtaining royalties is a way to assert the right to share in a book’s future success. Traditionally, royalties have been paid after a book has earned back the advance to the author. This system works well for original authors, for whom royalty percentages are generally higher than they are for translators, but it rarely provides the translator with any significant additional income beyond the initial fee or advance.
To address this problem, the Model Contract offers an alternate royalty clause (see item 5 of the Model Contract), which the Translation Committee hopes will become commonplace in future contracts. In this scenario, the translator is paid a fee for the translation and also receives a royalty payment on all copies of the book sold, whether in book, audio, or electronic form. This would make the translator a “partner” in the publishing enterprise and enable him or her to share in the profits of a particularly successful publication. The Committee feels that such a situation ultimately benefits publisher, translator, and foreign author alike.
Subsidiary Rights
In addition to requesting a royalty on domestic sales of a translation, the Translation Committee recommends that translators also request subsidiary rights in their contracts. These rights may include digital rights, film and television rights, audio book rights, e-book, pdf download and print-on-demand rights, audiovisual rights, merchandizing rights, and dramatic or performance rights. It is important to bear in mind that the future scope (and even the technology) of electronic media is unknown and new developments will likely change the publishing landscape in the future the way e-book readers such as the KindleÓ have changed the way we read today. For that reason, subsidiary rights clauses should include a “future technology” clause that comprises “all media now known or hereafter created.”
Translator’s Name on the Cover and Title Page
The Translation Committee recommends that the translator’s agreement with the publisher include the requirement that the translator’s name be printed on the cover, title page, and flyleaf (or electronic equivalent) of all editions. Of these, inclusion on the title page is the most essential, for the following reason:
The Library of Congress registers all copyrights in the United States. It also supplies essential publishing information to libraries and other databases across the country, and throughout the world, in the form of Cataloging-in-Publication (CIP) Data, which also appear (sometimes in abbreviated form) on the copyright page of a printed book. Whether or not you own the copyright in the translation has no bearing whatsoever as to whether your name, as translator of a work, will serve as an access point in bibliographic research. The Library of Congress’s Rule Interpretation on this point reads:
One of the seven conditions in rule 21.30K1 for making an added entry for the translator of a work is that “the translation is important in its own right.” The Library of Congress applies this condition as follows: Make an added entry under the heading for the translator of a work of belles lettres when the name of the translator appears on the chief source of information of the item being cataloged.
“The chief source of information” here means the title page and only the title page of a book. The name of the translator on the copyright page or acknowledgment page will not suffice. In advance of a book’s publication, all publishers submit a CIP Data Sheet for Books to the Cataloging-in-Publication Division of the Library of Congress. The translator’s name must be listed on the title page of the book, and therefore also in item 5, “Full Names of Authors Appearing on the Title Page,” as explicitly stated in the instructions on the back of the form and in the CIP Publishers Manual. It is clearly in the translator’s interest, during the course of negotiations, to underscore this procedure (see paragraph 11 of the Model Contract).
How Much?
Although historically payment has been calculated on the basis of a certain number of dollars per one thousand words, the Translation Committee recommends that word count be taken as only a starting point in determining the fee for a literary translation. Unquestionably, there is a great deal of room for negotiation here, and many factors will enter into the fee agreed on, including: the publisher’s budget, the experience and reputation of the translator, grant support available to subsidize the translation, the ease with which the publisher can find another translator for the book, and last but not least, the time likely to be required to complete the translation.
Before entering into any agreement with a publisher, translators should weigh carefully the time needed to complete the translation, how much they should be paid to ensure reasonable compensation for their time, and what other opportunities they may have to forego by agreeing to undertake the translation.
How long a text will take to translate depends on more than mere length. A book plainly but poorly written can take more of the translator’s time than an intricate but well-crafted text. A book of high literary quality may require a number of drafts to do it justice. A work of scholarly nonfiction may require a great deal of library research to track exact equivalents of technical terms and sources quoted from languages other than the author’s original one. And of course, the translation of poetry entails special challenges outside the realm of word counts. Translators should be sure to have a clear understanding with the publisher whether any additional tasks, such as abridging, adapting, fact checking, or indexing, may also be expected of them.
Copies
Since most translators prefer to work from a hard copy (in book form if that exists), it is a good idea to specify that the publisher will supply the translator with the original work in hard copy form.
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