Why translation isn’t magical: What you MUST know before you translate your book into English…

The US market needs diverse books, and that includes the voices of those who live elsewhere, speaking other languages, and living different lives. It’s also great that authors are willing to invest money, time, and effort. If you believe that strongly in your book, there’s a chance it can succeed.

But not if you rush into submitting it the second it’s translated into English.

Working as a translator for the last four years, unfortunately, I’ve met many writers who believe that all it takes to break into the U.S. market is to translate their book into English and sit back waiting for offers to roll in.

Unfortunately, translation isn’t a magic bullet that’s going to shoot your story straight into the heart of an agent or publisher.  And even if you self-publish, having your story translated into English is not a guarantee of success.  It’s not a magic wand that you wave to let those big US bucks start rolling in.

So I want to ask you to pause, just for a second, and ask yourself: Is my book ready to translate? Am I giving it the best possible chances of success?

Here are three issues you might want to consider first.

1. Physical expectations

Be absolutely certain that you know what publishers in the U.S. market are expecting. The standard for picture books is 32 pages, and word count ranges between 600 and 800 words (plus or minus). However wonderful your book is, if it doesn’t look and feel like what they’re expecting, agents and editors will be far more likely to say no without giving you a fair chance.*

To be submission-ready, your book should also be in “bare naked” format—a plain font like Arial or Times New Roman, 12 points, double-spaced, with no fancy graphics. Understand the basics of English punctuation, which may be different from what you’re used to. Sure, your translator should know this, but

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How to create home-run stories with a perfect pitch sentence

I’ve talked before about the importance of the “pitch.”  This is a single sentence you can haul out whenever anyone asks you to describe your book.  Here, I’m going to give you my secret “formula” for creating awesome and compelling pitch sentences.

But first – why do you need a pitch?

• For talking to agents or editors, if you ever get a face-to-face meeting
• For including in your cover letter
• For chatting with friends and other children’s writers
• For writing your back-cover synopsis if you’re self-publishing

Most importantly, though, the pitch helps YOU. 

If you can’t sum up your picture book in a single sentence, you’re either trying to cram too much into your story, or you don’t have a clear enough idea what it’s about.

So here’s my secret formula – and it’s actually

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Be grateful for editors!

Yesterday, I got the phone call I was dreading – a call from my EDITOR.  I spent half an hour on the phone yesterday with the person in charge of editing my next children’s book, and I have to admit, I had been dreading her call for a while.

I got an email from her when the book was first accepted by the publisher (yay – details to come, I promise!) saying, basically, “We love your book, but naturally, we’re going to have to make some changes to the text.”  Which is their prerogative, right?  I can’t force them to publish my book as-is, no matter how much I love the text, so my best bet if I want to be published is to roll with things.

So.  I was prepared to roll with things.  But that doesn’t mean I was looking forward to her call, in which we would “discuss the changes.”

Ugh.  Did she not realize how much I’d sweated over every single word of that story?  Written, revised, erased, gotten it to the point where it was just about perfect?

Let me tell you – I didn’t feel particularly grateful about the spectre of her call.

When you read a commercially-published book, you’ll often see a bit at the beginning or the end where the author thanks her family, her agent, and then her editor (or editors).  I always took that part for granted until I started working as a novice journalist and working with editors who actually hacked and slashed and carved up my writing to find the most important points within it and bring those to the fore. 

And at first, dealing with those editors, what I felt was mostly ingratitude.  How dare they tell me how to write?  Isn’t writing supposed to be an art form?  And if so, would they swipe their red pens across a Degas or Van Gogh if they didn’t like what they saw on the canvas?

I was being – feel free to slap me now – frankly ridiculous.

Oh, I was gracious enough.  I wanted to keep making money and getting published, so I rolled with it, like I said, and even said “thank you.”  But I wasn’t feeling it.  Oh, boy, was I not.

But gradually,

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The Bare Naked Manuscript: how to format your story for submission

Is your manuscript naked?

If it is – give yourself a hand.

If it isn’t, or if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read on… I’m going to give you in a few simple steps explaining how to get naked – and why you MUST, if you want to give it a chance of success with agents and editors.

Before you send out that manuscript, hold on a second… take a minute to make sure it’s naked.  By which I mean absolutely clean and clutter-free, ready for an agent or editor to take one look and say… YES!

Who wouldn’t want that?  Yet many writers I’ve known spoil their manuscript by adding things, covering up its nakedness.  Trust the agent; trust the editor.  They’ve handled more books than you’ll ever write, and they’ll be able to see your story’s potential even without the fancy touches.

Even bare naked.

Here’s a quick and easy checklist to make sure your book is as naked as possible before you send it out:

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