By Siobhan O’Leary
BERLIN: Thousands of translators across Europe and the rest of the world spend their days and nights scanning their dictionaries and thesauruses for le mot juste, making their living working on everything from novels to air conditioner repair manuals. And while translators, particularly of literary texts, are ultimately tasked with the responsibility of matching the precision and creativity of the original author — no easy task — their compensation is often so paltry, it’s a wonder anyone gets into the profession.
German translators, however, received a bit of a financial boost a few months ago when the German Federal Court of Justice ruled that literary translators are now entitled to claim a percentage of the proceeds of books that sell more than 5,000 copies. As we reported earlier, translators will continue to receive a guaranteed fee — an advance of sorts, usually calculated per page — and when a title sells more than 5,000 copies, the translator will also be entitled to 0.8% net receipts for hardcover books sold and 0.4% for paperbacks sold. Judges also awarded German translators 50% of net revenue on all subsidiary rights sales of their translations (for paperback editions, film rights, audio books, etc.).
The ruling came about after a translator sued a German publishing group for paying her 15 Euros per page to translate two novels from English into German, a fee she felt was inadequate. But according to Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel, chair of the Association of German-Language Translators (VDÜ) — the largest organization of literature translators in Germany, which played a major role in the matter — the court’s decision doesn’t expressly address the issue of page rates, which are notoriously low. And this, he feels, is a huge oversight.
“The Federal Court of Justice verdict sets a legal framework…and it is now up to the translators and publishing houses to reach an agreement,” he said. “It is the mutual task — and I believe in the mutual interest — of the publishing houses and the translators’ association to conclude a remuneration agreement acceptable to both sides.”
As the German translator of the Twilight series, among other texts, and director of the literature program for German publisher Eichborn Verlag, Karsten Kredel certainly sees this development from a very unique perspective. Overall, he is pleased with the court’s decision.
“I do think any legally binding agreement of this sort is a good development for translators,” said Kredel. “While not every publisher (and not every translator in need of a job!) will follow suit, the overall payment for translators will, in my estimate, increase.”
However, Kredel voices concern that translators of highly literary texts (which rarely become bestsellers and which often require a lot more time to translate per page) could be at a relative disadvantage given the standard terms put forth. “I hope there remains room for negotiation with regard to the character of a particular project,” he added.
Schmidt-Henkel echoed that sentiment, noting that translators of difficult works of world literature with small print runs (and less of a chance of selling over 5,000 copies) should not be penalized.
But what does this mean for German publishers, who release over 7,000 books in translation each year? Lübbe — which, as the German publisher of Dan Brown, might have been one of the publishers most affected by this ruling — has actually had translators on staff since 2007. In an interview with Buchreport, Lübbe’s Sales & Marketing Director Klaus Kluge asserted that this stability is a plus, both for the publisher and for the translator (and Lübbe does still work with freelancers as well).
It’s difficult to say whether other publishers will consider hiring full-time translators (or whether it would even save them any money in the long run) but Kathrin Harlass, an advisor to the BDÜ — Bundesverband der Übersetzer und Dolmetscher (the German Association of Professional Interpreters and Translators) — admits that she would not be surprised if publishers tried to find ways to get around the ruling. “It may well be that publishers try to lower the base fee as a compensation for granted royalties,” she said. “No one can tell yet.” The BDÜ is focused first and foremost on technical translators and interpreters and, thus, will play a much smaller role than the VDÜ in the proceedings going forward.
German translators and publishers might want to consider looking to one of their neighbors to the west — the Netherlands…
Dutch literary translators have long worked for royalties (usually for any book selling over 2,500 copies), though some actually choose to forgo royalties in favor of translating more commercial projects (which tend to be negotiated on a flat rate per word basis). Why is that? According to Unieboek publisher Frederika van Traa, Dutch translators “often like doing commercial books. They’re usually quicker to translate and, very important, there’s more income from the libraries.” Yes, Dutch translators also get a cut from the libraries each time “their” book is borrowed.
On the other hand, literary projects do pay slightly more and there is one clear incentive for translators in the Netherlands to take on literary translations. As Caroline van Gelderen of the eponymous literary agency notes, “[commercial] translators hand over all rights to the publisher” while “literary translators are the copyright holder of the actual translation.”
For each country in Europe that has translators, there is yet another compensation model, another set of copyright laws, another definition of what it means to be a literary vs. commercial translator. The Conseil Européen des Associations de Traducteurs Littéraires (European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations) (CEATL) — the main European interlocutor in the field of literary translation — has put together a survey of the comparative income of literary translators in Europe. It’s nearly two years old now, but worth a look to see just how vastly differently translators are compensated all across Europe.
READ: The CEATL report
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Lorraine Shanley
5 months ago
This is terrific info — and great title, too!
Dan S
5 months ago
It’s not translation, but article rewriting requires very good language skills and the pay is outrageously low. One offering asks for someone to rewrite 5 articles a day, at least 500 words per article, at $1.25 per article. $6.25 a day for at least 2500 words? Maybe article rewriters will revolt next?
Tony
5 months ago
Very interesting story. One detail I’d like to have clarified is: what is a page? Page of a book? Typescript page (usually about 250 words)? This doesn’t give us a very good sense of the rate of pay. In some countries, a “page” is an official unit of calculation: 2,000 keystrokes, which you would divide by six to get the number of English “words.” Thus a “page” is 333 words, and three “pages” is 1,000 words. What is considered 1,000 words in the US is thus 6,000 keystrokes. These things are very precise, and are well known to professional translators and to editors. To refer to pages without specifying length or volume seems vague to me. In other sectors of publishing, such as freelance copyediting and proofreading, where a page is used in this vague way, people work on an hourly rate, so the exact extent doesn’t matter. Not so in translation, which is invariably paid by number of words.
Uwe Hirayama
5 months ago
Dear Tony,
as far as pages in Germany for literary translations are defined as ’standard pages’. According to the VDÜ, a ’standard page’ has 30 lines and 1 line has max. 60 strokes.
If a standard page is honored with 15 EUR this will mean 0,5 EUR per line which is the half to half of the half (25%) of the prices non-literary translators do work for.
Anyway, it is extremely low.
Uwe Hirayama
translator for Japanese and German
Tony
5 months ago
Dear Uwe,
that does seem low. It’s the same calculation as in other European countries, a page of roughly 1800-2000 keystrokes. It comes out to 6 cents a word. But the rate you are suggesting, 4 times that, is 24 cents a word. That strikes me as high. Interesting. I’ve seen plenty of non-literary translators working at say twice that rate, not four times.
Siobhan O'Leary
5 months ago
Dear Tony,
Your point is a very good one and one of many variables that the CEATL tried to grapple with in its report comparing translator compensation in various European countries. If you have a moment to check out page 19 of the report linked to above, there is an interesting comparison of actual compensation in various countries on the basis of a “standard” page of 1800 keystrokes.
Many thanks for your comment!
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Martin de Haan
5 months ago
As the CEATL report also points out, there’s a big definition problem in comparing the situation between different countries. In Germany a literary translator is defined as someone translating any work that is protected by copyright. In Holland a literary translator is defined as someone translating “high” literature. So when talking about “the Dutch model”, we should be aware that this only goes for a relatively small group of translators. The other book translators in Holland are in a very bad situation: their basic fee is very low, they don’t get royalties nor subsidies, and indeed they often are forced to “hand over all rights to the publisher”, even if that ca be against the law (because the moral rights, including the right to have your name mentioned and the right to oppose to modifications in your text, cannot be handed over!).
Richard Kwakkel
5 months ago
Unieboek publisher Frederika van Traa states that Dutch translators “often like doing commercial books” because, “very important, there’s more income from the libraries.” I’m afraid that is only half the story, because the extra income from public lending rights does not compensate for the much lower rates.
“We can offer you lower rates, because this book will bring you lots and lots of PLR,” publishers keep telling us. (Actually it should read: “We can force you to accept lower rates, but hey, look at the bright side, there’s still the libraries.”) This is a curious argument. Worse still, it’s a spurious argument, because in this way public lending rights end up being credited to a publisher’s bank account, not a translator’s one.
Last year november Dutch non-literary book translators conducted their own CEATL-type survey. As it turns out, most book translators earn 4 to 5 euro-cent per word or less — against the literary translator’s ‘current and reasonable’ 6.2 cent — and “choose to forgo royalites”. Come december, when PLR management foundation LIRA remits the annual PLR payments, two thirds of the book translators that took the survey have to settle for a 1,000 Euro or less. On an annual production of say 500,000 words this amounts to a whopping € 0.002 per word extra. Read all about it (in Dutch) at http://tiny.cc/ed8ka .
Dutch non-literary book translators do not choose to forgo royalties, they simply have to. Like it or lump it, or ’slikken of stikken’, as they say in Dutch.