Songs of Heartstrings: Poems of Gratitude and Beatitude in Spanish and Portuguese

Posted on March 5, 2020 by Miriam Hurdle 37 comments

I’m excited to announce that Songs of Heartstrings: Poems of Gratitude and Beatitude is translated into Spanish and Portuguese. They are available on Amazon, Barns & Noble, Kobo, Tolino, and other channels.

Here are the book covers of the translated versions, Spanish & Portuguese, in that order:

I would like to share with you the process I took to have the book translated.

Selling my book globally and in many languages

I wanted to have my poetry book translated into different languages. This idea came to me before the book was published in October 2018. One member in my Poetry for Pleasure class had her poetry book published in English-Spanish duel languages side-by-side. The formatting was a little tricky because she wanted to have the entire English poem, even the long ones, on the even number page so the Spanish translation would be on the odd number page. At the time of publishing my book, I just wanted to focus on getting it done.

Six months after the publication, I saw the Spanish translation and the Chinese translation of one of Olga Nunez Miret’s books. After the inquiry, she introduced me to Babelcube: Taking Books Global. https://www.babelcube.com I started to study their services and the process of book translation.

This is the Home page screenshot: Bbc Home page

I clicked Learn More… and got the following page:

How it works

By clicking How It Works, it takes me to the steps:

Ensure you hold the rights for translated versions of your book

Make sure that you hold the rights for the translated work. If you have signed a contract with a publishing house or if you represent an author, make sure that you hold the rights to publish a translated version of the work and which territories these rights apply to.

Create an account, including your profile

Create an account at Babelcube, if you have not already done so. Provide as much detail as possible, as this will let translators get to know you, including your writing career and past successes. This will be your “business card” to help translators find you.

Post profiles of books you want translated

Post a book profile for every book that you want translated. Be sure to include information about its sales potential, including track record such as sales figures, sales ranks, reviews, customer comments, prizes won, and other useful information. You can also submit a short (2,000 character maximum) sample text from your book, which translators can use to provide a sample translation.

Select translation offers, then initiate the translation process

You will receive offers from translators. Often translators will work as a team, one being the primary translator, the other being the editor and proofreader. Each offer will tell you the destination language and estimated time for the translation. If you included a sample text from your book, a sample translation will typically be included to help you gauge the quality of the translator(s) (if you don´t speak the destination language, you may have a friend who can help).

Pick an offer. Browse through offers you receive and profiles of the translators. Once you find an offer that you like, review and accept the Translation and Distribution Agreement so that translation work can start. You will now need to upload your book and any additional material that needs translating.

Review the first pages translated

When the first ten pages have been translated, you will have the opportunity to review them and make suggestions to the translator. If at this point you feel that the quality of the translation is poor and you cannot get the translator to improve it, you can cancel the project with no penalty.

Review the final translation

Once the translation is complete, you will have the opportunity to review it and ask for changes. If you wish, you can use a professional proofreader to assist you. If you decide you don´t like the translation and can´t reach an agreement with the translator, you may cancel the assignment, but a cancellation fee may apply.

Prepare your book for distribution

Babelcube will enable you to convert the book into the different file formats for the various sales channels, publish it, and update things like pricing. Babelcube will distribute your book to all its channels that support the book’s language. Babelcube’s 300+ sales channels include the global online retailers, such as Amazon and Apple, and local retailers specializing in regions. You can request assistance from the translator(s), as desired.

Promote your book

Now the fun part! Let everyone know that there is a translated version of your book available. Promote it through Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Enlist the help of the translator(s) to help you reach the local media and social networks in the destination language.

You can also use innovative strategies; for example, if you have books in a series, you can use the same translator for the series and offer the first book permanently free, hooked readers will then buy the rest of the series. If you want to follow a strategy like this, include it on your books’ profiles within Babelcube so translators know.

Receive royalties

You can follow your sales at Babelcube. You will receive a royalty statements and payments. Translators will also receive their corresponding share. You can see how the royalties are split on this page.

A few highlights:

On #3 – Post profiles of the books you want translated. This is what it looks like.

On this book profile page, I included two poems for the translators to translate as samples when they offer me their services.

On #4 – I didn’t go through 2,000 translators to select one. I let the translators approach me by viewing my author and book profile. After three months, a Spanish translator approached me with the two poems translated into Spanish.

After reviewing the translation and waited for a couple weeks, I decided to confirm his offer. He translated the first 10 pages and sent them to me. After I approved, he took less than a month to finish translating the book.

On #7 – Since my book is a poetry, it took me a while to format the book the way I wanted it plus translated the book cover, and then uploaded to Babelcube. I set the price for them. They then published the book on different channels. If I don’t want to do this part, I could pay for their services to have it done.

These are several of the channels: