Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of audiobooks, ebooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Self-Publishing in German: How to Translate, Publish and Market Your Books
    Self-Publishing in German: How to Translate, Publish and Market Your Books
    Self-Publishing in German: How to Translate, Publish and Market Your Books
    Ebook253 pages2 hours

    Self-Publishing in German: How to Translate, Publish and Market Your Books

    By Skye B. MacKinnon

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The German e-book market is growing rapidly and readers are hungry for more books - your books.

    Translations are no longer just reserved for big publishers. More and more indie authors follow suit, commissioning their own translations and diving into a lucrative market. It's a logical step for any successful author: you've already written the book, now find new ways to expand your reach.

    In this book, you will learn how to go about translating your book, what to look out for when choosing a translator and what legal issues you have to consider. For example, did you know titles in Germany are protected and you can't use one that already exists?

    Once you have your finished translation, you will have to decide on how to publish the book. Direct with retailers, through a distributor or a mix of both - we'll take a detailed look at all of the options to help you make an informed decision.We'll also discuss how to produce print and audio versions of your book to give you maximum exposure.

    The thing that may be most daunting for authors who don't speak any German is how to market your book. How do you market in a foreign language? Where to get reviews? How do you access retailer promotions? Is there a German version of Bookbub?

    This in-depth guide contains interviews with experts, insider tips from other authors as well as case studies that will help you succeed with your German self-publishing adventure.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPeryton Press
    Release dateJul 31, 2021
    ISBN9781533788689
    Self-Publishing in German: How to Translate, Publish and Market Your Books
    Read preview

    Related to Self-Publishing in German

    Related ebooks

    Language Arts & Discipline For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related categories

    Reviews for Self-Publishing in German

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Self-Publishing in German - Skye B. MacKinnon

      Self-Publishing in German

      Self-Publishing in German

      How to translate, publish and market your books

      Skye B. MacKinnon

      Peryton Press

      Copyright © 2021 by Skye B. MacKinnon

      All rights reserved.

      Cover by Peryton Covers

      Published by Peryton Press

      perytonpress.com

      Skye@perytonpress.com

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

      Contents

      Foreword

      Before we begin

      Introduction

      1. Why German?

      2. My experience

      3. Why you shouldn’t get your book translated

      4. 10 facts you didn’t know about German

      The German Book Market

      1. Statistics

      2. Reading habits

      3. Sales by retailer

      4. Print vs eBook

      5. Indie author survey

      6. Bestseller Lists

      Translation

      1. Which book to translate

      2. Finding a translator

      3. Babelcube

      4. Tektime

      5. Tektime case study

      6. Vetting your translator

      7. Is machine translation any good?

      8. Why you should use a real human

      9. The cost of translations

      10. Contract

      11. Copyright

      12. Interview with lawyer Arno Lampmann

      13. The translation process

      Preparing to publish

      1. Deciding on a title

      2. Title protection

      3. Blurb

      4. Bio

      5. Covers

      6. Interview with cover designer Renee Rott

      7. Selected cover designers

      8. Formatting

      9. Imprint

      10. Impressum template

      11. Metadata: categories

      12. ISBN

      13. Pricing

      14. Paying and getting paid

      Publishing choices

      1. Kindle Unlimited vs Wide

      2. Should I go direct?

      I. Retailers

      1. Amazon

      2. Setting up Author Central

      3. tolino

      4. Apple Books

      5. Kobo

      6. Google Books

      II. Distributors

      7. Should I use a distributor?

      8. Draft2Digital

      9. PublishDrive

      10. Streetlib

      11. Books on Demand

      12. Xinxii

      13. Feiyr

      14. epubli

      15. neobooks

      16. BookRix

      17. Tredition

      18. TWENTYSIX

      19. Bookmundo

      20. Smashwords

      21. Pick and mix

      3. Libraries and subscriptions

      4. Fiction Apps

      III. Print books

      22. Print on Demand

      23. KDP Print

      24. Ingram Spark

      25. Getting into book stores and libraries

      IV. Audiobooks

      26. Why audiobooks?

      27. ACX

      28. Findaway Voices

      29. Finding a narrator

      30. Audio distributors

      31. Hörbuchmanufaktur

      32. Miss Motte

      33. Liberaudio

      Marketing

      1. Promote your book

      2. Price promotions

      3. Retailer promotions

      4. Social media

      5. Blogs

      6. Website

      7. Newsletter

      8. Gifting books

      9. Reviews

      10. Paid ads

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Publishing Dictionary

      Resources

      Foreword

      Dear reader,

      Take a deep breath and let go of everything you know about the book market. You’re about to enter a new, exciting world full of surprises that will make you rethink everything you’ve learned during your self-publishing journey. Well, not everything, but a lot.

      Entering a new market in a new language isn’t easy. You don’t simply hire a translator and publish whatever they give you, then forget about it. Sorry if that bursts your bubble.

      This is going to be hard work. You’re going to have to invest time, money and elbow grease into this process.

      Not that this is news for you, a self-published author juggling writing with marketing and admin tasks. You’ll be used to hiring professionals, outsourcing some aspects of your publishing life while doing others yourself. You’ll be used to constantly learning new techniques that make your writing and your publishing better. You’ll be used to researching solutions to problems you come across.

      You already have the skills you need - you just need to apply them in a slightly new way to succeed with your German adventure.

      This book will guide you through the process, giving you as much information as possible about the entire process, starting with hiring a translator all the way to marketing your book to German-speaking readers. Of course, everyone’s journey is unique. What works for some might not work for you, while you might find successes that others can’t replicate.

      I don’t pretend to know everything. My knowledge has built through trial and error, lots of research, many hours spent trawling through forums and Facebook groups. I’ve made copious mistakes, but I’ve learnt from them and hope you can learn from them in turn.

      I hope this book will help you in bringing your book to a new market - good luck und viel Glück!

      Skye B. MacKinnon

      perytonpress.com

      Free publishing dictionary

      Before we begin

      As you’ll be aware, the publishing world changes all the time. What works this year might be very different next year already. I have tried to keep this guide as timeless as possible and I will update it from time to time.

      Survey: What other authors did

      As part of the research for this book, I did a little mini-survey with other authors who’ve had their books translated into German. Twenty people took part, so while the results aren’t necessarily representative, they are certainly interesting.

      Amazingly, a third of the authors I polled have published 10 or more German translations already - very impressive.

      Throughout this book, I will refer to the results of this survey to give you an idea of what other (successful) authors did.

      Some housekeeping notices:

      While this book is about publishing and marketing German-language book, it doesn’t focus on only Germany as a country. However, to keep things short, I will occasionally call all German-language marketplaces the German market. To avoid confusion, I will always highlight if something is specific to Germany alone.

      For some services, I mention prices. These are of course subject to change. You’ll often have to add VAT (19% standard, reduced to 7% for some products and services including books).

      This book will touch on several legal issues like copyright, contracts and imprints. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t claim to be one. While I have done my best to make sure that everything is correct, I can’t guarantee it and always recommend consulting a (German) lawyer if you have questions.

      Many of the websites I link to are in German - I always clearly label them as such. I recommend using Google Chrome’s inbuilt translation feature to browse those sites, although of course other browsers and software have similar options.

      This book is written in British English.

      All links to service providers and resources are working at time of publication, but of course there’s no guarantee they will still be operating in a year’s time. If you find a broken link, please email me at skye@perytonpress.com.

      Please note: Some of the links to products and services in this book are referral links, which means I might receive a small percentage of a potential sale at no extra cost to you. Most of these links are clearly labelled as referral links.

      Introduction

      1

      Why German?

      In 1440, a German goldsmith called Johannes Gutenberg started a revolution.

      Until this moment in history, books had been restricted to the church, the nobility and the wealthy. They were copied by hand or by woodblock printing, making them inaccessible and unaffordable for the masses. Gutenberg’s invention, a mechanical movable-type printing press, changed that, allowing the mass production of books. In a day, the Gutenberg press could print several thousand pages, compared to forty by hand-printing and just a handful when copied by hand.

      The invention would alter society forever. Suddenly, information transcended classes and borders, aiding the spread of new ideas and threatening the power of religious and political authorities.

      Books gave people power. With rising literacy, education was no longer restricted to the elite. The printing press fed the growing Renaissance and later instigated the scientific revolution.

      From Germany, the printing press spread across Europe. Authorship became important. Storytelling and oral reading for families and groups turned into private reading, just the book and its reader. The first bestsellers emerged. Philosopher Erasmus sold over 750,000 copies of his works during his lifetime.

      Several centuries later and Germany is still the home of avid readers. Germans spend the second-most in Europe on books, newspapers and stationary, 1.6% of household expenditure (second only to Slovakia). In the US, it’s only 0.146%.

      In 2019, the German book market was worth 7.63 billion Euro (4.6 billion of that was fiction) - more than twice as much as in the UK and more than three times as much as in Spain or Italy (should you be considering those languages for translations).

      The average German spends 5.7 hours a week reading (less than Australia, same as the US, more than the UK) and reads 8-10 books a year.

      Wouldn’t you want one of those books to be yours?

      Good news for you: 14% of newly released books in German are translations, almost two thirds of them from English. Readers are used to translated books - however, this also means they expect them to be just as good as books written in Germany. They will be hard on you if your translations is bad, and I mean, really hard. We’ll talk more about how to make sure your translator is up to scratch later.

      2

      My experience

      Time to tell you a little bit about my own translation experience. I write both romance (as Skye MacKinnon) and books for children (as Isla Wynter), which gave me the opportunity to experiment with translations for several genres.

      At this point I should probably mention that I’m bilingual and grew up in Germany. I experienced the German book market (and the library!) as a book-hungry child and teenager, so I’ve seen it from the consumer side. After leaving Germany, I lived in several different countries before settling in Scotland over a decade ago. All my books are written in English and I only knew the English-speaking publishing world before embarking on the quest to have some of my books translated.

      Speaking German has certainly helped me immensely - but I didn’t do my translations myself. My grammar isn’t what it used to be (as my grandma likes to tell me) and even if it was up to scratch, I simply wouldn’t have had the time. Translating a book can take as long as writing it or even longer. But if you now think that you won’t have a chance if you don’t speak German, don’t worry. There are ways around this and we’ll talk about all that in detail.

      Back to that quest. I started my translation journey in late 2018 and after a lot of research and planning published my first translation in March 2019. It was one of my picture books, which made it fairly fast and cheap - perfect for learning the ropes, exploring different retailers and discovering how marketing differed from what I was used to. When I saw how well the book was selling,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 16