I just started translating Ragnarok Conspiracy into Dutch, my mother tongue. It is quite interesting to have to come to the conclusion that while speaking Dutch comes more naturally to me than speaking English, and while my messed up accent leaves no doubt that I am not a native English speaker, when it comes to spelling and grammar of the written language, my writing skills in my own native tongue have declined to a rather low level due to decades of disuse.

I really like the idea of self-publishing my fiction in multiple languages. English, Dutch I can do these myself. But maybe French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Frisian, Afrikaans, Fongbe, Papiamentu and Danish and Norwegian would be cool too. I can understand these languages ranging from just barely good enough to distinguish a translation of my own work from a translation of the Dutch constitution (Norwegian and Fongbe), up to a level where I can confortably communicate (French, German, Papiamantu), but I'm in no way fluent enough in those languages to even dare to consider starting on translating my own fiction to any of these myself.

I'll need to hire a translator. But then marketing? Self publishing means having to do your own marketing, and that is hard enough in a language you have a good grasp on. Without it, ever breaking even on translation costs would be a pipe dream. There has to be a way, a better way to do this with a reasonable chance of at least breaking even on translation cost. Quotes I've had so far for French have been between € 1500 and € 7000 for a work of about 80k words. Given the low end of these quotes is approximately the order of magnitude of the money I made so far from the English version of my book, much of which came from @curie votes on steemit, I don't think even the € 1500 quote would be a wise investment for me, given I need to try to market it myself in a language for example that I'm just barely fluent enough in to enjoy a good comedy show.

My thought now. Who better to do the marketing than the person doing the translation. What If I give the translator skin in the game? My goal: (likely) make a small amount of money from a translation with a smallish loss if it turns out that it doesn't work out. I really don't mind if the translator makes considerably more from the book than I do if things are a success, but I don't want failed translation to set me back € 1500 or more at the risk I wont see more than maybe 1% of that money back. Could I motivate the translator to work on marketing so (s)he could make the better scenario happen, while at the same time limiting my own financial risk?

Today, depending on the channel and country of sale, when I'm not running a promotion, my royalties for a single sale are mostly between €1.- and € 2.-. If (non-promotional) prices are matched for different languages, what I feel they should be, then there should always be between €1.- and € 2.- per sale to divide. Naturally, a translator won't want to be exposed to the risk of zero ROI, there has to be a minimum income for the translator, but a modest one, as good marketing, and high royalties share would benefit the translator more than they would me.

A 100% franchising option

This would be a great option for me, as an author. I don't t pay anything for the translation, but I allow the translator to do a franchised publishing of my book in his or her language. The translator agrees to a small set of franchising terms with respect to format, channels, and pricing and is then allowed to publish his/her translation of my work on all agreed upon collection of channels. I agree not to take on any additional franchise holders for the particular language. In exchange, the franchise holder pays me some modest royalties percentage or amount. For example, a royalties amount I would currently have in mind for the full franchise option would be

• €0.15 or 10% of net channel revenue, whatever is lower for the particular sale.
• No royalties are required on chapters posted on steemit without illustrations.
• Translated chapters posted on steemit using the illustrations made by @marylucy should pay 25% or post-payout as royalties for the artwork.

While this option would be absolutely perfect for me, I imagine the risk of zero revenue wouldn't be all that ideal for the franchise holder.

A partial franchise option.

Imagine the translator wants to take part but not all of the risk. I could provide an alternate partial franchising plan that would still guarantee the translator a bit of income if things ended up not panning out. Let's say I would have normally have gone for one of the cheaper offers in a non-franchising setting, let's say I would have paid €1600, let us also say we are talking about one of the larger market languages like Spanish or French where it would not be unreasonable to assume a total revenue of round and about €1600, similar to that of the English version would be in the line of expectations. In the 100% franchising option for that situation, my income would have been somewhere in between €120 €160 and, so let us say it would have been €140 with zero risks on my side. Now let's say I take 25% of the risk by paying the translator €400,- regardless of the outcome, I would want to get some larger part of the py if things do work out. So let's say using the projection of €1600, I would want to get my investment back plus not €140 but €240, the total amount of royalties I should receive over €1600 should approximate €640 or, to turn it into some nice round numbers:

• €0.70 or 45% of net channel revenue, whatever is lower for the particular sale.
• 25% of chapter-post pay-out for translated chapters posted on steemit.
• Translated chapters posted on steemit using the illustrations made by @marylucy should pay an additional 25% or post-payout as royalties for the artwork.
• Once the total paid out royalties to the author (me) exceed €650, royalties drop to 30%, steemit posts royalties (to me) to 0%.
• Once the total paid out royalties to the author (me) exceed €725, royalties drop to 15%
• Once the total paid out royalties to the author (me) exceed €850, royalties drop to 10%

I'm not sure yet this setup will work, or if any of the channels might see objections with a translator running in a kind of franchise construct selling the translated book, but I really do think skin in the game, franchising type of model would be the only thing that could work for me.

French ? Spanish ?

Are you a competent English to French or English to Spanish translator with a knack for speculative fiction and marketing who feels (s)he is up to a (partial) franchising approach to translation, please comment on this post or drop me a message on Twitter.

Have any other feedback on how to tune this idea in order to make the skin in the game concept for translation of indie published fiction work for me, please drop me a message also.