I tried to ask for permission to translate a book I am very interested in from its author and publisher but no one answerd me! What do yo advice me to do?
Try again! You have to have permission, otherwise it will becoma a legal issue. You have to acquire the rights (copy right, international law) to the text in order to legally translate it.
As per answer above you MUST get permission if you want to get the book published. If you want to do it for your own sake and do not intend to circulate the material, no one can prevent you from pursuing your interest.
However, if you wish to translate for commercial purposes, your best bet is to write to the publisher of the original version of the book. They are either the owner of the rights or they know who does and will contact them.
Of course, translation rights have a market, meaning there is a price involved with the translation permission.
The usual path is that you contact a publisher that might be interested in publishing that book and, if you are a professional translator you propose yourself to translate the book and get paid by them to do so. They then handle all the copyrights and permissions issues.
Try the author's place of work. Some institutions hold the copyright. Furthermore, check if there was political change, as in the case of Russia and the Ukraine. the copyright may have been transformed to the new country.
Usually, the publisher, the agent of the author, or the author have the rights.
You must contact them, in that order.
Make sure the book has not been published or is not in the process of being translated, a rather tricky thing to do.
In Europe, rights to translate are negociated at the Frankfurt book fair. If you have a chance to go, try it.
Try getting an answer to your letters and mails and if everything fails, use your phone. Ask for the person in charge of negociating rights for foreign books.
Good luck
Abdulqahar use this link http://www.copyright.com to obtain any permission you want. I recently used it and is easier to use.
Rights are also bought and sold at FIL, Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara, the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Guadalajara, Mexico. FIL is said to be the second largest book fair in the world.
There is a Rights Center for 4 days at the Fair. FIL's website has a listing of all the publishers, agents and scouts who will be in the Rights Center according to country with their contact information. You can either make an appointment to meet with their representatives at the fair or contact them to make other arrangements. Typically 130+ publishers, agents and scouts reserve a table in FIL's Rights Center.
The American Translators Association (ATA) has had a table in the Rights Center since 2012 and will be represented again in 2018. he ATA does not buy and sell translation rights, but can assist authors and publishers identify suitable transators.
Although the Spanish < > English market is very well represented, there is also a need for translators into and out of many different -- and sometimes unanticipated -- language combinations; e.g., past requests have ranged from Faroese into English and Catalan into French!.
If you are approaching a publisher, it is probably a good idea to address your missive to the “Foreign Rights Manager” even if a small press is probably too tiny to have a dedicated person for foreign rights since this maximizes the chances that it will be forwarded to the right person within that organization and your mail does not languish in someone’s inbox.
Good Luck.
As far as I know, you can ask the permission to translate a book from the author and the publisher of that book.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Books