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Amazon Dominates Translated Books Industry

December 15, 2015

AmazonCrossing, Amazon’s translation imprint, has dominated the market since its launch in 2010, publishing three times more translated fiction in the US than its nearest competitor, according to the Guardian.

Three times more than the next press. Three times!” Chad Post wrote on the University of Rochester’s Three Percent blog. “[Amazon] makes up almost 14% of all the translations included on their own. That’s incredible.”

Post reported that AmazonCrossing published seventy-five new titles in 2015, whereas the second most prolific publisher, Dalkey Archive, published only twenty-five; in total, presses in the US published five hundred and forty-nine translated titles.

What’s more: AmazonCrossing is outperforming its counterparts in a translation industry that, for the moment, is down. “A few of the presses that did the most translations in 2014 didn’t publish quite as many in 2015, but could easily bounce back next year,” Post said. “That said, it seems like some of the newer presses dedicated to translation fell off quite a bit last year, which could be growing pains.” (See the numbers on Post’s blog.)

Meanwhile, in October, Amazon announced its $10 million investment in AmazonCrossing as part of its “commitment over the next five years to increase the number and diversity of its books in translation.”

“When you look at the number of books that are translated into English ever year, it’s referred to as the 3% problem, that less than 3% of books in English are fiction in translation from other languages,” AmazonCrossing publisher Sarah Jane Gunter told the Guardian. “We felt there was a great opportunity to bring more authors—beloved bestsellers, examples of the contemporary literary canon—from other cultures to English language readers. And we’ve been delighted with the result.”

AmazonCrossing, which has had success with genre fiction in translation, is now looking for proposals for new translations in science fiction, fantasy, romance, memoir, and young adult fiction.

“Although they do publish a handful of high-minded titles, most of the books they’re doing are genre fiction, which is great,” Post wrote. “They’re sort of filling in gaps, since most of the presses doing translation are focused on the Very Literary. Amazon is going after books the common reader wants to read, and they know how to reach these people. In the end, this might expand the overall audience for international fiction.”

Related Reading: Check out the books longlisted for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation and the Translation Prize (for a book-long translation of prose).


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