in particular Russia, where the market for luxury books plummeted after the
currency crash in 1998. Children’s publishers in the region now produce high
quality illustrated books of their own (doubtless influenced by western titles)
and are keen to license rights in their home-grown product.
As a general rule, a first novel by an unknown writer usually proves difficult
to license. Until a writer has become established in the home market
through two or three books, or is perhaps shortlisted for or wins a literary prize,
foreign publishers usually remain uninterested. Once a reputation has been
gained, earlier books may well be picked up. The areas of autobiography and
biography may also prove difficult if the author or the subject is not well known
internationally.
As for children’s books, prospects improve greatly for books adapted for television
or the cinema; Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient was licensed into
some thirty languages. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is available in more
than forty languages. At the time of writing, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code
had also been translated into over forty languages before the film version
appeared in May 2006. However, books can often surprise, as when Irvine
Welsh’s Trainspotting was translated into Japanese at a time when the author
was not well known and before the book had been made into a film; its success
in translation was all the more surprising given its controversial themes and
its use of Edinburgh dialect. Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Monica Ali’s Brick
Lane, with their multicultural view of British society, have also proved successful
in translation. Books which might be regarded as peculiarly British in their
humour can succeed: Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has
been translated into twenty-five languages.
Poetry poses its own self-evident problems. It is difficult to capture the style
and quality of the original in translation, which may limit licensing to the
work of only the best-known writers.
Size may prove a very real problem in placing translation rights. Translation
is an expensive (and often troublesome) way of acquiring a new product;
while a blockbusting novel by Danielle Steele or Maeve Binchy may pose no
obstacles since length is expected and sales success is guaranteed, an academic
book of 750 pages may be a very different matter unless it is on a major
topic or by an author who has crossed the border to reach the general reader
(Ian Kershaw’s two-volume biography of Hitler is an example here). For many
non-fiction titles, the attraction is very often the information rather than the
writer; in many cases there may be strong competition, both from local
publishers in the licensee’s market and from other foreign sources. Gray’s
Anatomy, currently in its thirty-ninth edition and probably the best-known
medical book in the world, weighs in at 1,600 pages but its reputation is such
that there are few problems in placing translation rights, except in markets
where there is strong competition from a long-established local medical
publishing industry. Similar ‘bibles’ in key topics can be licensed, even if they
run to 3,000 pages in a multi-volume set.