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How could anyone be happy while being a cog in the machine that is the global capitalist system of oppression?
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Dec 21, 2015 22:59
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Burning Rain posted:I've been writing, translating, editing, selling and promoting books (not at the same time). all good stuff for little money, but I'm not going to another field again. hth i'm happy for you
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Dec 21, 2015 23:31
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blue squares posted:But did you like it? I'm not sure. It's well written and interesting but it's also very humorless. I'll have to read the rest of the book before I make a judgement but if it continues like the first hundred pages I'd say it's a good book but not for me. It's like if Jonathan Franzen wrote a Thomas Pynchon novel if that makes sense.
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Dec 21, 2015 23:33
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Burning Rain posted:I've been writing, translating, editing, selling and promoting books (not at the same time). all good stuff for little money, but I'm not going to another field again. hth how hard is it to get into translating? There's a French crime novelist I'm really into and I have a few of his books that don't have any existing English edition, I am planning to translate them as an exercise, but I was also thinking that if the results are good enough I might try to sell the translations to a publisher... the author himself is not hugely popular but also not hugely obscure and one of his books was recently "adapted" into a big budget movie with Sean Penn (it's a horrible movie that is nothing at all like the book.) I'm just saying there's some interest in the author.. 3 of the 4 English translations of his work that do exist are published in that really nice NYRB series and I think they do ok commercially. And the books are really loving good. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Dec 22, 2015 |
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Dec 22, 2015 01:22
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the idea of translating sounds super cool and something I think I'd love to do if I wasnt an idiot monoglot.
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Dec 22, 2015 03:58
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Earwicker posted:how hard is it to get into translating? There's a French crime novelist I'm really into and I have a few of his books that don't have any existing English edition, I am planning to translate them as an exercise, but I was also thinking that if the results are good enough I might try to sell the translations to a publisher... You can just send out like two to five page samples of your translation to see if there's any interest. That's how they're generally picked up.
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Dec 22, 2015 09:20
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Ras Het is right, although I've generally done longer samples (around 3000 words). Do a couple, polish the hell out of them, then check in the 3% database to see which publishers might be interested in this kind of stuff (actually, might be worth doing this before beginning a translation) and fire it off along with a CV of some sort. Previously published translations even in magazines count for a lot more than almost any education though, so be sure to highlight them. If you don't have any, read some French literary mags/websites until you find a story you'd like to translate and offer it to a translation-focused English-language magazine/website to get some credentials going. You can also get in touch with Institut Français - I'm sure they have a program to help translators from French. If nothing else, you might get an opportunity to participate in some sort of networking event, which would help with contacts/advice. If you get in a large-ish book fair, Gallic Books might also be worth getting in touch with (although they don't accept pitches from translators apparently). Generally you can just walk up to their place and start talking. Also, AmazonCrossing should be more open to new translators. If the author is being published by NYRB, it's highly likely they have a plan and a translator for him already, however. I'd focus on a bit more obscure/niche stuff in the beginning, which would set you apart, as there must be quite a few established French -> English translators. For me it was pop-science translations that helped me break in the field, because I'd worked as a journalist for a few years, doing science pieces among other things. I still had to do a few lovely diet/new age books not to starve when I first switched to translating full time, but I managed to smuggle some stuff of my choice in there, and now it's gotten much easier. Burning Rain fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Dec 22, 2015 |
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Dec 22, 2015 10:07
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Zesty Mordant posted:the idea of translating sounds super cool and something I think I'd love to do if I wasnt an idiot monoglot. Try to learn a new language it's difficult byt v rewarding
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Dec 22, 2015 13:32
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STupid babies that don't even have theory of mind can learn languages, and you can too!
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Dec 22, 2015 13:45
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mallamp posted:But whole concept of jobs is to do bullshit so you can spend some time not doing bullshit while others do their share of bullshit
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Dec 22, 2015 14:31
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CestMoi posted:Try to learn a new language it's difficult byt v rewarding I originally took a semester of French because I was required to take a language, and I wanted to read more Agota Kristof (though I suppose I may have been making a big assumption that her books would even be in print in French) Except I realized I hated French. Then I took Japanese. I liked Japanese grammatical structures. Then I switched to Spanish because it complements my life choices better, but I find it less interesting. If I had enough time to take Japanese at the same time I would though. Language rocks and everyone should take a language or three.
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Dec 22, 2015 15:45
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I translate two languages into a third one for a meagre living
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Dec 22, 2015 15:59
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Ras Het posted:I translate two languages into a third one for a meagre living The best kind of living! (which languages?)
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Dec 22, 2015 16:36
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Burning Rain posted:The best kind of living! English and Portuguese into Finnish, but I'm in subtitling i.e. the salt mines
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Dec 22, 2015 16:49
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The Luminaries is kinda boring so far But the audiobook of A Little Life is fantastic. blue squares fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Dec 22, 2015 |
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Dec 22, 2015 17:00
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If you think Dickens is poo poo you won't like Luminaries, I got the same comfy vibe from it
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Dec 22, 2015 17:31
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Ras Het posted:English and Portuguese into Finnish, but I'm in subtitling i.e. the salt mines an acquintance of mine was doing it for a bit, and she was always looking for more subtitling b/c it paid more than straight-up translating. maybe it's cuz the company was based in the uk and it paid low uk wages, which is a lot in latvia. anyway, if you want to move into doing books or magazines, it's golden for your cv
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Dec 22, 2015 17:45
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Burning Rain posted:Ras Het is right, although I've generally done longer samples (around 3000 words). Do a couple, polish the hell out of them, then check in the 3% database to see which publishers might be interested in this kind of stuff (actually, might be worth doing this before beginning a translation) and fire it off along with a CV of some sort. Previously published translations even in magazines count for a lot more than almost any education though, so be sure to highlight them. If you don't have any, read some French literary mags/websites until you find a story you'd like to translate and offer it to a translation-focused English-language magazine/website to get some credentials going. Thanks for the info! Actually I misremembered and only 2 of the 4 books of his that have been translated are published by NYRB, the others are City Lights in the US and Serpent's Tail in the UK (same translator but I don't know who got the rights first). In any case I was planning to go for this particular author first more as an exercise than anything else but just thought I might see about selling the stuff if I can do a good job with it.. I'm sure you are right that there are a lot of established French -> English translators already. It's not something I'm looking to do full time, I just thought it might be fun and a way to make a couple extra bucks from time to time.
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Dec 22, 2015 18:13
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Burning Rain posted:an acquintance of mine was doing it for a bit, and she was always looking for more subtitling b/c it paid more than straight-up translating. maybe it's cuz the company was based in the uk and it paid low uk wages, which is a lot in latvia. anyway, if you want to move into doing books or magazines, it's golden for your cv Yeah no my job is fine, just that most subtitlers are severely underpaid freelancers, and churning through 58 episodes of Trick My Truck isn't exactly Chapman's Homer
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Dec 22, 2015 19:35
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Earwicker posted:Thanks for the info! well, you can have a look at magazines/websites anyway. maybe he has done some short stories or something. it'll give you a taste of doing translations, improve your language and might be good for the future. they probably won't pay you though - not in the beginning at least. Burning Rain fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Dec 22, 2015 |
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Dec 22, 2015 20:17
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Okay guys there is an entire subforum for this. Creative convention.
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Dec 22, 2015 20:55
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Burning Rain posted:well, you can have a look at magazines/websites anyway. maybe he has done some short stories or something. it'll give you a taste of doing translations, improve your language and might be good for the future. they probably won't pay you though - not in the beginning at least. Translating is both really fun & cool for improving your writing. EVerything I write is really bad, but it's a lot better than it could be if I hadn't spent like a month desperately trying to come up with a translation of Sensation by Rimbaud that didn't sound terrible.
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Dec 22, 2015 23:27
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blue squares posted:Okay guys there is an entire subforum for this. Creative convention. oh for sure man, we can't have an actually interesting discussion going on in here.
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Dec 23, 2015 00:32
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Oh hey, book forum hipsters 
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Dec 23, 2015 14:02
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-Troika- posted:Oh hey, book forum hipsters If a hipster is someone who likes different things than you, then who isn't a hipster?
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Dec 23, 2015 14:51
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Nanomashoes posted:If a hipster is someone who likes different things than you, then who isn't a hipster?
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Dec 23, 2015 16:10
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-Troika- posted:Oh hey, book forum hipsters Hey now only some of us like Calvino
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Dec 23, 2015 16:17
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Calvino is pretty goony though.. Real hipsters would read something like Tao Lin before he was popular, Infinite Jest the year it came out (but so over it now), random quirky poetry by 19-year-old girls who got accpeted to lit magazines, Lydia Davis and stuff like that
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Dec 23, 2015 20:06
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mallamp posted:Calvino is pretty goony though.. Real hipsters would read something like Tao Lin before he was popular, its pretty hard to get goonier than "Tao Lin before he was popular" considering he is literally a goon who posted in this very forum trying to promote his books, before he was popular.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:26
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Calvino owns gently caress you
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Dec 23, 2015 20:38
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Is he popular though? I have literally never seen his name mentioned outside of internet forums, usually with people bitching about him. Can you even go in a reasonably sized bookshop and expect to find Tao Lin's books there?
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Dec 23, 2015 20:41
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Burning Rain posted:Is he popular though? I have literally never seen his name mentioned outside of internet forums, usually with people bitching about him. This probably says more about you than it does about Calvino. He's obviously not a current bestselling author but he has remained consistently popular and influential on the literary side of things for quite some time, his books are frequently taught in college courses and recommended by other famous authors etc. especially Invisible Cities and If On A Winter's Night A Traveller quote:Can you even go in a reasonably sized bookshop and expect to find Tao Lin's books there? Yes. Taipei in particular is pretty easy to find.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:43
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Earwicker posted:This probably says more about you than it does about Calvino. He's obviously not a current bestselling author but he has remained consistently popular and influential on the literary side of things for quite some time, his books are frequently taught in college courses and recommended by other famous authors etc. especially Invisible Cities and If On A Winter's Night A Traveller I think he was talking about Tao Lin there
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Dec 23, 2015 20:48
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oh I see. I mean he's not popular in a household name kind of way but he gets a decent amount of media attention from mainstream sources and some of his books do pretty well, in the context of their particular category
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Dec 23, 2015 20:52
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Huh, interesting to know, thanks (yes, I meant Tao Lin)
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Dec 23, 2015 21:04
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Can we ignore the literal idiot's opinions about Calvino and forums user mallamp
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Dec 23, 2015 22:55
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So I had to stop listening to the audiobook of A Little Life and buy a hardcover instead, because while the narrator of the audiobook is so drat good, I hear the book gets pretty emotionally intense later on, and I don't feel like crying while running and listening to a book. So my new audio book is the first of Elena Ferrante's 4-part series of "Neapolitan Novels." It's great. The prologue is a very interesting mystery and the first childhood scene, with the rock throwing, is a twist on a classic male youth story. Anyone else read any of these? I think it might be the first Italian novel I have read. I've been to Naples, where it is set, which is cool.
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Dec 23, 2015 23:14
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Burning Rain posted:Is he popular though? I have literally never seen his name mentioned outside of internet forums, usually with people bitching about him. Can you even go in a reasonably sized bookshop and expect to find Tao Lin's books there? My Barnes and Noble had Taipei and Eeeeee last year when I went to buy them.
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Dec 23, 2015 23:41
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Was he the Hemingway for the hipster age?
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Dec 24, 2015 00:34
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Was he the Hemingway for the hipster age? That's Hemingway
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Dec 24, 2015 00:46
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