What it costs to translate a nonfiction book

Published per-word rates

Three sources publish book translation rates. They measure different markets, so read them together.

Reedsy's per-word figure for the 80,000-word average is our division. ATA medians are for "Standard Translation Rate: Per Word (Source Text)"; respondents per pair: German 11, Spanish 26, Japanese 8, French 5. The ATA says its data "should not be viewed as representative of the entire translation and interpreting field."

What moves a quote, in Reedsy's words: "the language pair, the genre, the complexity of the book," the translator's experience and the type of contract. Reedsy adds that translating into English "is typically slightly higher." The EFA's chart shows the opposite at the low end (6 cents into English against 12 from English), which is a reminder that these are different samples, not one market price.

Check one detail in every quote: whether the count is of source words (your English) or target words (the translation). The ATA reports both, and its medians differ (for English to Spanish, $0.14 a source word and $0.13 a target word). A quote on source words lets you know the price before work starts.

Totals at 50,000 and 70,000 words

Our arithmetic: rate times word count, translation only.

Length is the one variable you control. Every 10,000 words you cut before translation saves $600 at 6 cents and $1,900 at 19 cents, in every language you add. So the cheapest moment to tighten a book is before the first translation, not after.

The EFA chart also gives a pace for translation from English: 1 to 2 pages of 250 words an hour. A 50,000-word book is therefore 100 to 200 hours of translating, and 70,000 words is 140 to 280 hours, before any editing. That is useful for judging an hourly quote, and for planning: a translation is weeks of one person's work.

Editing the translation

A translation needs the same second pair of eyes as the original. Reedsy says translators on its marketplace deliver a "ready-to-publish" translation, "often partnering with a colleague, who edits and proofreads their work," and suggests asking "Does the quote include proofreading," and whether it covers the blurb and other marketing copy (Reedsy).

If the edit is separate, the ATA survey gives a reference price: a median "Rate for Translation Edits" of $0.06 a word for English to Spanish (16 respondents) and $0.05 for English to German (7), in 2019. On 50,000 words that is $3,000 for Spanish and $2,500 for German. English-language editing rates, covered in the editing costs guide, are a different market and do not transfer to the target language.

Two ways to check quality without reading the language:

• Ask for a sample first. Reedsy suggests asking shortlisted translators for a sample of 250 to 300 words, and having a fluent friend or reader compare styles.
• Send the translator your own glossary. Names of your frameworks, product terms and anything that must stay in English. Nonfiction lives on consistent terminology, and the glossary costs nothing.

The rest of the new edition

A translated book is a new edition with its own production costs:

• ISBNs. "Each different language edition of a book will need its own ISBN" (International ISBN Agency), one per format. Bowker charges $125 for one or $295 for ten; KDP's free ISBN covers its print books only, and KDP ebooks need none. See the ISBN guide.
• Layout and ebook file. The translated text is laid out again. At EFA rates, a 140-page book costs $700 to $1,050 for print and $263 to $613 for the ebook. Recount the pages from the translated file rather than reusing the English count. For a text-only book, the free tools in the ebook conversion guide work in other languages too.
• Cover text. The title, subtitle and back cover copy change. We found no published rate for adapting an existing cover; ask your designer to quote it.

Put together, a 50,000-word Spanish edition looks like this:

Our arithmetic, before cover changes and marketing in the new language. The calculator, set up for the fuller column's production lines, shows the $1,783 of layout, ebook and ISBNs; it has no translation line, so add that yourself.

Reedsy's own advice is to hire a translator only "if you expect to be able to recoup the cost of the translation in book sales," usually once the original is selling and finding readers abroad. A nonfiction author with clients, talks or a team in the other language may recoup it differently, but the test is the same: who will read this edition, and how will they find it?

Machine translation and KDP's rules

Machine translation costs little or nothing, and the professional bodies are clear about its limits. The American Translators Association says machine translation "can have hallucinations, which are mistakes or omissions," and that its output "should always be reviewed and edited by a human translator" (ATA). Reedsy notes some translators will edit AI output, while many advise against it and say editing it "can be just as time-consuming" as starting from scratch.

If you publish on Amazon, KDP's content guidelines set four rules that bear on a translation (KDP):

• A translation "must credit the translator and the original author in the contributor field."
• You must tell KDP about AI-generated content, including translations. A translation made by an AI tool counts as AI-generated "even if you applied substantial edits afterwards."
• "Content that is poorly translated" is on KDP's list of disappointing content it does not allow.
• Facing-page translations, with one language on the left page and another on the right, are listed as unsuited to Kindle (KDP).

Kindle Translate. Amazon now offers its own option. Kindle Translate is "a free service in beta," invite-only, for eligible KDP ebooks. From English it translates into French (France), German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish (Spain). It makes ebooks only, not print or audiobooks; you can preview but not edit the translated text; and a translation is offered only if it passes Amazon's "7-step quality assurance threshold." The source must be a reflowable ebook, not a preorder and not already a translation. Amazon lists business and self-help books among content that translates well, tables and graphs among what may not work well, and text inside images and book subtitles among elements it cannot translate (Kindle Translate FAQ, eligibility, languages, quality). If your book is invited, it is a no-cost way to test demand for an ebook in another language before paying a translator for print.

Contracts, rights and the cheaper route

The US Copyright Office lists a translation as a derivative work, and says "only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, an adaptation of that work" (Circular 14). If a publisher holds your translation rights under contract, check with it first. When you hire a translator, settle who owns the translation in writing: a translation is one of the commissioned works that can be a work made for hire, but only "if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them" (Circular 30). Reedsy lists "Who will retain copyright of the translation?" among the questions to ask. This is general information, not legal advice.

One line on the other route, which this guide does not cover: when a foreign publisher licenses your book, its editor acquires the rights and hires the translator (Poets & Writers), so the translator works for that publisher, not for you. Steve Susi's Scribe Media success story, for example, reports a "Korean edition": "The book earned a translation deal" (his story; Scribe Media makes this site). One author's result, not a typical one.