One of my game's fans has become an informal associate of mine; he did editing and development work for a supplement, but was paid only in his listing in the credits, my sincere thanks, and a tiny stipend that I gave him after publication that was not part of any prior arrangement.

He has now expressed interest in translating the manuscript of the core rules into Spanish for publication.  I am very much in favor of the idea and we have discussed splitting profits of the completed work.  He is willing to do marketing on Spanish internet forums and maintain a Spanish Google group.

As I said, I very much want to do this, but thought I'd gather some data first.  Any problems or complications I should be aware of before beginning?

Thanks in advance.

Well, I've translated Don't Rest Your Head to Hebrew. But there weren't any special complications there.

ODDin wrote:
Well, I've translated Don't Rest Your Head to Hebrew. But there weren't any special complications there.

It wasn't published on paper. It's sold via DriveThru RPG and I also sell CDs with the PDF on them. The legalities were mostly me asking Fred Hicks for a permission.
That said, it's mostly based on trust. Had I really wanted to steal Fred Hicks' money, I could have.

Hi,

I've found two basic ways to work with translations and international publishing. The first is kind of like a marriage: you and the "other guy" effectively join forces in some way, and your own company's scope is now twice as big as it was. You have more-or-less a bi-national, hybrid company, and yours (the original) collects royalties from the new one.

The other way is more like outsourcing: the translating company acts as its own publisher, paying you a lump sum for the use of your material, for a limited number of copies. If it works out, you renew it for another round of copies at some realistic copy count. This is what I do with Narrativa, for instance.

Either way works, but they represent different kinds of investment and attention and economic outcomes.

Best, Ron

My plan was to publish the translated book myself and pay the translator royalties.

Hi,

I guess it could go that way too - in this case, the translator is more like a layout or other production-freelancer. The same decision applies, too, whether to go with royalties or with a flat fee. In fact, now that I think about it, this is what I did (or am doing, rather) with Spione - I contracted translation as a service. In that case, I paid a flat fee. As you can probably see, I prefer straight-up payments whenever possible. But the royalties approach is definitely an option.

Best, Ron