Book Translation Services
Book translation from $0.09 a word, or $7,200 for an 80,000-word novel. A native speaker translates your manuscript and a second native speaker checks it against your original, with no machine draft at any stage.
French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Arabic cost more to translate well, so those pairs are quoted on your manuscript.
- From $0.09 a word
- Two native speakers
- No machine drafts
One translator, one language, from your actual manuscript
Two people touch your book, and only two: a native speaker of the target language who has translated books before, and a second native speaker who checks the work against your original. Nothing is split across a pool of freelancers to hit a deadline.
The translator
A native speaker of the target language whose experience is in books, which read very differently from documents or websites. A translator used to manuals produces sentences that are correct and lifeless. One person takes the whole book, start to finish, so the voice holds steady at chapter nine.
The second reader
A second native speaker reads the translation against your original, looking for what the first pass missed: a joke that vanished, an idiom rendered literally, a character whose register slipped halfway through. This is the pass most cheap quotes leave out, and it decides whether the book reads as written or as translated.
What lands in your inbox
- A clean manuscript file in the target language
- Ready to go straight into formatting
- Front matter, chapter headings, and back matter translated
- Source files, yours to keep
Front and back matter is the single most common thing missing from a cheap delivery, and the first thing a reader in that language notices.
Rights
The translation is yours. Full rights, no royalty share, and no clause tying the foreign edition to us. That matters more here than anywhere, because a translation you do not fully own is one you cannot license onward.
Not included: typesetting. Translated text runs 15 to 20 percent longer than English, so the interior has to be laid out again rather than dropped into the existing file. It is quoted separately and costs little next to the translation itself.
What a translated book costs, ours and everyone else’s
Translation starts at $0.09 a word, which is $7,200 for an 80,000-word novel, per language. Spanish, German, and Italian are priced from that rate. French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Arabic are quoted on your manuscript, because those pairs cost more to translate well.
Here is where that sits against the market, for an 80,000-word novel.
At the bottom of every human range, and well above every machine one. A translation that costs less than a restaurant meal was not done by a person, and one that costs three times ours is usually being sold through two layers of agency.
What a marketplace average really is
A marketplace average reflects past projects, not a price you can book. The translator at the bottom of that band is often the one with the fewest published books and the most availability, and commission usually sits on top. You find out where your project lands after shortlisting and sample chapters, while our number is on this page before you contact anyone.
Why the cheap end is so cheap
A tool will translate a novel for a few dollars, and that is a different product, not a scam. Machine output is useful for checking what a foreign edition says or testing whether a market exists. It is not a publishable literary translation, and the next section shows where it breaks.
Not in the price: typesetting the translated interior, and an optional proofread in the target language. Neither is expensive next to the translation, and any quote that skips them covers only part of the job. The book cost calculator prices the whole picture against your word count. The new edition also needs a cover with its translated title, and book cover design starts at $199. Translate only a finished, edited English text, because every change made after translation is paid for twice.
The AuthorWings Specialist Network
Translators.
Showing 2 professionals
TranslatorDiane GaroVetted TranslatorI translate your books
FranceEnglish, Spanish +1I am Diane, a professional English and Spanish to French literary translator and proofreader, with a Master's Degree in Translation and more than 15 years of experience as a freelancer. I have translated and reviewed over 50 books (fantasy, suspense, cozy mystery, romantic comedy, etc.)…Literary translationEditing of translated textProofreading15 years50 booksView profile →
TranslatorLinda GausVetted TranslatorLiterary fiction, Non-fiction
United StatesGerman, English (US)Native speaker of US English with a Ph.D. in German (literature) from the University of California, Berkeley, and over 25 years' experience as a freelance DE-EN translator. My most recent translation is of Martina Hefter's 2024 German Book Prize-winning novel, "Hey, Good Morning, How Are…Literary translationLocalizationEditing of translated text26 years25 booksView profile →No one matches these filters.
Choosing your specialist: Standard pricing assigns the best available specialist for your genre. Named Specialists, including professionals with bestselling titles to their name, work to their own schedules, so their pricing and start dates are confirmed on your consultation call.
Where a $390 translation breaks
Machine translation handles grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure better than most people expect, and for testing whether a market exists it is the right tool. We will tell you that on the call.
It breaks in four places on book-length work, and every book has at least two of them.
Consistency
A model translates in chunks and has no memory of what it chose forty pages ago. In a novel a name or recurring phrase drifts. In non-fiction the same concept arrives under three different words, and the reader loses confidence in the argument without knowing why.
Idiom
English is dense with expressions that mean nothing literally. Rendered word for word, a business book’s “move the needle” or a self-help book’s “sit with it” becomes nonsense or an instruction the reader cannot follow. A mistranslated how-to book is simply wrong.
Register
People signal class, age, region, and mood through word choice, and a machine flattens all of it to one neutral tone. Dialogue ends up sounding dubbed, and in non-fiction the author’s voice goes with it, which is much of what that reader is buying.
Cultural anchoring
References, examples, humor, units, currencies, and legal or tax specifics. A model translates the words and leaves the reference pointing at nothing, so a German reader gets an anecdote about a US retailer they have never heard of, or tax advice that does not apply.
Why the hybrid pitch costs more
Machine translation with human post-editing sounds efficient, and it works for functional prose. When the writing carries voice or the argument depends on precision, the editor is rewriting against a draft that has already made hundreds of small wrong choices, and undoing a wrong choice takes longer than making the right one. Authors who buy the cheap version often pay twice.
Our position
We do not use it. No machine draft and no post-editing pass over model output, on any book. A native speaker translates the manuscript and a second one checks it. Our AI policy covers how this works across every service.
Translate the book, or pitch the foreign rights?
A translated edition is a whole book, and the rest of it does not translate itself. Before you pay for a translation, check which of these three situations you are in.
You already have readers in that country
Buy the translation
- Readers there are asking for your book in their language
- A series spreads the cost across several books
- Your business already operates in that market
Steady sales and reviews in English, no presence there yet
Pitch the foreign rights
- A foreign publisher licenses the book and normally pays for translation, editing, cover, and marketing
- They pay you an advance and a royalty
- Agent commission and legal fees are paid by you directly
No sales history anywhere yet
Build the English edition first
- A translation has no reviews and no audience to launch into
- Publishers look for sales and reviews before licensing
- Traction in English is what both paths depend on
Rights pitches are fee-for-service, and AuthorWings claims no rights or royalties from any deal that follows. Full terms are in book publishing add-ons. Unsure which situation fits? Tell us the market and what you already sell there. That conversation takes ten minutes and has talked more than one author out of a $7,200 invoice.
Which markets are worth translating into
The number of languages a company covers tells you little. The real question is which market will read your book, and for English-language self-published work four markets come up again and again.
Spanish
From $0.09 a word
The usual first choice: the largest readership relative to cost and the deepest translator pool. Spain and Latin America are separate markets with separate storefronts, so decide which one you are writing for before anyone starts.
German
From $0.09 a word
Germany, Austria, and much of Switzerland, and common for self-published non-fiction. Some German readers already read English and may own the original, so the edition partly competes with your own book.
French
Quoted on your manuscript
France, Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec, and much of West Africa. Consistently the most expensive European pair in every rate survey, so plan on a higher figure than a Spanish quote.
Japanese
Quoted on your manuscript
A large market with a strong reading culture. The pair is harder and the translator pool is smaller, so it costs meaningfully more and is a serious commitment rather than a test.
Italian is priced from $0.09 like Spanish and German, and Portuguese is a reasonable second step, with Brazilian and European Portuguese as separate markets. Korean, Chinese, and Arabic are all viable and sit at the higher end, so we quote them individually.
Before you choose
Genre matters more than population. Romance, thriller, and self-help travel well in every market above, literary fiction is harder everywhere, and humor is the hardest thing to move across a language. If your book leans on wordplay, tell us on the call, because it changes which translator the book goes to and the quote. If you already sell in a market, that sales data is better evidence than anything in this section.
What has to be rebuilt after the words change
The translation is a manuscript, not a finished book. Whatever you had before is built again in the new language, and how much work that is depends on the format. Tell us which formats you are producing, because it changes the quote more than most authors expect.
| Format | What changes | What it means for the quote |
|---|---|---|
| Ebook | An EPUB reflows, so longer text is not a layout problem. Metadata, table of contents, headings, and front and back matter are translated and rebuilt. | The easiest case, quoted from word count |
| Print interior | Translated text runs 15 to 20 percent longer, so a 300-page paperback can become 350 pages, changing spine width and printing cost per copy. | Laid out again. See book formatting |
| Illustrated and fixed-layout | Picture books, cookbooks, and workbooks, where words sit in a designed space. German text will not fit the box that held the English. | Quoted on the design files, not the word count |
| Textbook and reference | Indexes are rebuilt, because an index is alphabetical in the target language. Cross-references, captions, tables, and glossaries move with the text. | Extra work beyond the prose, quoted per title |
Publisher and rights-holder work
Most of this page is written for an author with one book. For a small press, an imprint, or a rights holder with a backlist, the work is the same and the arrangement around it is different.
Volume changes the economics
A backlist of eight titles going into one language is one glossary, one style sheet, and one translator who gets faster and more consistent with each book.
Consistency across the list
Series characters, recurring terms, and house style have to hold across books translated months apart, which is a project management problem as much as a translation one.
Schedules run to your calendar
If a title has to reach a foreign distributor by a catalogue date or sales conference, the schedule is built backwards from it.
Clean rights and provenance
You get clear title to the translation you commissioned, in a form your contracts and foreign licensees will accept, with no royalty share.
Pricing for a list is quoted rather than taken from the per-word rate. Send the titles, word counts, and target languages, and we will come back with a schedule and a number.
Send your listWhat happens after you get in touch
Five steps, and the second one is the decision point. Many authors who ask about translation are better served by a rights pitch or by building the English edition first, and that takes a ten-minute conversation rather than a quote.
- I
Send the manuscript
Word count, target languages, and the formats you are producing are enough for a quote. For illustrated or fixed-layout books we ask for the design files too.
- II
Talk to a specialist
Someone who asks what you already sell in that market, whether the book stands alone or belongs to a series, and what you want the edition to do. If a rights pitch fits better, you hear that on this call, before any invoice.
- III
One translator takes the whole book
Start to finish, so the register holds from the first chapter to the last.
- IV
A second native speaker checks it
Read against your original for anything the first pass missed: a vanished joke, a literal idiom, a slipped register, a term that drifted.
- V
You get the manuscript back
Clean and ready for formatting in the target language, with front matter, headings, and back matter translated. Full rights, no royalty share.
Timelines depend on the language pair and the translator’s availability, and illustrated or technical work takes longer than straight prose. You get a delivery date with your quote.
What authors ask before they commit to translation
Straight answers on cost, quality, and whether translation is the right purchase.
How much does it cost to translate a book?
Professional human book translation runs from about $0.066 to $0.20 a word, depending on who you use. AuthorWings starts at $0.09 a word, which is $7,200 for an 80,000-word novel, per language. Freelance marketplaces average $0.066 to $0.132 with commission, agencies run $0.08 to $0.20, and the Society of Authors puts UK publisher rates near $0.13. Machine platforms charge a few hundred dollars for a novel, but the output is not publishable as a book.
How much does it cost to translate a book into Spanish?
At AuthorWings, Spanish is $0.09 a word, or $7,200 for an 80,000-word novel. Spanish is the least expensive professional pair for English-language books because the translator pool is the largest, and across the market it typically sits around $0.06 to $0.12 a word. Decide first whether you are writing for Spain or Latin America, since they are separate markets and a translation aimed at one reads slightly oddly in the other.
What is literary translation, and how is it different from standard translation?
Literary translation carries voice, rhythm, register, and humor across a language, as well as meaning. A standard or technical translation is judged on accuracy, while a literary translation is judged on whether the book still reads as the author wrote it. The difference shows in dialogue, idiom, and jokes, none of which survive a literal rendering, which is why book and document translation are priced and staffed differently.
Do you use AI or machine translation?
No. There is no machine draft and no post-editing pass over model output, at any tier. A native speaker of the target language translates the manuscript start to finish, and a second native speaker reads the translation against the original. Machine translation breaks on book-length work in four places: consistency, idiom, register, and cultural references such as examples, currencies, and tax specifics.
Should I translate my book or sell foreign rights?
Translate when you already have readers in that country, a series that spreads the cost, or a business there. Pitch foreign rights when the book has steady sales and reviews in English but no presence in that market: a foreign publisher that licenses it normally pays for translation and production and pays you an advance and royalty. A pitch costs $3,495 a region, and most pitches do not result in a deal. With no sales history yet, build the English edition first.
Which language should I translate my book into first?
Spanish, more often than not, because it has the largest readership relative to cost and the deepest translator pool. German is common for self-published non-fiction. French covers several markets but is the most expensive European pair, and Japanese is a large market that costs meaningfully more. The best answer is wherever you already have sales, because that is evidence rather than a guess.
Can you translate a textbook or a technical book?
Yes, and it carries work beyond the prose. Indexes are rebuilt, because an index is alphabetical in the target language, and cross-references, figure captions, tables, and glossaries move with the text. Religious and academic titles work the same way, where established terminology matters more than style. Textbooks and reference works are quoted per title rather than from a word count.
What file do you need, and what do you get back?
Send the manuscript in Word or another editable format, with the word count, target languages, and the formats you plan to publish. You get back a clean manuscript in the target language, ready for formatting, with front matter, chapter headings, and back matter translated. For illustrated or fixed-layout books, send the design files too, since the word count does not describe that job.
Do you work with publishers and rights holders?
Yes. A backlist going into one language is one glossary, one style sheet, and one translator who gets faster and more consistent with each book. Series characters, recurring terms, and house style have to hold across titles translated months apart. Pricing for a list is quoted rather than taken from the per-word rate, and schedules are built backwards from your catalogue dates.
Start with a ten-minute conversation
Tell us the market, what you already sell there, and what you hope a translated edition will do. That is enough to work out whether translation is the right purchase and what it would cost. If your book is better suited to a rights pitch, or to building the English edition first, you will hear that first.
Before you commitNo pressure
- The marketWhere you want readers, and what you sell there now
- The right pathTranslation, a rights pitch, or neither yet
- The quoteA price and a delivery date in writing
You own the translation outright, with no royalty share.
A mutual NDA is available before the call on request, you keep 100% of your rights, and nothing is signed until you decide.
