Just as Frankfurt Book Fair was getting underway, AmazonCrossing (the Amazon Publishing imprint devoted to translations) announced a $10 million commitment to translating books into English, part of which will fund a new open submissions program. Authors and publishers can now propose a book for consideration by AmazonCrossing across all major fiction genres, as well as memoir.
Don’t confuse Amazon Publishing with self-publishing. Amazon’s fourteen imprints, including AmazonCrossing, are not self-publishing platforms, but traditional publishing operations. AmazonCrossing is arguably the most successful of the group. Translation specialist Chad Post at the University of Rochester has named it the leading translation publisher in the US. Translation, design, and marketing on the ground in-country are part of the AmazonCrossing service—all high hurdles for most authors and for many publishers. As we wrote in the last edition of The Hot Sheet, a good translation of a standard novel can cost up to $10,000.
Bottom line: AmazonCrossing will consider self-published titles as well as traditionally published books. Barry Eisler, H.M. Ward, J.A. Konrath, Catherine Ryan Hyde, and others are being translated by them now. AmazonCrossing’s chief, Sarah Jane Gunter, says their advantages are an author-centric model, their speed to market, and royalties for translators as well as authors.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
