Tag Archives: translation

Published: August 26, 2011

Fanmail Q&A: Why does it take so long to translate the book?

Greatings Mr. Rothfuss,

My name is Daniella, and I´m a big fan of yours although i´ve only read The name of the wind wich brings me to my question, why does it takes so long that the wise man”s fear is published in spanish?

you see, I´m from México, and my english is not all that well, so, I can´t read it in english, besides, I think a book is more enjoyable in your own native language, anyway, all I want is to be able to read it I hope it comes out soon please Mr. Rothfuss do not forget your Spanish-speaking fans.

Daniella, I’m sorry to say that I don’t know when my book will be out in Mexico.

I know it sounds silly to say, but I don’t know the exact dates my books are published in a lot of countries. The Wise Man’s Fear is being translated into about 30 languages, and I don’t keep track of them all very closely. I only know it’s coming out in Spain on November 3rd because it says so at the end of the trailer I posted up last week.

But I’ll tell you what. I’ll look into it, and I’ll see if I can get an estimated time of publication for book two in all the different countries, then I’ll post it up here in the blog, link it in the FAQ, and update it whenever I get news from some of my publishers.

Sound fair?

In the meantime, Mondadori, my Spanish publisher, has set up a page for the book in… well… Spanish. It could be the information you’re looking for is over there.

As for your second question… well, you’re not the only one who is curious about that.

Pat,

I am one of your many fans in Spain and I am perishing out of waiting for your book. I love the first one! Can you please say when the second does come out in my country?

I would read your English copy but my English is not enough to read your book. Why must the translating be so long?

I know it is a big book. But it is months now. I know, it is not so long. But I am 17, and it seems a long time for me.

Would you please answer me back? Please?

Maria,

Maria and Daniella and dozens of others have e-mailed me, asking this question.

So here we go.

There are several reasons it’s taking a long time to The Wise Man’s Fear.

  • Translating things is really hard.

I’ve talked about this in a previous blog, but it really bears repeating.

So I repeat. Translating things is really hard.

  • The Wise Man’s Fear is very, very long.

Obscenely long. Almost 400,000 words long.

How long is 400,000 words?

Well, if you mashed together the first three Harry Potter books, then threw in The Hunger Games, too. It still would still be less than 400,000 words long.

Yeah. The Wise Man’s Fear is long. Really, really, long.

  • My books are a pain in the ass to translate.

Why? Well….

1. My names.

Names are important things. And real names, names that actually exist in the world, don’t make a lot of literal sense. This is because real names tend to accrete and evolve over time.

I work hard to create real-seeming names for things in my world. Names that give a strong impression without actually saying anything. Names like Mincet lane, and Cricklet, and Downings.

These real-seeming (but in reality made-up) names sound really good in English, but they’re a huge pain to translate.

2. I have an odd turn of phrase.

If you haven’t noticed, I tend to make a lot of anormal word usements.

Take, for example, the very first page of the book when I say, “It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.”

How do you translate that?

It’s the sort of thing that, if taken literally, makes absolutely no sense at all. Flowers, with rare exception, do not make sound. Sounds are not sentient, so they can’t be patient.

Stuff like this is a bitch to translate.

3. I rely heavily on implication in my writing.

Or, to put it another way, I try to imply more than I explain.

I do this intentionally, as I believe it makes for a more engaging reading experience. While he’s narrating, Kvothe rarely says something clear-cut and expository like, “Wilem obviously thought I was a fucking idiot.”

Instead, Kvothe describes what Wilem says and does. Maybe Wil makes a sarcastic comment. Maybe he looks disproving. Maybe he raises an eyebrow.

If I do my job right, it should be abundantly clear what Wil thinks of Kvothe. Best of all, it has more of an effect on the reader because you see it and know it for yourself, rather than having it poked down your throat by a narrator.

But it’s a delicate thing. And it’s hard to translate.

Because  I’m aware that my book is a pain in the ass. I try to make myself available to the translators. Since I have over thirty, I’ve set up a forum where they can all come, ask questions, and read the answers that I’ve posted up in the past.

Last night, for example, I answered about 20 new question on there. So far, there’s about 300 question-and-answer threads. The FAQ we’ve compiled is more than 60 pages long.

Here’s an example of the sort of thing that comes up fairly regularly in the forum:
[Fair warning: What follows involves a discussion of some minor events very early on in book two. There’s really nothing spoilerish in there. Nothing is given away. But still, if you haven’t read it yet, and you’re an absolute non-spoiler purist, I thought I’d warn you.]

*     *     *

Dear Pat:

In the middle of page 47, during the exchange between Kvothe and Kellin, it reads:

“Outside his field of vision, Denna rolled her eyes at me.”

Just a few lines below, you can find:

“You’re too kind,” I said, and gave her a much more earnest bow than the one I had given to Kellin. She rolled her eyes at me this time.”

That made me wonder if, in the first sentence, maybe it was meant to be “Denna rolled her eyes at him” instead.

Thanks,

Gab

_____________________

Gab,

Ah. This is just an issue of ambiguity in the language.

In the first line, the “at me” means that she rolled her eyes with the intention of Kvothe seeing her do it.

In the second line, “at me” means “because of me” AND that she had the intention of Kvothe seeing her do it.

I didn’t abbreviate the first use to “Outside his field of vision, Denna rolled her eyes.” Because the implication there is that Denna is just being bitchy at Kellin and Kvothe sees it accidentally. That implies that Denna really doesn’t like Kellin and she’s hiding it from Kellin.

But “Outside his field of vision, Denna rolled her eyes at me.” makes it clear that Denna is doing this for Kvothe’s benefit. The interaction is between Kvothe and Denna. She’s effectively engaging in clandestine communication with Kvothe, saying, in effect, “Yeah, he’s full of himself. But what are you going to do?”

Technically, she’s rolling her eyes *at* Kellin *to* Kvothe. But that reads so poorly that it almost doesn’t make any sense.

Does that help?

pat

_____________________

Yes, it does, thank you.

I’ll try to use two different prepositions or to reword one of the sentences a bit to reflect this.

Thanks,

Gab

*     *     *

Now on the surface, this might seem like a small thing. But it has fairly big implications.

It’s just a small piece of body language. And it can be clarified with a different preposition or two. Just a couple words.

(A couple words out of the 400,000 you need to translate the whole book, mind you.)

But if it’s done wrong, the whole scene takes on a different feel.

Written one way, Denna is sharing a private joke with Kvothe. It shows a connection between them.

What’s more, it shows that Denna knows the guy is a bit of an ass, but it’s not that big a deal. Since she’s making fun of it, it’s obviously nothing too serious. It shows that Denna has her eyes open, and, ultimately, that she’s in control of the situation.

Lastly, it shows her relationship with Kvothe is much more intimate than with this other guy. First, because she’s engaging in some clandestine communication with Kvothe. But more importantly, when Kvothe is a bit of an ass and she rolls her eyes at him, she lets Kvothe see it. That shows that she trusts Kvothe more than she trusts Kellin. She’s teasing him, and it shows that she considers Kvothe a friend.

(Did I mention the whole implication thing? That I kinda do a lot of it? Yeah.)

If the scene is written the other way: if Denna rolls her eyes at Kellin and Kvothe just happens to see it, that’s an entirely different type of interaction.

That implies that Denna really doesn’t like Kellin. It shows Denna being passive-aggressive and implies that she’s two-faced and spiteful.

Even worse, it could imply that Denna is afraid of Kellin. That, in turn, implies a whole lot. If Denna is on the arm of a rich man that she hates and fears, that paints a really horrible picture of her life.

Witness the double edged sword of implication. When it works, it’s great. But it can go dangerously astray at times.

And, of course, all of this is made ten times more important because this is Denna’s first scene in the book. The impression she makes on the reader now will carry forward through the whole book.

And you know what I just realized? Now that I think of it. All of the important things Denna communicates in that first scene are done non-verbally.

So what’s your point, Rothfuss?

I said it before, and I’ll say it again.

Translation is tricky.

pat

P.S. Signings in MI, this weekend. Just in case you hadn’t heard.

Posted in naming, the craft of writing, The difference between 'slim' and 'slender', the man behind the curtain, translation | By Pat86 Responses
Published: December 11, 2008

The Perils of Translation: Babelfish.

Alright folks, while I’m dealing with the aftermath of the fundraiser, here’s a question from the mailbag.

Pat,

You’ve mentioned your translators on your blog before, generally in glowing terms. I don’t really see what the big deal is. You wrote something great. You made something out of nothing. But they’re not doing that. They’re not really making anything, they’re just…. copying it.

Plus, don’t you think that what they do is rapidly becoming obsolete? They already have programs that can translate languages. One wonders why they bother having people translators at all.

Your fan,

Steve

At first, Steve, I thought you might be pulling my leg with this e-mail. “Nobody could really think translation was easy,” I thought to myself. “He has to be putting me on.”

Then I realized that I’ve been having a crash course in the perils of translation over the last year and a half. And I remembered that most Americans are pointedly, painfully monolingual. And I remembered one of my friends saying as a joke, “How hard can it be to learn French? French babies do it all the time….”

So I’m going to take this question at face value, Steve. The truth is, translation has got to be one of the hardest jobs there is. Period.

First off, you have to be fluent in two languages. Not just kind of fluent, but *really* fluent. You need to understand the culture of the language you’re translating from, and the idiomatic speech.

Like what I said up there in my first paragraph. “Pulling my leg” is an idiom. It doesn’t mean what it actually says. If you’re pulling my leg, it mean you’re playing a joke on me, teasing me.

There are a thousand little things like that stand in the way of true fluency, and you can’t just copy them over into the new language and have them make any sense. For example, if I said, “You have a bird,” in Germany, I’m not actually saying anything about a bird. What I’m actually saying is that you’re crazy.

Secondly, you have to decide if a translation is going to be true to the letter of the work, or true to the spirit of the work.

What do I mean by this? Well… I’m reminded of what one of my favorite professors said when I asked him which version of the Odyssey I should read. I was looking for the best translation, and I trusted him, because he had a good old-fashioned classical education and could actually read Latin and Greek.

“It’s not really an issue of the best translation,” he said. “My old classics professor used to say, ‘a translation is like a woman. It can be beautiful, or it can be faithful, but it can’t be both….'”

Sexism aside, I think this strikes to the heart of the issue. A word-by-word translation is going to be clunky and awkward. But a beautiful one isn’t going to actually say the exact same thing as the original. A translator needs to walk that fine line between. Or rather, they have to dance madly back and forth over that line.

And as for translators being replaced by computer programs? I give a hearty laugh. Translation is not a science, it is an art. And as such, it belongs solely in the realm of humans.

Most everyone knows about Babelfish. Let me show you what something looks like when I use that program to translate something from English to German and back again. If this were as simple as plugging numbers into an equation, we should end up with the same thing we started with, right?

Here’s a paragraph most of you probably recognise:

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.

After Babelfish.

I stole princesses back of sleeping truck kings. I burned down the city of Trebon. I spent and with my reason and my life left the night with Felurian. I was away-driven of the university at a recent age, than most people are inside permitted. I step ways by moonlight, which others are afraid, in order to speak during from the day to. I spoke loved women and written Lieden, who let the Minnesänger cry with Gods.

They can have heard of me.

And that’s using German, a language so closely related to English that if they were people, it would be illegal for them to get married.

Look what happens when you do the same think with a language that’s *really* different, like Japanese:

I stole the king woman from wheelbarrow king of sleep. I burnt under the town of Trebon. I passed the night of Felurian, my sanity and went away with my life both. I was discharged rather than being able to allot most people from the university of a younger age. I the other people between day step on the road with the moonlight which is feared in order to speak concerning. I God, to the song by the document which makes the woman and the wandering minstrel cry who are loved spoke.

It can inquire about me.

Yeah. I think the translators’ jobs are safe for another year or two.

pat

Posted in Ask the Author, Fanmail Q + A, foreign happenings, my oracular impulse, translation | By Pat72 Responses
Published: October 22, 2008

I’m Kind of a Big Deal (in Germany)

So the German edition of the book came out just a couple of weeks ago.

(As always – guest starring my thumb)

The book has serious heft. Good paper. Good binding. It is, in a word, gorgeous.

Holding this book in my hand made me realize that over in Germany, they consider my story fairly high-class. It make me realize that over there, I might even be considered literature.

There have been hints of this all through the publishing process. First, the publisher itself is very prestigious. (So they tell me.) Klett-Cotta carries very few fantasy authors, including luminaries like Tolkien and Peter S. Beagle. Klett-Cotta also assigned a very skilled translator to the job, which is always a good sign that they’re taking things seriously.

But that’s not what convinced me I might be thought of as literary over there.

Another big indicator was when someone from Germany came out to interview me. My first thought was, “Who did this poor guy piss off at work? How low on the totem pole in do you have to be before they send you to interview some newbie fantasy author in Middle-of-Nowhere Wisconsin?”

But it turns out the interviewer was Denis Scheck. I didn’t know it while the interview was taking place, but he’s actually a celebrity over in Germany. You know how Siskel and Ebert were celebrities because they reviewed movies? Well over in Germany, apparently, they care about books. Because of this, they also care about the people who read books.

Yeah, I know. Weird.

Anyway, while I didn’t know this guy was a celebrity, I figured out pretty quickly that he wasn’t there because he was getting punished. He was there because he was really, really good at his job. I’ve done a lot of interviews over the last year, and I’ll admit that by the time he showed up, I’d gotten a little blase about it.

But when he started talking, I realized he was playing the game at a whole different level. He was really clever, talking about things no interviewer had ever brought up before, asking questions I’d never been asked. Asking questions that I’d never even *considered *before. I remember at least one occasion where my answer was: “Wow. That’s a great question…. I have absolutely no idea how to answer it.”

If you’re interested (and can read German) his review is up over here. Or if you’re monolingual like me, you can click on the link *below* the interview to see a video clip of Denis talking about the book on his television show. Personally, I thought it was pretty cool even though I only know enough German to catch about a third of what he’s saying.

But back to my previous point. Even after I found out who Denis Scheck was, I didn’t realize that over there my book might be considered literary.

The fact that they converted my author photo black-and-white was a good indicator….

(Click to embiggen)

Why? Because black-and-white is classy. It’s arty. It’s posh. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fond of my blue photo. But you have to admit that it makes me look like a Muppet, or a character out of a Harry Potter movie. But in B&W I look, if not distinguished, then withing spitting distance of respectable.

Or within spitting distance of being the sort of person who would never use the term, “within spitting distance.”

Still, none of these things are what convinced me. This is what did it:

That’s right. One of those built-in ribbon bookmarks. So genteel. So suave. Nothing screams sophistication like a ribbon bookmark. It’s the textual equivalent of wearing a silk smoking jacket and speaking with an Oxford accent. It is, in fact, dead sexy.

Today, my friends, I join the ranks of the literati.

Go me.

pat

Posted in being awesome, cool things, foreign happenings | By Pat66 Responses
Published: September 23, 2008

A New Edition to the Family

It goes without saying that becoming a published author has changed my life.

If someone were to ask how, specifically, I’d probably mention one of the big things. How surreal it is when people recognise me in public. Or when I show up to a reading or a signing and there are dozens of people there. I could mention how I travel a lot more now, or the fact that I can spend up to 5-6 hours a day just keeping up with my e-mail correspondence.

But truthfully, one of the thousand small changes has been how I feel about getting the daily mail.

Up until about a two years ago, when all this publication stuff started, my mail was pretty normal. Most of it was junk: fliers, credit card applications, cupons. The stuff that wasn’t junk was usually unpleasant, like bills or notifications about my student loans.

Yeah sure. On some rare occasion something nice would show up. A card from mom with some cash in it, mail order something-or-other, a letter from a friend. But those were few and far between.

But now I love to get the mail. Every day is like a potential Christmas. I get all sorts of cool things. I get foreign contracts that I read and sign and mail back. I get free copies of books sent to me with the hope that I’ll read them, love them, and blurb them.

And I get checks in the mail. I won’t lie to you, that’s really cool. A lot of my life I’ve been pretty poor. Not *really* poor, of course. But student poor. I spent 11 years as a college student, and there were a lot of times when I was broke, the next paycheck was three days away, and the credit card was full. I’m sure a lot of you have had similar times in your life.

I remember getting sick once, and not having enough money to buy aspirin or orange juice. Another time, I remember digging through my cupboards, examining the cans of weird food. The food that you have left because you hate it. I remember thinking, “How old is this can of vegetable barley soup? Will it kill me?” Once I got behind on my rent and my landlord burst into my little one-room apartment, waking me from a dead sleep and threatening to throw me out onto the street.

Fast forward to now. Sometimes I pick up my mail and there’s a check in there. A check for money. A check for money that I didn’t even know would be showing up. Best of all, it’s money that I don’t immediately need for something, like paying my overdue phone bill, or buying groceries, or settling a debt with a friend who lent me a little bit to get by.

But perhaps even cooler is when things like this show up without my expecting it:

(Click to Embiggen)

I didn’t know the Danish version of the book was close to being finished. I’d never even seen the cover until I opened the envelope a couple days ago and found this inside.

I think this is translation number… six? Let me think, so far I’ve had editions in the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Japan… Number five then. Six will probably be the German version that’s coming out later this month. I’m excited to see that one too.

Later all,

pat

Posted in foreign happenings, My checkered past, translation | By Pat36 Responses
Published: July 2, 2008

The German Edition.

The German version of The Name of the Wind is coming out soon. Check out the cover.

(Click to Embiggen.)

Though it happened a while back, this German deal was kind of a big deal. The publisher that’s handling it in Germany doesn’t do much fantasy, just a very few authors like Tolkien and Tad Williams. So the fact that they bought my book gave me some much-needed respectability that helped us make some other foreign sales. It also was nice knowing that they take their stuff very seriously, and would do a good job with the translation and publication of the book.

German is the only language other than English that I know anything about. But honestly, I can’t claim to be anything other than illiterate in my second language. I can remember a few phrases, like, “Gleich um die Ecce,” “Wennigsten functionieren die wasserliedung!” and “Ich habe zu vielen affen spielen im meinem obenboden.”

Other than that, I have a bunch of nouns and verbs rattling around in my head, but my ability to string them together grammatically is really non-existent. Combined with my horrible spelling, I’m guessing that what I’ve written up above is barely German at all. And more like that language twins use to speak to each other.

My German non-literacy was really driven home to me when I read the title and thought, “Des. Des…. does that indicate the nominative case?” Then I realized I couldn’t even remember what the nominative case was. In fact, I’m pretty iffy as to what a case is at all, nominative or otherwise. This pretty much shatters any hope I had of ever reading my own book in another language.

It was a nice thought while it lasted.

Later all,

pat

Posted in book covers, foreign happenings | By Pat36 Responses
Published: June 26, 2008

Japanese Covers

So just a couple days ago, guess what came out?

(Click to Embiggen)

That’s right – It’s the Japanese version of the book.

I really like this interpretation of Kvothe. He’s young. He’s got some attitude going on. His hair is more manga than I typically picture it, but it’s totally appropriate for the Japanese market. Plus, Kvothe himself says, “When left to its own devices it tends to make me look as if I’ve been set afire.” So there you go.

This translation of the book was different in a lot of ways. For one thing, bringing the book into Japanese is much more difficult than, say, Dutch, or German. Not that every language doesn’t pose its own problems. But there’s just a lot of different cultural things going on, and the languages aren’t really similar at all.

I’m guessing it’s partly because of this that instead of one, I had a team of three Japanese translators working on the book. They were really great. They asked a lot of good questions, and included me in the decision making process. I like it when the translators ask questions or press me for clarification.

You see, when I wrote the book, I made a point not to over-describe everything. I also tried to make the book very full… of stuff.

Yeah. That’s great. My book is full of stuff. They should put that on the cover: “The Name of the Wind – It’s full of stuff.”

What I mean is that I didn’t want to club the reader over the head with everything. My strategy was to make sure that every page had enough cool things in it than if you missed half of them, you’d still have a good time. That means there’s stuff for you to enjoy the second time around. That means you can like the book in a different way than your friend. And it means if you’re a careful reader, you’ll get more out of the book.

So I’m fine if the average reader doesn’t get everything I put into the book. I expect that. I planned on it.

But if a translator doesn’t notice something that I’ve put into the book very subtly, that’s different. If they don’t catch it, it can’t be brought into the new version. And that’s a problem, obviously. But these translators were really on the ball, and I’m guessing that not a lot slipped through the cracks with them.

There’s another big difference in the Japanese edition. Apparently big, thick books aren’t really the norm over there. So they broke this first book into three separate volumes. That means three separate covers for the first book….

Nice hands. Can you tell what scene this is?

And number three. Check out the draccus in the background. I would not want to fuck around with that thing.

I’ve been reading the comments and suggestions for future contests, and my gears are slowly turning. But more on that later. For now, I’m off to write.

pat

Posted in book covers, cool things, foreign happenings, the craft of writing | By Pat52 Responses
Published: March 4, 2008

Italian Style – Part Two.

Okay, before we do anything else, I feel like I should mention that I’ve updated the TOUR SCHEDULE part of the page. Over there you’ll find a list of some conventions/readings/signings/etc that I’ll be doing this year.

Of particular note are my two appearances in St. Paul this weekend. I’ll be appearing at two separate libraries, one on Saturday, the other on Sunday. It’s free for anyone to attend. I’ll sign books if you bring them, and there will be books there to buy…

More events will be posted in the weeks to come. Seattle folk – I’ll be out near y’all over Easter weekend. I’ll be posting those details soon.

Okay. On to business.

Response to the Italian cover was every bit as varied as I expected. But there was rather more of it than I’d thought there would be. Since there were a lot of good comments and questions, I decided that I’d do a follow-up post to clarify a few things.

Points of interest and/or clarification.

  • The art is done by a guy named Brom.

I didn’t know about him before someone made reference to the cover as Brom-art in the comments of the last blog, but I have seen his stuff before. Mostly on D&D books back in the day….

Side note: I am currently working on a theory that once you reach a certain degree of fame, you get bumped up to a new quantum energy state wherein you only need one name.

This is easier to achieve for artists (Donato, Brom) and musicians (Sting, Madonna).

It’s much rarer for authors. I suspect they need way more energy, like electrons in different valence shells. So for writers, only the SUPER elite have enough juice to make the jump (Cervantes, Tolkien, Shakespeare, Chaucer).

  • Brom’s website is OVER HERE if you’re interested.
  • The art wasn’t drawn for the book specifically. The Italian publisher bought the rights to a pre-existing piece of art to use as the cover for the book.

That means:

  • It’s not Kvothe or one of the Chandrian. Don’t sprain anything trying to make that fit in your head. (Though I would like to see Brom’s take on the Chandrian.)
  • You didn’t miss the part of the book where someone has an eye in his hand. Neither is the eye-hand a mistranslation issue or some strange cultural signifier.

 

  • My favorite comments on the cover:
  • Kip: “It’s obviously a picture of Kvothe LARPing his favorite Vampire: The Requiem Character.”
  • “They must have wanted to picture someone with good eye-hand coordination.”
  • “NOTW? WTF?”
  • Sarah: “Kvothe has some sort of pointy pain stick. He should be careful or it will poke him in the hand-eye.”

A few responses to questions and comments:

“Oh man Pat. As a graphic designer can I just say that that is a bad choice. There is no connection to the book that I can come up with at all. The thing on his hand is so prominent that people are going to wonder why its not in the book. It will be confusing. Then the really bad drop shadow, or black glow around the text is just bad design. The whole composition just was not meant to have text covering it.”

I think you’re right about the composition of the piece. It obviously wasn’t meant to be obscured. I got the permission to show the original artwork from Brom: So here it is…

I’m pretty sure that they used that black shadow and my name to cover up Gothy McHotBod’s nipple ring.

And yes, for those of you who are wondering, my chest looks exactly like that when I take my shirt off. By which I mean that I am pale as a bleached ghost on a moonlit night.

Christian asked: “Pat, I am very curious as to who that person is on the cover of the Italian version of your book. I’m pretty sure you would have a big say into what visually depicts your book to first time ( and in my case, long-time) readers.”

Typically, authors get little-to-no say as to the covers of their books. Part of this is because the cover is, ultimately, a marketing choice, rather than an artistic one. And truthfully, publishers know more about marketing than authors do. Also, authors are word-smart, not necessarily picture smart.

That said, in my opinion it is a shame that authors aren’t included in that process more frequently.

I did get to participate in the discussion about my US covers. But that is the exception to the rule, as my publisher, DAW, is very considerate. And my editor, Betsy, respects my opinion on these things. Still, they didn’t say, “what do you think we should do.” they said, “Here’s what we’re planning, what do you think?”

Still, it’s nice to be asked.

My French publisher asked for my thoughts in the planning stage, and my Japanese editor asked early on if I had any suggestions as to who I would like as an artist. But none of the other foreign editors have included me so far. The first time I saw the Italian cover was about a week ago…

In a few of my more recent foreign contracts, I have approval of the final covers. But that doesn’t mean that I get to design them. If the books continue to sell well, I’ll probably get even more say in the future. I’m guessing.

“Why do they keep changing the cover? What’s wrong with original Shirtless Kvothe and Green man?”

Those covers belong to the US publisher. The foreign publishers would have to buy the rights to them if they wanted to use them. They probably don’t want to do that because they’re marketing the book to an entirely different culture.

That’s all for now, folks. I’m back to work on book two…

pat

Posted in appearances, book covers, Things I didn't know about publishing | By Pat26 Responses

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