Ich bin ein pelzigen

[jeriendhal]

I wonder how much it would cost to get POW translated into German to replace the English version on Amazon.de? Probably too much.

(Hey, it's my top seller in that market...)

Comments

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

You mean "add", not "replace", I hope. I've been at the receiving end of ebooks not being sold to me because I'm in the "wrong" part of the world, and it's fucking frustrating.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Well POW is available in all Amazon sales regions. I was just considering doing a German language version for that particular market. I could likely keep the English version up there too if you wanted.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

I think you'd be making a costly mistake.

Per my (former) editor at Heyne Verlag, the Germanophone SF/F readership is ageing, shrinking, and very conservative in their taste -- mostly space opera and high fantasy just like grandpa wrote.

Per my German readers (of whom I have many) the Anglophone German SF/F readership is growing, contains everyone aged under 35 in the East and under about 60 in the West, and are happy to tackle experimental/innovative/progressive material. And my British ebook sales back them up.

English has been a compulsory subject in German schools for so long now that it's spoken fluently by around 50% of the population; it's about where the Netherlands was in the 1980s-1990s, and the effect is so strong that it's basically killed my German translation rights track (although not my German sales, which are all in English).

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

... I don't understand your thinking at all. The English version is there already, so you'd have to go out of your way to remove it. Why would you make an effort to TAKE AWAY the option of buying one of your books?

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I shall accept your superior marketing knowledge. It's not like I could afford the expense anyway at this point, unless it was a fan translation effort.

I'm just consistently amused that my top seller in that market is basically Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS Does Furry Fandom.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of adapting my work to fit the marketplace better and attract more readers. As autopope points out, I was operating off a completely incorrect set of assumptions.

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

But... Even if a German version sold better, WHY would you REMOVE the English version?

If in timeframe X 10 people in Germany buy the English language version in Germany, and 100 people bought the German version, removing the English one means you LOSE up to 10 sales, plus you risk pissing off people because you arbitrarily blocked them from buying one of your books because they live in the wrong country.

Did you think the only English language books available on amazon.de were ones that had not been translated?