Getting a book translated into English: rights, method and budget

First things first: who holds the translation rights?

Translating a book means creating a new version of it, and copyright law governs that. Article L122-4 of the French Code de la propriété intellectuelle is explicit: a translation made without the consent of the author or their successors in title is unlawful, just like an unauthorised reproduction. There are three typical situations.

• You are the author and self-publish: the rights are yours and you can have your text translated freely.
• You have signed a publishing contract: reread the clauses on translation rights and subsidiary rights. If they were assigned to your publisher, the decision on an English edition is theirs.
• The book was written by someone else: to publish or distribute the translation, you need written permission from the rights holder, usually the original publisher.

Note that article L112-3 of the same code also protects the authors of translations, without prejudice to the rights of the author of the original work. If a freelance translator reworks your text, settle this point in writing with them.

Preparing the manuscript before you upload it

The quality of the source file has a direct bearing on the result. A few checks before sending:

• Upload the final version. Accept or reject all tracked changes and delete comments in Word: a clean text avoids duplicates and annotations being translated by mistake.
• Use the .docx rather than the print PDF. A Word file keeps styles, chapter headings, notes and italics; our article on translating a Word document without losing the formatting covers best practice.
• A PDF must have a text layer. If your book only exists as a scan (text you cannot select), it will need OCR first: Manuce does not process scanned PDFs. See also our guide to translating a PDF without breaking the layout.
• Stay within 40 MB per file. A text-only manuscript is nowhere near that; a heavily illustrated book may be, so compress the images or split it into parts.

Finally, put together a short style sheet for proofreading: characters and places, invented terms, words to leave untranslated, and the variety of English you want (British or American). It will help you check consistency from cover to cover.

What makes a book hard to translate

A contract needs accuracy; a book needs a voice as well. That is why editorial texts go to Plume, the editorial and literary specialist, which works on rhythm and register, not just the meaning of each sentence.

Voice and register

Long or clipped sentences, narration in the French passé simple, a character's slang: English has different tools from French. The passé simple and the imparfait often both become the simple past, so the nuance has to come through another way. Read a few pages aloud: it is the best test there is.

Dialogue and punctuation

French opens dialogue with dashes or guillemets « », whereas English uses quotation marks, usually single in the UK and double in the US. Check that the chosen convention is applied throughout, especially if your manuscript mixes styles.

Wordplay, titles and cultural references

A pun, a regional expression or a nod to a French TV programme often has no direct equivalent. Spot them in advance and decide whether to adapt, explain or leave them. The book's title deserves separate thought, ideally with a native English reader.

Quotations from other works

If you quote a foreign poem or novel, a published English translation may already exist: using it, with its source, is often better than retranslating.

Which level to choose for your purpose

For publication, even at Premium level, have the whole text read by a native English speaker: they will catch the phrasing that is correct but not quite natural. To compare with free tools, read DeepL, Google Translate or a professional service.

Costed example: a 60,000-word novel

Take a 60,000-word French novel, roughly 150 pages, to be translated into English. The per-word rate decreases with volume: at Professionnel level, 1.8 cents per word up to 5,000 words, 1.64 cents from 5,001 to 20,000, and 1.42 cents beyond. These are the totals shown on the quote on the day of writing:

If you are also targeting German and Spanish, the 30% multilingual discount applies from three languages: at Professionnel level, €2,712 gross comes down to €1,899 for all three versions. VAT not applicable, article 293 B of the CGI; the original layout and express delivery are included at no extra cost. The full price grid is on the pricing page, and our guide to professional translation prices explains how to read a quote.

Step-by-step method

1. Check your translation rights (publishing contract or the author's consent).
2. Clean up the manuscript and write your style sheet.
3. Upload the file to the translation workspace: the word count is taken from the actual document and the quote appears before any payment.
4. Read the free translated extract: it tells you whether the tone works and which level to choose.
5. Confirm: the translation arrives within minutes in your client area and by email, with the layout preserved.
6. Proofread against your style sheet, then hand the text to a native English reader before publication.

An unpublished manuscript is a sensitive document. At Manuce, no human reads your files, the servers are in France and documents are never used for training; details are in the privacy policy. For the language pair itself, see the French-English translation page.