Publisher’s Weekly has an interesting article noting a decision by The Casual Vacancy author J.K. Rowling and her agency to delay sharing the book’s manuscript with publishers who are releasing the book in foreign languages.
The hold up is due to their concerns over piracy. They fear the manuscript may be leaked if released this early. The problem is that since these publishers aren’t getting the book far in advance, their translated versions will have to be released later in the year.
One translator was vocal about their disappointment:
Jill Timbers, a translator of Finnish books into English, recently wrote a blog post about the situation in Finland. Writing for the Web site Intralingo, Timbers said that the Finnish publisher of Vacancy, Otava, is giving its translator only three weeks to turn around an edition of the book in order to hit the holiday deadline. This, she said, has caused a stir among translators and others. “Some translators argue that it’s good [that] bestsellers are translated into Finnish even if time pressure means the level of the Finnish isn’t top quality. Others predict that soon ‘entertainment literature’ will not be translated into Finnish at all.”
There is now growing concern that other authors may take this same approach in the future.
Do you think Rowling and company are right to hold up the release of The Casual Vacancy manuscript?
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