Translation rights sales on the rise for university presses, despite roadblocks

There has been an increased focus in selling translation rights across a range of subjects, as university presses try to address concerns that “many serious works of scholarship [are] not currently accessible” to non-English speakers around the world.

Earlier this year, Edinburgh University Press (EUP) announced its new partnership with Andrew Nurnberg Associates International, which now acts as its rights agent in China. The goal was to increase EUP’s rights revenue by selling translations into China, and to allow the academic publisher to reach more readers.

According to Avril Cuthbert, regional sales manager at EUP, Turkey and Arabic speaking countries are also “key territories for the sale of EUP translation rights”, and the publisher is “looking to build business in European nations, where traditionally interest in language rights has been lower”. While the team has been “actively” selling rights for only a year, it has already seen a growing interest in its Islamic studies and philosophy lists.

Katie Scarff, senior business development manager at Cambridge University Press & Assessment (CUPA), says that working with publishers in different markets is key to allowing university presses to “find readers that we simply could not reach in the English language”. Disseminating academic books in translation “is particularly important to university presses, which exist to ensure that knowledge and learning are shared and supported as widely as possible”.

Censorship and cultural differences

However, some subjects are more difficult to sell to publishers in certain markets because of the nature of the content. In addition, publishers like CUPA and EUP adopt “a zero tolerance policy towards censorship”, and Cuthbert says that EUP does not allow for authors’ work to be “materially changed from the English-language edition”.

For CUPA, textbooks in translation have been popular in Asia, where there is a high level of interest in science, mathematics and technology subjects, while the publisher’s medical trade titles have been increasingly popular internationally. “Our HSS [humanities and social sciences] books tend do very well everywhere, and history does particularly well in Europe,” Scarff explains. “Philosophy and religion are very popular in Latin America. Our trade titles are often licensed by big international publishers looking to sell to general readers.”

Meanwhile, according to Cuthbert, the EUP rights team aims to be “aware of regional sensitivities when it comes to selling in certain subjects” but does not “gatekeep” content. For example, when selling rights to Turkey, EUP focuses on Ottoman-era books, instead of its titles on modern Turkish politics. “The client publishers and agencies we work with are very good at knowing what would be most suitable for their markets, and what might cause issues,” she explains.

"The publishers and agencies we work with are very good at knowing what would be most suitable for their markets, and what might cause issues"

– Avril Cuthbert, EUP regional sales manager

Bristol University Press (BUP) and its imprint Policy Press publish scholarship exclusively on the social sciences, and work with a range of translation agencies, international publishers and university presses. “Our key market for translation rights has always been China, which is very supportive of our research, and we complete a number of deals each year of both front and backlist titles,” says Dr Julie Atkins, global sales and rights manager at BUP.

In China, titles spanning sociology, gerontology—the study of ageing—city-building and development, as well as business and AI have been particularly popular for BUP. “We generally avoid putting forward titles that are political as these would often require significant development or changes to be accepted,” Atkins explains, adding that there has been “less interest in international relations and books focusing on regions outside of China”. Meanwhile, in the Middle East region, key areas have included business, economics and AI, as well as city-building and development, while presses in these territories have steered clear of subjects such as sociology. “In all regions we have seen a huge shift in interest towards AI and cybersecurity, which is often the first subject area we are asked about,” Atkins says.

International conferences play a crucial role in enabling university presses to sell translation rights across the world. “We attended the Beijing International Book Fair in June, which cemented our reputation in the region, and gave us a wider insight into how decisions are made about which books are important to have translated as opposed to just available in libraries in English,” Atkins says.

Having recently attended the Sharjah Publishers and Rights Conference, where trade professionals gather to talk about key issues in the industry and sell rights, the team came back from the event with 30 potential translation deals in Arabic, Persian and Vietnamese. Atkins explained: “There is no substitute for visiting regions to meet with local publishers and agents—for university presses this is particularly important as we are fighting to be seen among the extensive catalogues of well-known and much larger publishers.”

The team at BUP are “very aware of cultural sensitivities” as a publisher working in the social sciences. This has led them to produce separate rights catalogues for regions where some titles would be viewed as inappropriate. “This can create extra work in a small team but has been acknowledged within those regions where books need to be approved,” Atkins says. “That being said, we have sold rights to some books that we would not have expected, and there are also opportunities to be had should an author be willing to remove a couple of sentences from a work.”

Ongoing challenges

Selling translation rights into international markets can be a lengthy process, fraught with administrative challenges, which can be difficult for university presses. For example, bureaucratic processes mean that it can take up to three months for Chinese publishers to pay invoices, according to Cuthbert, who explains that the team at EUP aims to complete as many deals as possible in the first half of the financial year to account for any delays.

“As a very small rights department, the main challenge I have is juggling resources so that all the crucial admin is handled in a timely manner,” Cuthbert says. “The other issue that can be frustrating is the red tape around withholding tax and the forms that are needed for this.” This is echoed by Atkins, who says there is “a lot of administration involved around tax, author profile, long lead times for negotiating the deal and then receiving payment”.

"I think we are a long way off from AI being used to translate academic works, but it is certainly something we are keeping an eye on"

– Dr Julie Atkins, BUP global sales and rights manager

There are also concerns when it comes to the quality of the translations, especially with the growing prevalence of “freely available AI translation” technologies. LSE Press publishes in the social sciences and its content is entirely open access, which means that it does not sell rights in the way that other university presses do. However, the publisher is often approached by academics offering to translate its titles into other languages, as well as authors who want their work to be translated into English and published by LSE Press.

Professor Dame Sarah Worthington, chair of LSE Press, says there is “enthusiasm for English-language books to appear in foreign-language translations”, and that “many serious works of scholarship [are] not currently accessible to English-only readers”. She explains that, when academic books are translated, “every academic press will be concerned that any translations match the quality and rigour of the initial work” and says the quality of translations are “increasingly at risk with the mounting reliance on freely available AI translation apps”.

However, for BUP, the majority of rights deals are conducted with other academic presses, which provide assurance when it comes to the quality of translations. “As part of our contract we do specify that AI cannot be used for translations and it is usually the case that a translation needs to be approved by a second reviewer,” Atkins says. “I think we are a long way off from AI being used to translate academic works, due to the nuances in language and the explanation of theories and ideas, but it is certainly something we are keeping an eye on through our in-house AI Working Group.”

EUP has also incorporated a clause “preventing the use of AI translation tools” in its language-license contracts. “We are also careful about the publishers we choose to work with; we target reputable publishers who are known for good practices, as well as taking advice from agencies and taking advantage of the detailed local market knowledge that they have,” Cuthbert says.