As you probably know, a number of my books are available in translated editions. Some of these translations were done through a website called Babelcube, which has a five-year license on the translation. Although it’s hard for me to believe the time has passed so quickly, they are starting to reach the end of their contract term. That means the translations are reverting to me – much the way the rights to an English book revert after some period of time – and that I’m republishing them in new editions.
This gives me more control over the books and their metadata – like series information – and also more control over pricing. At Babelcube, for example, I can only set the price in USD, then it’s converted for other territories. This means that the prices aren’t pretty. A book priced at 99cents USD might be 1.09 in euros, and since the primary market for these translations is outside the US, that’s not ideal. It’s also not possible to make a book free through Babelcube, which makes it harder to promote the books. First-in-series-free is a really good promotional technique.
As these books come back to me and are republished, I’ll be offering some free series starters. For example, The Jewels of Kinfairlie series is available in German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
Right now, the German edition of The Beauty Bride is a free read. That book came back to me in the fall and now I publish the entire series myself. (Click through on the cover for more details on the book and links to the retail portals.)
As of January 1, I’ve made the Spanish edition of the Beauty Bride free at the portals. I’ve asked Amazon to match the free price and will let you know when they do.
I’ve republished the Italian editions of both The Rose Red Bride and The Snow Write Bride, but won’t have the rest of the series back until the spring. Then I’ll make The Beauty Bride in Italian a free read, too.
I’ve also republished The Beauty Bride in Portuguese recently. The rest of the series in Portuguese will come back to me later this year, and I’ll republish them, then make The Beauty Bride in Portuguese a free read.
One thing that seems to be happening at AMZ, which is new, is that the new edition isn’t linking with the older edition, which means the reviews are being lost. If you reviewed any of these books, it would be lovely if you could post your review again on the new edition. 🙂
Claire Delacroix 