Recently, because of the article "Genius Son", the translator Jin Xiaoyu has entered the public's field of vision. Jin Xiaoyu revealed in an interview a few days ago that his "translation fee is very low, one thousand words and fifty or sixty yuan." This has once again sparked a discussion on the Web about translators' remuneration. Jin Xiaoyu told the Red Star News reporter that when he first entered the industry, it was indeed the price of 50-60 yuan for a thousand words, and now the remuneration is almost 80 yuan for a thousand words.
The reporter's investigation found that the current domestic translation remuneration standard generally fluctuates between 80 yuan and 150 yuan for thousands of words, which is still low price, and many translators are still in the state of "power generation with love". In fact, "low remuneration for translators" has been a long-term concern of the publishing industry, why has there been no solution?
"Generate electricity with love": Low remuneration for translation is a common phenomenon
It is understood that in 2010, Under the guidance of his mother, Jin Xiaoyu began to translate the book "Ship Fever" by American writer Andrea Barrett, which was published in China by Nanjing University Press in 2012.
On the afternoon of the 19th, Jin Xiaoyu said in an interview with Red Star News that the translation fees of "Ship Fever" and later "Seducer" when he first began to translate were "indeed 50 and 60 (thousand words)"; secondly, the tax refund was only in the last two years. ”
Jin Xiaoyu translated and published some of the books
In this regard, a book editor who worked for the Beijing Normal University Press told Red Star News that although the price of 50-60 yuan for a thousand words is low, "it is generally considered to be a normal entry price in the industry." ”
Red Star News reporters learned from the editors of a number of publishing houses that according to the different publishing houses and languages, the cost of translating foreign documents is mostly between 80 yuan and 150 yuan per thousand words, and the remuneration will generally be improved due to small languages, good quality of translations and difficulty of manuscripts.
Among them, taking the fruit and wheat culture as an example, its entry fee is generally 200 yuan for a thousand words, which is "already relatively high in the industry". But according to the speed of 100,000 words of full-time translation in 2 months, the monthly income before tax is just tens of thousands, "translators still can't make too much money." Therefore, the translation industry is indeed an industry that 'generates electricity with love', and there are almost no full-time translators, except for better conditions at home or special true love. Guomai Culture editor Xiao Xia said.
The reporter found that most of the translators of foreign language books are part-time, mainly composed of enthusiasts, college teachers and students.
Xiao Jiang (pseudonym), a free-time translator of a doctoral student at a university, told reporters that he has been doing physics science since 2018, and has translated and published 4 books, and there are many books about him. Due to the good translation and good response after the book was published, he once took the initiative to ask for a fee increase, and the remuneration also rose from the initial 75 yuan for 1,000 words to 95 yuan for 1,000 words, "which is already high in the industry."
Even so, a popular science book of about 100,000 words, he can only get less than ten thousand remuneration, deduct tax is only seven or eight thousand, "If I do full-time translation, can translate a book in two months with high quality, but earn less than 10,000 in two months, I want to be only three or four thousand yuan a month, I can't accept it." ”
Jin Xiaoyu's translation of the book "The Crow"
Many translators said that the huge time cost and effort required to translate is not as simple as imagined, and it is even no less than making an original book. Taking Xiao Jiang's translation of popular science books as an example, he said that the time spent consulting materials is longer than reading the text, because the readers facing it are the public and will pay more attention to how to be easy to understand.
"Some famous scientists may have quirks, for the scientific concepts that everyone knows, he prefers to use his own creation of descriptions, such as I just finished translating a book by a Certain Nobel Laureate, a certain concept is only used by him, and when I encounter this kind of similar problem, I have to communicate with people who are studying abroad, go through this person's papers, and understand what the concept he describes really means and what it corresponds to." Xiao Jiang said.
On the other hand, in universities, translated works are difficult to be recognized as scientific research results.
"Many people may think that translation is not an original work." Xiao Jiang told reporters that when the school evaluated the scientific research results of doctoral students, he submitted his own translation works, "Those teachers on the evaluation committee are quite scornful." ”
A number of university scholars said that due to the variety of books, the identification standards of each university are different, and the translations of academic monographs and literary masterpieces should be recognizable, not necessarily other books. A professor of foreign literature in a pair of first-class universities said that the translation of literary works in their school can only be counted as half of the scientific research results, "the price is very unreasonable, basically 60-80 yuan per thousand words." "The rate of return on translations is extremely low.
In 2014, the death of Sun Zhongxu, a translator who had translated famous works such as "The Catcher in the Wheat Field", caused widespread concern about the disproportionate proportion of the translator's efforts and returns. In the report of southern people weekly that year, it discussed the low remuneration for translations, the lack of recognition of translations by universities, and the low threshold of fee taxes. Many translators have said that good translations deserve decent pay and that publishers should not treat translators as cheap labor.
Yu Zhongxian, a professor at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and editor-in-chief of World Literature magazine, said: "The fee should indeed go up, otherwise, Sven will be swept away." ”
Translator's remuneration: A variety of remuneration models, still not up to expectations
In fact, the remuneration standard for translators was stipulated in the Measures for Payment of Remuneration for The Use of Written Works (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures") issued by the National Copyright Administration in 2014. It is mentioned in the "Measures" that the use of written works to pay remuneration in the form of paper media publication can choose royalties, basic remuneration plus printing remuneration or one-time remuneration.
Among them, royalties refer to the remuneration paid by users to copyright owners in the form of book pricing× actual sales or the number of prints × royalty rate.
A number of translators and book editors told reporters that for ordinary translators, there are fewer cases of royalty contracts.
The reporter learned that considering many problems such as market sales, settlement methods and cycles, the pure royalty model may also have lower returns, "If the printing volume is not high enough, the royalty income is not as cost-effective as the remuneration of a thousand words, and the collection cycle will be longer, and the remuneration will be concluded once a year according to sales." ”
For academic books, generally 3,000 copies are printed at a time, and few will be reprinted, so the settlement income according to royalties is lower, "Like Benjamin translated by Jin Xiaoyu, it belongs to the minority in the academic circle, and the niche academic books are difficult to make money." A book editor who used to work at the Beijing Normal University Publishing House said.
In 2014, the death of the translator Sun Zhongxu (center) caused widespread concern about the current situation of the translator.
The above-mentioned Measures stipulate that a one-time remuneration refers to a one-time remuneration paid by a user to a copyright owner based on factors such as the quality, length, popularity and influence of the author, as well as the mode of use, the scope of use and the period of authorization.
Several book editors said that the one-time payment is now the most common contract in the translation industry, but pay attention to whether the contract buys out the copyright of the translated text.
Xiao Cai, a book editor at a state-run publishing house that specializes in teaching and auxiliary books, said that they generally sign a one-time buyout contract with the translator, that is, the translator only enjoys the right of attribution and a one-time translation fee, and does not enjoy the copyright.
The buyout contract signed by translator Xiao Hu in 2019 shows that translators are not allowed to provide all or part of the translated manuscript to a third-party publishing house on their own or for other purposes. The translator enjoys only the right of authorship and the right to a one-time remuneration and no longer any other rights; how the publisher uses the translation of the work and all the rights and interests thus obtained are irrelevant to the translator.
"The damage to the buyer contract is actually very large for the translator," said Xiao Xia, an editor of Guomai Culture, that the translator enjoys the copyright of the translated manuscript, and should be able to grant it to another family after the contract expires, "but now many publishing houses or book companies will no longer pay the translator's remuneration when renewing the contract, and will sign a buyout contract to buy away the copyright of the translated manuscript." ”
Xiao Xia said that she had encountered a book with a good quality translation, and the translator was willing to cooperate with Guomai, but because the translator initially signed a buyout contract with the first publishing unit, the translator did not have copyright, even if the original unit did not want to publish the book again, it could no longer be used, "This translation is equivalent to scrapping, I have to find another translator, from scratch to do the translation work, in fact, it is a waste of manpower." ”
The third remuneration model mentioned in the "Measures" is the basic remuneration + the printing remuneration. The basic remuneration refers to the remuneration paid by the user to the copyright owner in thousands of words according to the number of words in the work. The remuneration for the number of copies of the manuscript refers to the remuneration paid by the user to the copyright owner in a certain proportion of the basic remuneration in thousands of copies according to the number of copies of the book.
A book editor of a leading private publisher said that this distribution model can basically take into account the translator's immediate income and sales share, "for example, first pay the manuscript remuneration of 110 yuan per thousand words, and then the part of the book sales of more than 20,000 copies, according to 1% or 2% to settle the sales or print number of remuneration." ”
For the specific situation of the remuneration payment, the book editor of CITIC Publishing House said that the publisher used to settle the remuneration within six months after publication or one year after the submission of the manuscript, but it would not even pay any fees to the translator when the book number could not come down or the topic was sunk. "Individual publishers will even receive the manuscript for a few years without moving."
However, no matter which payment model and delivery cycle, many translators said that the remuneration still did not meet expectations.
Cost control of foreign editions: The cost of high-quality translations can be increased
So, in what links does the publishing house need to control costs when introducing a foreign book? How can I make a profit?
The reporter learned that the introduction of a foreign edition of the book will generally include the determination of the topic, contact copyright, translation and proofreading, printing and listing of these four links, in each link, the publishing company has a corresponding business ideas.
A number of editors said that after determining the topic and finding the book they want to translate, they will contact the foreign party and the copyright party through the edition agency.
According to Xiao Zhang (pseudonym), the editor of a foreign edition of a domestic publishing company, in the stage of contacting copyright and translation, the publishing house needs to prepay royalties, which is the first link in the cost incurred by the publishing house. Prepaid royalties are a royalty fee paid in advance when signing a contract with the copyright owner, and if the number of books sold in the first print exceeds the corresponding number of prepaid books, it is necessary to pay another copyright fee within the agreed copyright settlement time. "Generally, the number of prepaid volumes is about 4,000."
After the copyright contract is signed, it is necessary to enter the stage of finding a translator, and the translator's remuneration is the second link that generates costs. Xiao Zhang told reporters that if the quality of the translation is high enough to save the cost of post-editing, the company will be willing to let the manuscript fee float within the range. Regarding the floating range, he once made a relevant calculation, a foreign edition book that sells 20,000 copies, under the premise of maintaining marketing costs, the translator's manuscript fee can fluctuate between 120-150 yuan in a thousand words. In addition, there are cases where publishing houses or book companies outsource to translation companies, and translation companies find translators.
In addition to prepaid royalties and translators' remuneration, the cost of books also includes paper, illustrations, editing, typesetting design, printing, distribution and marketing costs, etc. "You may print to a quantity to make money, according to the principle of diminishing marginal costs, but many times you actually lose money." A book editor said.
Taking CITIC Publishing House as an example, its 2020 financial report shows that the cost structure of the general book publishing and distribution business is: printing fee of 22.88%, paper material fee of 14.52%, royalty and remuneration of 33.17%, typesetting and proofreading fee of 0.76%, and editing fee of 10.42%.
Xiao Zhang said that the editing cost of a book is often determined at the stage of the publisher's budget, and the later sales volume will not affect the editor's "relatively fixed" salary.
Xiao Cai, a book editor at a state-run publishing house, said that he works in Beijing and his monthly income fluctuates around 10,000, "Relying on publishing books is bound to make money." Some book editors said that a considerable number of publishing units gave treatment of about 4,000 to 6,000, "If you are in a first-tier city, you will definitely not consider buying a house." ”
In many discussions about the remuneration of the publishing industry, it has been pointed out that since translators say that the remuneration is low and the salary of book editors is low, who makes money?
Behind the dilemma: whether books can provide competitive content
In the eyes of many book editors, the publishing industry as a whole is "unable to make money."
Editor Xiaozhang believes that the "two-eight effect" of this industry is very obvious, that is, the category that uses the head 20% to make money and balance the remaining lost products.
According to Xiao Zhang's recollection, he is mainly responsible for cultural bestsellers, and the profit margin of the best-selling books he handles is about 10%, if the book sales are high, the paper and printing costs can be controlled at about 13%, plus 10% of the author's royalties, publicity and editing costs (within 4%), and the discount of a book is about 42%, so there is a 15% profit margin, "Of course, the above are the top 20% profit unit bestsellers, and the publishing company also uses this part of the profit to balance most of the loss-making varieties." ”
Zheng Zheng, president of Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, previously said in an interview with the media that the net profit margin of popular books was about 3.75%. He said that the gross profit of books is about 20%, due to the price war of the channel, the rebate to the channel, after deducting the labor costs such as returns, defaced book treatment and editing, management, etc., the "oil and water" of mass book publishing is almost sucked dry and drained, "Our total yard of 160 million yuan (the product of book pricing and sales volume), only 6 million yuan of net profit, net profit margin of about 3.75%. ”
Infographic. Some people believe that whether the book industry can make money depends on whether it can provide competitive content
On the one hand, the book profit is thin, on the other hand, the book sales are declining. In the "Trends in the Domestic and Foreign Book Retail Market from January to August 2021" released by Beijing Kaishu, it is mentioned that in recent years, the number of open-volume monitoring and sales volumes has been about 1.78 billion to 1.85 billion volumes, which has declined slightly every year, and the reason is that the total number of books sold in the market has declined to a certain extent. In addition, in the past few years, the market as a whole has maintained double-digit growth, and part of the increase is driven by book pricing factors.
Some data show that the rift between the income of new books in my book market and the investment of publishers is becoming more and more obvious. From 2010 to 2020, the contribution rate of new books in mainland China dropped from 30% to 13.82%, and long-term sales of old books are still favored by consumers, even in the teaching and auxiliary market with high timeliness requirements, the contribution rate of new books is only 12.08%.
Lu Jun, a senior publisher and CEO of Future Sound, said in an interview with Caijing that it is difficult for new books to be on the best-seller list in the current book market, behind which the difficulty and threshold of publishing are decreasing, and old books, as a product of the era of supply concentration, users choose a lower cost.
Lu Jun analyzed that overall, the publishing industry is facing practical problems such as fierce competition overcapacity, the scarcity of high-quality originals, and the impact of the new media environment on book distribution.
Xiao Xia, editor of Guomai Culture, believes that the impact of Internet digital media on these traditional publishing industries, the decline in sales of physical bookstores, and the impact of e-commerce platforms on book sales are not the most core issues in the publishing industry.
In her view, books are one of the parts of the big entertainment, in the context of changes in people's living habits, competitors from other books to short videos, Tencent, Zhihu, whether books can provide competitive content is the core, "I think this is a structural problem, translators can not get money, and the book industry profit margin is narrow, and the narrow profit margin is related to the entire industry can not make money, the industry can not make money, because our content lack of competitiveness is related." ”
"The most important thing is to make good products and provide good publicity, so that the industry as a whole can obtain greater survival and profit margins." Xiao Xia said.
Wang Yanlong, a professor at the School of Literature and Journalism of Sichuan University and a member of the National Steering Committee for Postgraduate Education in Publishing Majors, also believes that the narrowing of profits in the book industry and changes in people's living habits have had an impact on the publishing industry.
But it said that the poor treatment of editors and translators is also related to the performance mechanisms of different companies. He believes that the salary of individual editors or translators is a micro-level issue, and the performance mechanism is the key to affecting the wages of practitioners.
Source: Red Star News
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