How to compare two quotes for translating your book

Most of the difference between two translation quotes is not quality but scope: what is included after the translation itself. Proofreading, correction rounds, the files you receive at the end and the ownership of the result are what move the price, and usually none of it is spelled out.

Before you compare numbers, you have to bring both quotes to the same scope. Otherwise you are comparing two different things.

What to ask about scope

Find out first what is included beyond the translation.

Does someone who is a native speaker go over the text afterwards? That is not the same work, and often not the same person.

How many rounds of corrections do you get after you have read it and commented, and what counts as a correction rather than a change? A quote with no correction rounds means every comment you make is extra paid work.

And what do you get at the end — a plain text file, or a laid-out file ready to upload to the store? That is a real gap in your own time too.

What to ask about ownership

This is the question that is easiest to forget and most expensive to discover late.

Who owns the translated text once the job is complete, and what are you free to do with it? Can you publish it in any store, make a recorded version of it, or license it onward?

The answer should be in writing, even if it seems obvious to both sides. We went into this in who owns the translation rights.

What to ask about time

Ask for a delivery date rather than a vague range, and find out what happens if it slips.

Ask too when you get to see material. Receiving the whole book only at the end means that if the direction is wrong for you, all the work has already been done. Splitting it into stages protects both sides.

And do not forget your own time: after delivery comes reading, comments and a round of corrections. We wrote about that in how long book translation takes.

What to ask about names and terms

Every book has a small list of words that have to be identical from the first page to the last: character names, place names, and any recurring term.

Ask how that is kept. The good answer is that an agreed list is prepared in advance and approved with you before work starts, rather than being decided along the way.

It sounds technical, but it is one of the commonest reader complaints about translated books: a character who changes name halfway. We wrote about it in why names change in translated books.

The check that replaces half the questions

Ask for one sample chapter, the same chapter from both sides.

Pick a chapter with dialogue and with something hard to translate — a joke, a local expression, a place name. Not the first chapter, which is usually the most descriptive.

Then have a native speaker read both versions and tell you which one sounds like a book. Not which is more accurate — which sounds like a book. We explained how to do that in how to review a translation in a language you cannot read.

What a fair comparison looks like in the end

Write the two quotes side by side under the same headings: what is included, how many rounds, which files, who owns it, when it is delivered, and what happens when something is wrong.

Usually it turns out that one quote simply includes less. That is perfectly fine — sometimes it is exactly what you need, and you will handle the rest yourself. What matters is knowing what you chose. The rest of the questions are collected in our frequently asked questions.