Who gets credit for the translation, and why it matters

Your translator's name can appear on the cover, on the copyright page only, or nowhere at all — and that decision is yours. No single international law settles it, but there is a professional norm that has grown much stronger over the past decade, and there are technical fields in the store that are worth knowing about.

It sounds like a small detail. It is not, and least of all for the book itself.

What is customary in the industry today

In September 2021 a public call went out from authors asking that translators be credited on the front cover. It was led by the translator Jennifer Croft and the novelist Mark Haddon, and it gathered more than 1,400 author signatures within 48 hours.

Their wording was simple: that whenever our work is translated, the translator's name should appear on the cover.

Since then this is no longer an unusual request. Many publishers have adopted it, and experienced translators ask for it as a condition. If you are working with a human translator, assume it will come up, and it is better to decide in advance than halfway through.

Why an author should care at all

Three reasons, all practical.

First, credit is part of the payment. A translator who knows their name will appear takes ownership of the result.

Second, credit is a quality signal to the reader. In languages where readers are used to translated literature, a translator's name on the cover tells the reader that someone is answerable for the text they are about to read.

Third, it prevents an argument. The worst version of this decision is the one postponed until after publication.

Three separate places, and none fills itself in

It is easy to get confused, because these are three different things.

The cover is design. What appears there is set in the design file and nowhere else.

The copyright page, that dense page at the front of the book, is where you record who translated, who edited and who designed. Even if the name does not go on the cover, this is the customary place for it.

The contributor field in the store is a form. On KDP (Amazon's self-publishing platform) you can add up to ten contributors alongside the author and mark each one's role. That list can be edited after publication — but the primary author name is locked the moment the book goes live, and changing it requires a new edition.

The three places do not talk to each other. Filling in one does not fill in the other two.

And if there was no human translator

If the translation was produced with automated tools, there is no single person who translated the book, so there is no translation credit to give in the usual sense. What is customary instead is to name whoever edited and checked it — because someone did read the text before it went out, and if nobody did, you have a bigger problem than credit.

Note that this is a completely separate matter from the declaration stores require about using automated tools in producing the book. The declaration is between you and the store; the credit is between you and the reader. We wrote about the declaration in what you have to declare about an AI-assisted translation.

What to settle before you publish

Decide in advance, in writing, what will appear and where. If there is a human translator, agree the wording with them before the work begins, not after.

Remember that who owns the translation is an entirely different question from who is credited for it, and both belong in the agreement. We went into that in who owns the translation rights, and the rest of the questions are collected in our frequently asked questions.