Our book translation services take a manuscript from source text to print-ready files in the format your production team uses. We work with trade publishers, academic and educational presses, and institutions that publish their own titles.
Our clients range from automakers to air ambulance operators. Here are four of them and the language work each one trusts us with.
Tesla has trusted Day Translations with Japanese interpretation since 2017. Mahindra has used our French and Spanish translation since 2015. Arcturus Marine Systems has worked with us on Turkish and Spanish translation since 2013. Air Ambulance 911 has relied on our Spanish to English certified translation since 2017.
Most foreign editions don’t fail in the translation itself. They stall in the weeks around it, when rights, voice, layout, and review decisions collide. Publishers raise the four problems below on almost every first call with our team.
A publisher commissions a translation, the draft comes back, and then the rights question surfaces. A finished translation without a license is a file you can’t print. Clear the translation rights before the manuscript goes to a translator.
Split a 90,000-word novel across three freelancers and the narrator starts to sound like three people. Readers notice. So do reviewers. Our editors check every translation for consistency, so the voice holds from the first chapter to the last.
Translated text expands, and a chapter that fit on 12 pages suddenly needs 14. Captions spill out of their boxes. Running heads collide with page numbers. A translation without layout work leaves your production team to fix every page by hand.
Raw machine output reads fluently and still gets idioms, tone, and cultural references wrong. Literary text exposes those errors quickly. Every translation we return has passed through human translators and editors.
Not sure where your title stands on rights, layout, or review? Talk it through with a project manager.
Our literary translation services cover the five kinds of books publishers send us most. Each kind asks something different of the translator, so we match every title with a translator who works in that genre.
Novels, memoirs, biographies, and narrative history need a translator who writes well in the target language. Dialogue, humor, and dialect carry the book. Our translators are native speakers of the target language with experience in the genre they translate.
Textbook translation runs on consistency. A term defined in chapter 2 has to read the same in chapter 19, in the workbook, and in the teacher’s guide. Exercises, answer keys, tables, and figure captions all need translating, and each one has to fit its box in the layout. Our pre-translation review flags key terms before translation starts, and an editor checks them for consistency afterward.
Picture books look short and translate slowly. Rhyme, wordplay, and read-aloud rhythm matter more than word count, and text has to fit around fixed illustrations. Our children’s book translation work includes one title now available in 175 languages and dialects.
Academic and non-fiction book translation needs subject knowledge as much as language skill. We assign monographs, scholarly essays, and edited collections to translators who know the field’s terminology. Quotations need extra care. When a quoted passage already has a published translation, the translated edition should use that published wording.
Backlist titles bring their own problem. Some survive only as a printed copy or an old PDF, with the original layout files long gone. Our desktop publishing team rebuilds the layout from the PDF you supply, so an older title gets a new edition in the target language.
For periodicals, our magazine translation team handles single articles and full issues. Screenplays go to our film script translation specialists, who know screenplay formatting.
Know which titles you want to license or translate first? Send the list and word counts for a price.
Matching the translator to the book matters more than any single quality check. A thriller translator and a picture book translator solve different problems.
Every manuscript starts with a pre-translation review. Our team reads the source for names, invented words, wordplay, quotations, and cultural references. That review prepares the translator for the hard passages before work starts.
After translation, an editor checks the text for accuracy and consistency. A proofreader then reads it for remaining errors. A final quality review confirms the translation meets our standards for accuracy.
Translated text has to go back into a book. Our desktop publishing team rebuilds the layout in the same software your designers use.
That work covers:
The team works in Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Word, and QuarkXPress. Send PDF, DOCX, DOC, INDD, AI, QuarkXPress, JPEG, or PNG files. You get back files ready for print or digital distribution, including print-ready PDFs.
Every project starts with two things from you: the manuscript and the market where the edition will publish. Our team then takes it through six steps, from quote to print-ready files.
You send the manuscript, target languages, and planned publication date. A project manager checks the word count, genre, and layout needs, then sends a quote for translation and layout.
Our team reads the source and lists names, invented words, quotations, and cultural references. The translator gets that list and your style guide before work starts.
A native-speaking translator with experience in your book’s genre translates the manuscript, working from the list built in step 2.
An editor compares the translation with the original, line by line, for accuracy, voice, and consistent names and terms.
A proofreader reads the edited text for remaining errors. A final quality review then confirms the translation meets our quality standards before layout.
If you need layout, our desktop publishing team typesets the translation in your design software and returns print-ready PDFs.
Have a sample chapter you want tested first? Get a price for that chapter.
The more you send at the start, the fewer questions our team needs to ask later, and the schedule stays on track. Send whatever you have from this list:
the final manuscript in its native format (INDD, DOCX, or PDF)
the published source edition, if one exists
your house style guide and any earlier translations of the same author
rights status for each target language
target markets and the planned publication date
fonts and image files for the layout
The manuscript and your target languages are enough to request a quote. The rest speeds up the work once translation starts.
Under US copyright law, a translation counts as a derivative work. 17 U.S.C. 101 defines a “derivative work” as a work based upon a preexisting work, “such as a translation.”
Under 17 U.S.C. 106(2), the copyright owner has the exclusive right “to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work.”
The rule reaches beyond the United States. Article 8 of the Berne Convention says authors “shall enjoy the exclusive right of making and of authorizing the translation of their works throughout the term of protection.”
In practice, the publisher needs a translation license from the rights holder before the edition goes to print. Your rights team or counsel confirms each license. This section explains the rule; it isn’t legal advice.
Some publishers ask whether machine translation cuts the cost of a book. Our translators use machine translation tools to assist the translation process, and human translators review and edit every translation.
Literary text punishes unreviewed output. Idioms, humor, and a narrator’s voice are where machine drafts go wrong first.
An unpublished manuscript is the file a publisher guards most closely until launch day. These controls apply to every book project:
Files encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.3 in transit
Zero-trust access, with multi-factor authentication (MFA) enforced
Role-based permissions with least-privilege access
EU data stays in the EU
Certificates, reports, and agreements shared with verified organizations on request
Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) signed on request
Our Trust Center lists every control in full.
Two projects from our case study library show how book and education work runs at Day Translations.
Philipp Winterberg, a German children’s author, self-published his picture book Am I Small? and wanted it in as many languages as possible. He started with freelancers and no shared quality process. The freelance drafts needed about 20 rounds of corrections. Finding a Tibetan translator alone took more than a year.
We took over the project with a team of translators and project managers working to one quality process. The book reached 175 languages and dialects and became an Amazon bestseller in multiple categories. In November 2020, the German National Library celebrated Am I Small? as the most translated book in German history. Multilingual families now use it as a language learning tool. Our “Am I Small? case study” covers the full project.
In June 2019, a public university in Texas needed promotional brochures for its English Language Institute in three languages. Our team translated them into Spanish, Korean, and traditional Chinese in 24 hours, ready for the institute’s international students. The education case study has the details.
Five things set the price: word count, language pair, genre, layout work, and deadline. Rush options are available for launch dates that can’t move.
Your project manager prices each title from the manuscript or a representative sample, so the quote reflects the actual text.
Day Translations is a corporate member of the American Translators Association (ATA). For vendor reviews, we share certificates, reports, and agreements with verified organizations on request.
Compliance, credentials, turnaround, and cost — answered before you ask.
Still unsure? An expert answers 24/7/365.
Call an expertWord count, language pair, genre, layout work, and deadline set the price. Your project manager prices each title from the manuscript or a sample chapter.
You need them before you publish. A translation is a derivative work under 17 U.S.C. 101, and the copyright owner controls the right to prepare one.
Length, language pair, and layout work set the timeline, and your project manager confirms dates in the quote. Rush options are available for fixed launch dates.
Our translators use machine translation tools to assist the translation process, and human translators review and edit every translation we return.
Yes. Our desktop publishing team typesets translations in Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Word, and QuarkXPress and returns print-ready PDFs.
Our pre-translation review flags key terms before work starts, and an editor checks them for consistency after translation.
Yes. We work in 500+ languages, and one children’s book we translated reached 175 languages and dialects.
We accept PDF, DOCX, DOC, INDD, AI, QuarkXPress, JPEG, and PNG files. Send the native layout file when you have it, because it keeps fonts and image positions intact for typesetting.
AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit, and zero-trust access with enforced multi-factor authentication protect every file. EU data stays in the EU. We sign NDAs on request.
Rights teams, acquisitions editors, and production managers start with three details: the manuscript, the target languages, and the planned publication date. Your project manager comes back with a quote for translation and layout.
Send the manuscript and your launch date.
