Across Europe, English-language editions are becoming increasingly popular, which affects the sales of local translated editions. Since last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, when European publishers proved cautious but keen to hear about new titles, English-language editions have markedly increased their share of the European market.
There are a number of factors that are boosting the sales of English-language editions. First, they are often published before translated editions—translations take time, and translation rights are often sold after English rights. Second, the rise of BookTok means that social media stars in European countries often want to hold up the same editions in their videos as BookTokers in English-speaking countries.
Third, a lot of young people are becoming more and more confident reading in English (and, in turn, writing in English). YA and general fiction, particularly romance and fantasy, are being hit hardest, with thrillers and non-fiction less affected. Southern European countries such as Spain and Italy are considerably less affected than Scandinavia, the Baltics, Germany, and the Netherlands, where one book in every four sold is in English.
Writing for BookBrunch in August, Lisanne Mathijssen, senior commissioning editor at HarperCollins in the Netherlands, noted: “The reasons people give for reading in English include: that not everything is available (in the local language); to practice a foreign language; to read the book in the original language; because they don’t want to wait for the translation; and the pricing. The Dutch edition is almost always more expensive than the English version, because we have a fixed book price on Dutch books which doesn’t apply on books in a foreign language.”
One rights agent, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that, although English exports are “hugely essential” to the publishing ecosystem in the U.S. and U.K., they can be “heavily damaging” to the European book market. “English-language exports earn a lower royalty for your author in the long run, which means that your author is not making as much money. Agents are making less money and European publishers are making less money—eventually it’s going to reach a massively dire state for foreign-language editions in certain markets.” There has already been a “massive hit” in the Netherlands and in Scandinavia, but she feels that “the penny will drop when Germany is really hit. They’re the biggest European market that anyone really deals with, and when they’re hit hard, there’s going to be a lot more pushback.”
At the moment, the main solution is simultaneous publication across the world. This can be expensive and time sensitive, and not all English-language publishers are happy to wait until translations have been completed to publish their titles. Not only does it potentially mean that publication is delayed (particularly as authors sometimes send in manuscripts late, meaning that translations have to be rushed), but simultaneous publication also eats away at English-language sales in Europe.
Other solutions include looking for novels in languages other than English to translate; publishing books with the same cover art as their English import counterparts, so that social media users can hold them up in TikTok videos; authors attending European book festivals to promote translated editions of their books; and printing special editions of translated books, with sprayed edges and exclusive content such as letters from authors. The anonymous rights agent, however, proposed a more drastic solution.
“The survival of the European market really is going to hinge on this in the next five years, because English is becoming so ubiquitous,” the agent said. “I think that lot of European publishers need to unionize. They have to get together and start coming up with solutions for this, because if not, then it’s going to spell doom and destruction for a lot of Scandinavian and German publishers.”
A version of this article was originally published in this year’s PW Frankfurt Show Daily, which is coproduced with BookBrunch.
