I would like to show you all something:
You will notice that, within the last week, the majority of visitors to my site spoke CHINESE. Not US-English, not even UK-English. CHINESE!
Xie xie. :)
I actually think this is really cool. A bunch of people from another country are checking out my site. You will also notice that #3 on this list is Italian. So I say: Prego!
The problem: It's not translating into sales. If I received even half the sales of the number of foreign views I would be sitting pretty.
While I have no quantifiable evidence to back it up, my theory is that the reason foreign views are not translating to sales is lack of translation. The stuff I sell is not in their native language, and they can either not read it, or not read it very well.
This leads me to wonder: what if there was a translation service? If there is, smack me now and point me to it. I would love to sell my stuff in other languages (German, amongst them).
It's not just about sales, though. I would be sharing my story with people from all over the world. My ideas would span languages and cultures. What an awesome concept! This makes me jealous of big authors like Stephen King who get their books translated into a bazillion languages at the drop of hat (not, really, but you know what I mean).
That said, though, I still need to drive sales in my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. My theory could be very sound, but if I can't drive sales in Omaha, I probably can't drive sales too well internationally.
But it's something to think about. If you can translate your novel/novella/short story into another language, I would say try it! Think about the greater reach you could create by just translating into one other langauge, such as Spanish.
Translate into Spanish and you have millions of prople in over a dozen countries that could, potentially, read your book. Habla?
It's something to think about.
Until next time...
You will notice that, within the last week, the majority of visitors to my site spoke CHINESE. Not US-English, not even UK-English. CHINESE!
Xie xie. :)
I actually think this is really cool. A bunch of people from another country are checking out my site. You will also notice that #3 on this list is Italian. So I say: Prego!
The problem: It's not translating into sales. If I received even half the sales of the number of foreign views I would be sitting pretty.
While I have no quantifiable evidence to back it up, my theory is that the reason foreign views are not translating to sales is lack of translation. The stuff I sell is not in their native language, and they can either not read it, or not read it very well.
This leads me to wonder: what if there was a translation service? If there is, smack me now and point me to it. I would love to sell my stuff in other languages (German, amongst them).
It's not just about sales, though. I would be sharing my story with people from all over the world. My ideas would span languages and cultures. What an awesome concept! This makes me jealous of big authors like Stephen King who get their books translated into a bazillion languages at the drop of hat (not, really, but you know what I mean).
That said, though, I still need to drive sales in my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. My theory could be very sound, but if I can't drive sales in Omaha, I probably can't drive sales too well internationally.
But it's something to think about. If you can translate your novel/novella/short story into another language, I would say try it! Think about the greater reach you could create by just translating into one other langauge, such as Spanish.
Translate into Spanish and you have millions of prople in over a dozen countries that could, potentially, read your book. Habla?
It's something to think about.
Until next time...
