A work of scholarly nonfiction may require a great deal of library research to track exact equivalents of technical terms and sources quoted from languages other than the author's original one. And of course, the translation of poetry entails special challenges outside the realm of word counts. Translators and publishers alike want their translations to sell strongly. Some books may seem to have little chance of selling but are published anyway. Some of these succeed nonetheless.
Translators have a responsibility to the works they are translating.
They must seek compensation on a level adequate to their talent, skill, and contribution in recreating the foreign work in translation. And by not selling themselves short, they assert their position as members of a vital literary profession. All rights reserved.