I’ve been using Babelcube since October 2023, and have been waiting for my translation projects to be wrapped up so I could post about my experiences. The current state seems to be as good as it’ll get, so I’ve decided to pull the trigger and write about my experiences.
The Good
Babelcube has been operating since 2013 and works as a matchmaker between authors or publishers with a book to translate and translators working in over 15 languages. Translators post their services and authors post their books, and either can contact the other in an eBay style marketplace. After discussions, the translator does a 10-page example translation, then the two parties decide if they want to sign a contract to translate that book.
I have a friend who is Mexican, so I had her look at the 10-page sample. She said it was unusually written, since it was translated into European Spanish instead of Mexican, but as far as she could tell it looked ok. For the final Spanish translation and the Portuguese sample and final translations I had no way to evaluate the quality of the translations, so I just accepted them.
If both parties sign the contract, the translator then has a period of time to finish the translation. After the book is translated, the author needs to verify the translation, make a version of the cover in the destination language, and upload the documents to their site.
Babelcube’s site handles (supposedly, see below) uploading the files to multiple bookseller websites and created e-books and paperbacks of the translated books. They are supposed to collect royalties from these sites, then distribute them. When the book is sold, Babelcube takes a flat 20% cut, the translator gets a decreasing amount starting at 50% and decreasing to 5% as more copies are sold. The remained (maxing out at 75%) goes to the author. In theory (see below), authors and translators should see their ongoing royalty payments on the site.
After 6 years, the rights to the translation belongs exclusively to the author, and they can do whatever they want with the translated text.
Babelcube’s website is functional. It lets you message translators, work on the project with them, and create the final books. I have Spanish and Portuguese translations of my book Merchant Magician, which is cool.
After the translation is done, the author can rate the translator on a five-star scale. The translator should also be given the opportunity to rate the author on how pleasant they were to work with.
The Bad
When the books are released, they’ve never deployed for me on half the channels, including Amazon and Google. This has happened for both translations. It’s also never released the paperback version of it. I sent support an email and heard back a couple of days later, and they suggested republishing the books. I tried this, and it released on one channel, but the others still show “publishing” and never change.
Their book sales page says that they’re having trouble getting information from their publishing partners and “we have disabled this functionality until we have been able to solve these issues.” The royalty page shows that neither of my translations have earned anything. This could be because no one has bought a copy, or because the sales aren’t being reported correctly.
I’d be delighted to purchase paperback versions of my translated books, which would test the royalty processing, but the paperback versions never get released. I’m not willing to buy an e-book (which I already have) to test this.
At one point I was communicating with a translator about working on one of my books and hadn’t heard from her for a while. Out of the blue, I got an angry message from her that she’d waited long enough for me to respond and was moving on to other projects. I could have dropped the ball somehow, or the site didn’t send me (or show me) her message. Whatever happened, it’s a shame that it was so frustrating for her.
The Ugly
I’m philosophical about the poor result. I’m not in a rush to use Babelcube to translate more of my books, but it wasn’t too much work for me, and it’s neat and useful to have the translations.
Ultimately, I really feel sorry for the translators I’ve worked with. They’ve likely spent over a hundred hours working on the translation and haven’t seen a penny. I hope the translator community realizes there are currently problems with Babelcube and that no one was desperately waiting for their royalties.
Further, even if the website was working perfectly, I think translators would be poorly paid for their work under this model. It’s perhaps only useful for people who translate as a hobby or are getting started. For people who are trying to actually make money at this, they’d have to be selective about which books they agree to translated – many self-published books only sell a handful of copies and I can imagine many translations that wouldn’t be viable for the translators.
I don’t think the site works well enough to be worth scamming on, but I was somewhat concerned that there might be translators doing AI translations of the texts – which authors could do themselves if that’s what they wanted. If this became a large problem, I imagine it would be fairly easy for Babelcube to identify bad actors in their ecosystem. The process as presented hold authors responsible for verifying the quality of translation.
Final Recommendations
At the end of the day, using Babelcube as a self-published author without many sales is a no-brainer. If you weren’t going to translate your book anyway, getting a translation for free is fun if nothing else. Any foreign language sales you get are gravy. After 6 years, you’ll have a translated version of your book that you own outright.
For translators, Babelcube isn’t a great deal. Other than getting a portfolio piece, I don’t think many translators are getting paid much for their work. If the site was operating properly and distributing the books, that would be one thing, but it seems neglected in its current state. A freelancing site like Fiverr would be a better place to earn money while you create examples of your work. Alternatively, translating public domain works and providing them to potential clients might be a better approach than going through Babelcube.
For Babelcube or someone considering a similar service: as a small, self-published writer, I *LOVE* the service and business model. If it worked as advertised, I’d be your biggest fan. If this business model doesn’t work, something similar would be interesting to me.
With its current state, it seems like Babelcube’s website isn’t working and has been at least partially abandoned. It feels like they’ve left it running for ongoing agreements and to get whatever new business they can, but it doesn’t seem to be working properly.
Book
I released a book on Amazon expanding this post with far more details about releasing books. If you enjoyed this post, I think you’d dig it.
Babelcube is an absolute nightmare both for authors and translators. Emails go unanswered and even getting your rights back after 5 years won’t be as easy as you think. Some authors are currently trying to remove their books off the platform, but are getting nowhere as emails go unanswered as I already said. The platform is rigged with so-called translators using AI and because there’s no one to check the quality of the translation, it is published as is, and then readers comment that the translated text is atrocious. Authors and translators who care about their reputation should stay well clear off Babelcube. No good will come from having their name on your CV. In fact, it will do more harm than good.