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Trading in translations

11.04.08 Hannah Davies

With the London Book Fair - a key event in a foreign rights director’s calendar - just around the corner, The Bookseller talks to Orion’s Krystyna Kujawinska about a role that requires top-notch networking and negotiation skills.

Orion’s foreign rights director Krystyna Kujawinska is currently preparing herself for the rigorous demands of next week’s London Book Fair. Deluged with requests from foreign publishers, she will be in back-to-back meetings with publishers from France, Germany, Spain and Scandinavia nine hours a day for the three days of the fair.

Despite the experience being akin to “a battery hen on a treadmill”, Kujawinska says it is the prime opportunity to develop relationships with the foreign publishers she hopes will buy the rights to translate and publish Orion’s titles abroad.

“Building contacts is the most important aspect of the job—you need to know which publishers do what and which editors to deal with. It is about getting the right books to the right people. Meeting publishers is the best way to talk to them about your books,” she explains.

Networking is just one of the skills required. Driving a hard bargain to secure the highest sum of money for the purchase of the rights and pinning down the terms of the contract are key to the role. It also comes in handy to have a few foreign languages up your sleeve. Kujawinska certainly has plenty of these: she is fluent in French, having studied it alongside Portuguese at university, and Italian and Polish complete her repertoire.

Speaking the language

When Kujawinska graduated, the chance to use her languages was part of the lure of her first foreign rights job. “The main options for people with a language degree are teaching or translating but I wanted to avoid these. I secured myself two interviews—one for a job assisting a trader at Goldman Sachs and the other at illustrated publisher Quarto, which had advertised for a fluent French speaker for the role of foreign rights production assistant.

“As soon as I knew I couldn’t wear trousers to the interview at Goldman’s [the job agency through which Kujawinska got the interview said it wasn’t the “done thing”] it was out of the question. I went for the Quarto job and got it.”

Kujawinska has worked in foreign rights ever since, securing her latest position at Orion in 2002. Clearly, she is happy in the career she embarked on 16 years ago, but says this is particularly true at Orion. “It is a very dynamic rights department, and one that is valued in the company. Editors often ask what we think we can do with a book in terms of foreign rights deals when they are acquiring it.”

With such a range of titles published at Orion, from its science fiction and fantasy imprint, Gollancz, to its heavyweight crime list, Kujawinska—who reads all of the books she sells—says the job is “interesting and stimulating”.

Despite first being attracted to the role because of the foreign language aspect, she thinks language skills are less important now than they used to be. “I’m still fluent, but I’ve got a bit lazy because everyone speaks such good English and no one is really impressed by you speaking their language any more.”

Instead, she emphasises that the main requirement of the role is the ability to make sales. “The bottom line is that we are a money-making department. The highlight of the job is when you secure a big deal. Particularly when we conduct exciting auctions for a book and receive a large pre-emptive offer.”

Unexpected successes

Kujawinska says success is even more satisfying when it is achieved for a book that was not expected to do particularly well. One such title, The Archimedes Codex: Revealing the Blueprint for Modern Science by Reviel Netz and William Noel, went on to secure rights sales in more than 18 countries. She adds: “We see the fruits of our labour about two years down the line when we are going through the deliveries of foreign editions. When we send them out to the authors they get excited and are very appreciative.”

The buzz of the big sales is accompanied with the less glamorous but equally important task of drawing up and negotiating contracts. Attention to detail is vital if translation deals are to go off without a hitch.

Kujawinska recalls a time when this was not the case: “At Quarto years ago there was a small slip about delivery terms and it turned into a massive [issue] with the foreign publisher threatening lawyers and demanding compensation—luckily, it wasn’t my fault! But it shows that it pays not to cut corners, otherwise it will come back and bite you on the bum.”

Such tasks are balanced with ample opportunities for international travel. Kujawinska’s trips have involved jetting off to the Cairo Book Fair to meet the growing market of Arab publishers keen to translate English titles, visiting Scandinavia to familarise herself with the publishing houses there, as well as the annual trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair. “Other than the fairs, we go to the territories that need a bit of work, areas that you need to develop your knowledge of the market. The trips are great—there are a lot of cool people to meet in the industry.”

Fishing for deals

The high-point of a career in foreign rights is when a title you have presented is snapped up all over the world. Kujawinska has recent experience of this, having secured 22 translation deals for 2007’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday.

However, for all the success stories there are titles that are not right for some countries and refusals from publishers are par for the course. Kujawinska reckons that at least 80% of the job is about rejection, although she finds telling a publisher that their bid for a title has not been successful even harder than rejection because they can often “get upset and take it out on you”.

However, like the professional she is, she adds: “You learn with age that business is business, and it helps to remember all the books they have rejected from you."

London Book Fair Hannah Davies LBF job translation

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