Guest Blogger Jenny Twist on Dual Language Publications

It's always a pleasure to welcome my friend Jenny Twist to my blog, and especially so when she has something exciting to share with us all.  So let me hand straight over to Jenny to tell you about her latest publishing venture.

Today I am launching a joint venture with Alicia Pérez Alarza.

It was clear to me when I was learning Spanish that there were very few really good dual language books available. Five years ago a friend of mine complained about the same thing,

I did some research and discovered he was right. Most dual language books available on Amazon are very poor quality, either translated by English speakers who are not bilingual, or are completely inappropriate for those wishing to learn modern Spanish. What is the point, for example, of using Don Quixote as background reading? If you were teaching English to a Spaniard, would you  recommend them to read Chaucer?

And there is another point. Something that infuriated and offended me when I was learning Spanish. The stories they choose are so boring. It upset me to spend good money on boring books.

So I published one of my own. I chose Mantequero because it was short, the title was the same in both languages, and I had already had some interest from a school in California where many of the students were Hispanic.  

I felt it was essential that the translation should be done by a native speaker. Good translations are invariably translated into the translator’s native tongue. However good you are at a foreign language you will never be able to speak it like a native. So I paid for a professional translation.

It worked very well. I know of at least two schools which adopted it but the cost of translation was prohibitive. It was too high to make the book viable commercially.

So I reluctantly abandoned my plan to produce a whole series.

Then something happened. An author friend of mine said he had many of his books translated into

foreign languages using a translation site where you split the royalty with the translator. Sadly, the site only does straight translations, not dual language, but in the course of having translations done (mostly in Portuguese) I came across Alicia and we became friends.

I told her about my dream of producing dual language books and she was very enthusiastic. Our first joint effort is out today as an eBook and will be followed shortly by the print book.

We think we can probably produce a new book every six weeks or so.  Once we have, say, half a dozen we can start seriously marketing them for schools.

If, in the meantime, any of you are learning Spanish, I’d be delighted if you read this and tell me what you think.

Here is the blurb for The Children of Hope:

In 1960s England, girls who got pregnant out of wedlock were kept in Mother and Baby Homes and their babies taken for adoption at six weeks old.

Ginny is desperate to escape and to keep her baby but she’s needs outside help.

If only her friend Julia would answer her letter.

En la década de 1960 en Inglaterra, cuando las jóvenes se quedaban embarazadas fuera del matrimonio se las recluía en casas de acogida para madres gestantes y a las seis semanas de dar a luz sus bebés eran entregados en adopción.

Ginny está desesperada por escapar y poder quedarse con su bebé, pero necesita ayuda del exterior.

Ojalá su amiga Julia contestara a su carta.

Click on the book cover or the title to find Mantequero on Amazon

Click on the book cover or the title find The Children of Hope on Amazon