Zauberhafte Kontis
A dream is a wish your heart makes... 🌹
Some dreams in this life you have to make come true all by yourself.
For better and worse.
A dream I’ve had since I was a baby writer—that period of my life sometime after AlphaOops but before Enchanted—was to see my books published in German. Even when I was a teenager I worried that my fairytale-based fantasy ideas were more geared toward a European audience than an American one. Once I started working full time in publishing, I heard whispers about the German book market. “My German rights bought this house,” was said to me by more than one author friend. So I knew the first step of being an author was to get a publisher. The second step would be to get my books translated into German.
When Harcourt bought Enchanted for a song, they threw a few extra thousand dollars my way for all the world rights, not just the English ones. Hooray! I dreamed of seeing covers of my book translated into languages that had never occurred to me. My first ever book signing (Elemental, 2006) was at Forbidden Planet in London. I already had the beginnings of a global fanbase. But this was WORLD RIGHTS. Imagine my excitement! I would be able to buy multiple houses, all over the world!
And then…nothing.
One fan of the Woodcutter series took a copy of Enchanted to Germany with her and sent me a photo of my book in front of the Black Forest. When a German fan found me at the SFWA booth at BEA and told me my series should be published in Germany, I pointed toward the middle of the room. “My publisher is two rows that way,” I told her. “Please tell them that.” I also signed books for some Japanese businessmen that year.
And nothing.
Enchanted won awards. Went to reprint. Won more awards. Even the audiobook got nominated for awards. But still nothing. No more books happened. None. In any languages.
I never expected anyone to have an interest in translating AlphaOops, despite the book’s quiet global popularity, because it’s based on the English alphabet. So you can imagine my surprise when we signed a contract about a decade later for some Vietnamese rights. They gave me about $400, but I didn’t even care. I just wanted to see my books in another language!
“Just take the money,” my agent at the time said. “They may never actually publish it.”
In 2020—14 years after its original publication, both AlphaOops books were published in Vietnamese. My first and only foreign translation. Thankfully they sent me author copies—I’m not sure I could afford shipping from Vietnam!
Also in 2020, you might recall, I was very active in the Saturday Songwriters. We were a global group of music fans who came together every Saturday on Instagram during lockdown and wrote songs with Gary Lightbody, the lead singer from Snow Patrol. We ended up being such a close group that we went to great lengths to stick together. We friended each other on multiple social media platforms. MK and I edited the Patchwork Poetry book as a memento for all of us. MK and a handful of others also created a Facebook Group where they kept the creative fires burning.
At one point, Helga Köller from Germany (thanks to a typo that lucky girl has her name listed in the Fireside Sessions liner notes twice) posted on my FB wall: “I work as a translator. Let me know if you ever need help translating any of your work into German.”
If only, I thought. But I always kept her offer in the back of my mind.
When I got the rights back to the Woodcutter Series in October 2023 and started laying the groundwork for how I truly wanted to see my books in the world—THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD—despite being at the end of my meager savings—it wasn’t long before I reached out to Helga and asked if her offer was still good.
It was.
For better or worse, I was going to see my books translated into German!
I say “for worse,” because even though I have now reprinted the first three books in the Woodcutter Series in English, the money hasn’t exactly come pouring back in. (The Amazon boycotts certainly haven’t helped.) I put up a GFM to help fund the German Edition, but people either didn’t see it or didn’t care because in over a year it only collected a couple hundred dollars. Thanks to a private personal donation (thank you, angels!), I was able to pay for both the German translation of one novel and some gorgeous original cover art by Kit Steele. It took blood, sweat, tears, a lot of years, and a lot of help, but I finally made my dream come true!!!
Only…now I have no clue how to publicize it.
I don’t live in Germany. I haven’t traveled to Germany since I was 9 years old. Who do I know that still lives in Germany? How am I supposed to tell people that Zauberhafte Sunday now exists in German to read in hardcover, paperback, and e-book?
HELP I DIDN’T THINK THAT FAR AHEAD.
What do you say, Squad?
Any ideas?
Visit the ARILLAND INTERNATIONAL HUB to view all of Alethea’s works available in other languges (print, e-book and audio)
I hope someone comes up with something!