Further to my introduction on How to Get Published as a Literary Translator and Part 1 Build a Portfolio, over the next six weeks, each Monday, I will take a look at various approaches to establish or build a career as a published literary translator.

Like an author who writes a book, then looks for a publisher or agent by sending query letters , this can be the translator’s path to getting published, too.

I started down this road a decade ago, but will admit up front that this approach didn’t take me very far. Let’s take a look at my story to highlight some of the difficulties inherent to this route.

In 2001, I had just returned to Canada after living in Peru and Mexico for eight years. I had been translating part-time for several years and was determined to eventually become a literary translator. To further this goal, I had joined the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). The only three ALTA Guides available at the time were one of my first professional purchases: Breaking Into Print, The Proposal for a Book-Length Translation and Promoting Your Literary Translation.

Each of these short publications was enormously helpful, but in all honesty, the second guide nearly scared me off. The very thought of first acquiring foreign rights and translating an entire book on spec, only to then spend months querying editors and agents about publication was simply overwhelming. I clearly remember thinking I was done before I had ever begun.

Driving up the west coast, from Tijuana to Vancouver, with my now partner, Jon, one day we stopped at a Border’s bookstore. There on an end-of-row display was a collection of short stories that would change my life: Amores imperfectos by Edmundo Paz Soldán. One page in – the length of an entire story packed with emotion, dark details and contemporary references – and I was enthralled. I had to translate these stories. This was the book I had beside me as I contemplated a career in literary translation.

Daunted but determined to try, I started down the traditional path. I logged on to the Internet via a dial-up connection and began to research whether Amores imperfectos or any other of Paz Soldán’s works were already in English. I found reference to only one story, that he himself translated. This was promising! There might be room for me!

According to the ALTA Breaking Into Print guide, once you found the work you wanted to translate, the first step was to contact the original publisher’s foreign rights department to see if those rights were available for English.

I found the Spanish publisher – Alfaguara – online but didn’t know which office to target. The U.S.? Spain? Latin America? I settled on approaching the Miami office to start, but was unable to find specific contact details for the rights department. One by one, I wrote to all of the other addresses I thought might apply. Inquiry after inquiry went unanswered.

I continued to translate more of the stories from Amores imperfectos, but there was a constant nagging fear I would never be able to get them published if I followed the traditional route.

Had I reached the end of the road just a few short months after setting my feet firmly on this path? The thought of continuing to knock on closed doors, of wading through the bureaucracy of a large corporation, of cold-calling a major publisher knotted my insides.

And then what? Would I have to purchase the rights? What if they had already been acquired?

Rights were just the first of three hurdles and I was already exhausted. Supposing I did reach someone at Alfaguara and acquire the rights to translate this work, I would then have to find a publisher or agent.

Being new to the industry, I spent days researching publishers that might be appropriate for these short stories. The sheer plethora of presses was once again overwhelming: it could take me months just to find the right one. I was also discovering that most did not accept unsolicited manuscripts so I would need an agent.

I therefore began to research agents. Again, after days invested in this, it became clear that very few – if any – agents represent translators.

Every turn I took along this path seemed to wind up nowhere at all. This was proving to be too long and difficult of a process for instant-gratification me.

On the bright side, the despair I felt and the deep, persistent need to bring this or other works by Paz Soldán into English is what led me to discover other avenues to become a published literary translator. Who knows, I may have been very successful if I had persevered with the traditional route – as many translators are – but I knew it wasn’t the right course for me.

I didn’t tell you this story to be discouraging, but rather to highlight some of the challenges and reinforce the notion that not every path to publication will suit every translator.  If you are passionate about the work you want to translate and tenacious enough to go the traditional route, there is every chance you will be successful.

What do you see as the drawbacks or benefits of following the traditional route? Care to share your own personal experience? Please do!