{"id":673,"date":"2018-04-23T09:00:32","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T09:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/?p=673"},"modified":"2026-04-12T04:35:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T04:35:51","slug":"getting-my-poincare-translation-published","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/2018\/04\/23\/getting-my-poincare-translation-published\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting My Poincar\u00e9 Translation Published"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ata-fld-newsletter-logo\"<\/a>By Bruce Popp<\/em><\/p>\n

Faithful readers of this newsletter and attendees at the 58th ATA Annual Conference will know that Springer published my translation of a book by Poincar\u00e9 in May 2017. The editor of this newsletter suggested to me that readers might be interested in hearing about my experience finding and working with a publisher. To tell that story, it is best to start at the beginning.<\/p>\n

In March 2014 I started translating, from French into English, a book by Henri Poincar\u00e9 that is considered a classic in the field of mathematical physics. I chose to translate this book because of my personal interest and with the goal of better understanding what Poincar\u00e9 had done. That means that the translation was not commissioned or done under contract. I had no idea then whether it would even ever be published. I did however know that it could be published because there were no questions of copyright ownership on the original work; Poincar\u00e9 died in July 1912. I also did enough checking to know that I could work in Microsoft Word and if necessary could do a conversion to LaTeX (a typesetting system popularly used in academia, especially in the sciences) if that was required for submission to a publisher.<\/p>\n

As months and months went by and I kept coming back to work on the translation, I started to develop ideas and strategies for where and how the book would be published. I decided that I would not contact a publisher until I had a complete translation that I had edited on-screen. Also, I decided that self-publishing the translation would be a last resort; because of the specialist knowledge required to understand the material I was translating, it was clear that my target market would be academic and that I would need a publisher with access to that market\u2014self-publishing would be a significant market barrier. To narrow the list of potential publishers, I looked for academic publishers that had already published books about Poincar\u00e9 or his work. That led to a core list of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), Princeton University Press and Springer. I also had an informal discussion with a translator who had been an editor at Harvard University Press; that led to some good advice (more on that later) and the decision that the Press was unlikely to be interested in the book. After looking at websites of other possible publishers, I also added Cambridge University Press, Cornell University Press (I\u2019m an alumni) and MIT Press to my list.<\/p>\n

In March 2016 I finished a pass of on-screen editing of the complete translation of the book. I prepared single-page proposal letters for acquisition editors at the six publishers on my list. I tried to indicate why the book was relevant for them to publish and why it was worth publishing. I also stated that I had a complete manuscript that I was willing to share. I heard back from Cornell quickly: \u201cWe are not interested.\u201d I also heard from Cambridge University Press fairly fast with some nice words about impressive effort and scholarly importance, followed by \u201cIt doesn\u2019t fit into our catalog.\u201d I also received an acknowledgment and promise to look at my proposal from Springer.<\/p>\n

I heard from the AMS in June. Their management committee decided they were not interested; they thought it wouldn\u2019t sell enough copies.<\/p>\n

At about that time I prepared a version with Poincar\u00e9\u2019s original work and my translation on facing pages that I had printed at Staples and I started editing it. While I was doing this editing, I also made notes in the margin (in a different color ink) of things I wanted to include in an \u201cIt\u2019s in there!\u201d section of the preface.<\/p>\n

By August, about five months after I sent out the proposal letters, I had not heard from Princeton University Press or MIT Press at all, and had not heard from Springer beyond the editor\u2019s acknowledgment that she had received the submission. I sent follow-up emails to MIT and Springer and a revised paper letter to Princeton. The following day (yes, really) I got a paper letter from Princeton responding to my original submission from March and indicating that my book didn\u2019t fit their publishing plans. I got an email message from MIT apologizing for the delay and stating that they were forwarding the proposal to a different editor. I also got an email from the same editor at Springer apologizing for the delay (dealing with personal issues) and promising to look at the proposal.<\/p>\n

In September I finished editing the paper copy and transferred my edits into the electronic copy. I never heard back from MIT Press. I started looking more at what was involved in self-publishing.<\/p>\n

The next month, I got a second letter from Princeton University Press praising the scholarly importance of the project and apologizing for not having room in their catalog for such a worthy project. A couple weeks before the ATA Conference in San Francisco in 2016, I sent a third email to the editor at Springer. This time I got a real reply: \u201cWe are interested. Please fill out and return our submission form.\u201d<\/p>\n

I should emphasize that at this point, I had not sent my translation to any publisher. All discussions were based on what was in my proposal letter.<\/p>\n

Finding a publisher took patience and persistence and then more of both.<\/p>\n

When one story ends, another begins.<\/p>\n

I filled out and returned their form. Beyond obvious questions like author, affiliation and completion schedule, it asked for key marketing advantages, my bio, a brief description of the book and a description of the target audience. (After one back-and-forth round of edits, the last two were used on the back cover of the book and the bio appears on the book\u2019s page on the Springer website; except for the copyright page, pretty much everything in and on the book is my writing!)<\/p>\n

And then I waited.<\/p>\n

Just before Thanksgiving, I sent a follow-up email and was told that the proposal had been sent to the editor of a book series. The reasoning was that \u201cbooks that are part of a series sell better.\u201d (The book became volume 443 in the Astrophysics and Space Science Library.)<\/p>\n

And I waited.<\/p>\n

On December 6, I was sent a contract. I read it and compared it to the PEN model contract for literary translators (available online). I considered the advice that I had been given by the former Harvard University Press editor. Based on that I asked for:<\/p>\n