John O’Brien writes:

The only foundation in the United States that has a program for supporting translations is the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

It is not uncommon for foreign agencies to feel that they are providing enormous support by producing sample translations in English—of books they themselves select—and then, if an American publisher is foolish enough to sign on a book based upon such a small sample, giving a grant that covers only about 50% of the cost to have the book translated, ignoring all the other costs involved that are only rarely recouped.

At the end of the day, this means that the American publisher invests a significant amount of money and time (much more than it would on a book written in English) on a book that will sell, almost inevitably, far fewer copies than a book by an American.

The average cost for a small press to publish a translation is approximately $35,000-$40,000.

Typically, a foreign government will donate, let’s say, $7,000 (usually 50% of the total) towards the translator’s fee (usually only paid some time after publication), and first-year sales will generate approximately $14,000.

That’s a loss of nearly $20,000 and assumes sales of about 2,000 copies. Often translations only sell a few hundred copies and the loss is much greater. Once again: with a typical literary work in translation, the approximate cost to the publisher is $35,000, with the expectation that (with luck) $12,000 will come back (eventually) through sales. Which leaves a gap of $23,000. How does this gap get filled?

He then suggests that American publishers need to be able to make their own choice of what to publish in the course of sponsored visits to other countries.