Translating public-domain books and selling them on Kindle
An idea I keep coming back to: use modern translation tools + human editing to bring forgotten public-domain books to English readers.
How it works
There are thousands of interesting non-English books whose copyright has expired. A small back-catalog of tastefully translated editions could earn a slow trickle indefinitely.
Step by step
- 1Verify copyright status carefully. In the US, works published before 1929 are public domain; other countries follow life+70 rules. Cross-check with Project Gutenberg and the HathiTrust catalog.
- 2Pick a narrow niche (e.g. early 20th-century French crime novellas, Meiji-era Japanese short stories). Narrow niches let a small back-catalog look intentional.
- 3Shortlist 5 candidate books. Read at least one full chapter in the original language, or in an existing rough translation, before committing.
- 4Do a first-pass machine translation with DeepL or GPT, chapter by chapter. Save each version so you can diff later.
- 5Hire a native-speaker editor for a 2-hour sample review of chapter one at $40-60/hr. If they flag major issues, drop the book.
- 6Do a full human polish yourself: reading aloud, fixing tone, replacing idioms. Budget 40-60 hours for a 200-page book.
- 7Commission a series-consistent cover from a designer on Reedsy or 99designs ($150-300). Use the same typography and layout across the catalog — that's your shelf presence.
- 8Publish on Kindle Direct Publishing as both ebook ($4.99) and paperback ($11.99). Enroll in KDP Select for the first 90 days to test Kindle Unlimited.
- 9Write a genuinely informative 'Translator's Note' foreword — this is the single strongest signal that separates your edition from AI-slop reprints.
- 10Reinvest the first book's revenue into translating the second. Aim for 6-8 titles before evaluating whether the trickle is worth continuing.
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Discussion
This is the kind of quiet business I like. Cover design would matter more than translation quality, I think.
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