le french

Anne Trager has over a quarter of a century of experience working with the French in translation and publishing. She founded Le French Book, a mystery and thriller publishing house dedicated to translating French mysteries and thrillers into English. She is frequently asked about going the other way around, from English to French. Here she shares insights, in Part One.

France—the name itself evokes the good life, with food, wine, lovely countryside, and a huge network of independent booksellers and readers who love authors. Better yet, France is a country where one out of four books sold is a mystery or thriller, one out of five books published is a mystery or thriller, and a quarter of the bestsellers are mysteries or thrillers.

The country is very good to writers. When French readers love your books, they express it, they buy them, they stand in long lines at myriad festivals to have them signed. There are no fewer than 60 festivals in any given year dedicated to just the mystery/thriller genre.

The French market

The book market in France has a lot going for it: enthusiastic booksellers, avid readers, dynamic publishers, and a large number of trained translators. Furthermore, paper books sales are on the rise, even if even still have not taken off. Below are some figures about the book market in France. Make sure you go all the way down to the last three items in the list.

Now that we’ve established it is a good market to be looking at, what exactly do the French like to read?

What do the French like in the genre?

I posed this question to some reporters, publishers, writers, and Claude Mesplède, France’s expert in all things mystery related and a big player in getting mysteries and thrillers recognized by a wider community of readers. Here’s what I culled from these conversations:

So, how do you sell your foreign rights? Can you get the translation done yourself? Can you self-publish? For some answers, see part II of this article.

If you have specific questions about translation, France, French authors, or publishing in France, you can contact Anne Trager at anne@lefrenchbook.com. Le French Book has nearly twenty titles in translation now and a growing catalogue of European mysteries and thrillers in English. Discover them at: www.lefrenchbook.com.

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Anne_Trager_02Translator Anne Trager loves France so much she has lived there for over a quarter of a century and just can’t seem to leave. What keeps her there is a uniquely French mix of pleasure seeking and creativity. Well, that and the wine. She founded Le French Book to translate the country’s top mysteries and thrillers, so they can reach new readers. The company’s motto is “If we love it, we translate it,” and Anne loves crime fiction, mysteries and detective novels. The Winemaker Detective series was one of her first choices.