Читать книгу The Three Percent Problem - Chad W. Post - Страница 3

It’s kind of strange to help popularize a statistic, especially one that’s usually interpreted in pretty bleak ways. Back in the summer of 2007, that’s exactly what we set out to do.

I often tell people we started the Three Percent website out of a lifelong struggle with ADD. At the time, we were putting the final pieces into place for Open Letter. We knew that our first book was going to be Nobody’s Home by Dubravka Ugresic, and that this would come out on September 26, 2008—seemingly a lifetime away.

So we decided that in the meantime we would launch a blog. One that would focus on international literature—since Open Letter’s mandate was to publish only works in translation—and would make readers aware of both the great books they should be reading, and the ones they couldn’t thanks to the so-called “Three Percent Problem,” and the fact that only 3% of all the books published in the U.S. are in translation.

Four years later, it’s interesting to look back and see how this site evolved. Early on there are a lot of polemical pieces that use the 3% figure to try and motivate some sort of change, but over time, the perspective grew to include other aspects of the publishing trade. Like how publishers do (or, actually, don’t) interact with their readers. Or how bookstores are being forced to adapt to technological advances and the shifting priorities of consumers. We wrote about the problems translators face—like that ever-present financial one—and tried to make them more “visible.” And we talked a lot about ebooks and a host of publishing issues and theories.

Not that all the blog posts were serious . . . We posted our fair share of screeds and rants. Maybe more than our fair share.

But the point was to try and contextualize the American publishing scene in regards to international literature, and try and convey some of the passion that fuels Open Letter and all of our activities.

A blog is great for any number of reasons—immediacy, the ability to interact with readers, etc.—but it can also be a bit of a hairy mess when you’re trying to create a semi-coherent argument or vision.

Which leads right into this book. To celebrate our fourth anniversary we thought we would put together a “best of” with the funniest, most central posts. In reviewing all the possible pieces, we ended up creating a sort of “Guide to Literary Publishing” covering a number of aspects of the international literary scene.

This collection is organized thematically rather than chronologically, moving from the “Three Percent Problem,” to pieces on translating, the future of publishing, and so on.

We copyedited this to try and make it more coherent as a whole, but these were all originally blog posts, so there are occasional references to other posts, or to events that are no longer all that current.

One of the interesting aspects of working on this book was to see all the evolution of various ideas, the contradictions that arise over time while trying to puzzling something out, and the beliefs that remain unchanged from day one to now.

Such as our belief in supporting translators. That will never change. Because of this belief, all the money from the sale of this book will go to paying translators. Without them, none of this would be possible.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank a few people, starting with Joanna Olmsted, Peter Lennie, and Tom DiPiero who helped set up Open Letter at the University of Rochester. Without the gracious support of the University of Rochester none of this would exist.

E.J. Van Lanen and Nathan Furl both deserve shout outs as well, for any number of reasons. In addition to his editorial duties, E.J. designed and maintains the Three Percent site, occasionally writing for it as well. Nate plays a huge role at the press, including designing all of our books—such as this one.

Finally, I have to thank Taylor McCabe for diligently going through all 4,000+ Three Percent posts, picking out the most appropriate and helping craft these into a book. Quite a task for a summer internship—and one that comes with the price of having my voice in her head for months . . .

Enjoy!

Chad W. Post