Happy Monday 🪶. We're sharing a former employee's experience with the abuses the publishing house @beetruvian faces, as well as how it scams readers by selling books translated with Google Translate.
Some of you may know that a few months ago, some rumors surfaced about translations from the publishing house Beetruvian. Today, I'd like to share my experience as a former employee of the publishing house and confirm some of those rumors.
Yes, Beetruvian translates using Google Translate, and the publisher currently doesn't have a single professional translator on its staff. Even when they did, they were never allowed to work as such, despite their repeated attempts to take on those tasks.
Yes, the same person behind the pseudonym "Solomon Grundy" is now inventing generic fictional translator names like "Conce Sánchez" to regain the trust of readers who realized the translations might be AI.
This person, the editor, is the same person who has often mocked not only the publisher's readers, but also all of us professionals in the literary sector, with phrases like: "If it were up to me, I'd put translated by Google Translate in the credits."
At first, when the books were professionally proofread, the editor constantly complained about the corrections, claiming that many were made "out of preference" and without justification.
I suppose the fact that he “translated” for example groceries as grocerías or toadstool as setas de sapo is ignored here.
Correcting those post-edited books was hell, not only because of the short time we were given to do it, since I wanted each book to be ready in one or two months (translation, correction and layout),
but also because of what it meant for the guild; in short, the perfect cocktail for things to go wrong despite the number of times we warned them of what would happen.
It is no wonder that many people complained about inconsistencies in the proofreading and believed that the books had no proofreading; however,
These inconsistencies were the result of being hindered in our work day in and day out, until we were no longer even allowed to take charge of the correction.
There's a lot to discuss about Beetruvian and the person who runs it, and this is just one example of the little respect this person has for books and the publishing industry.
I hope it's enough to keep readers from being fooled by the publisher's latest releases, no matter how juicy they may seem.
As a final note on this subject, I once translated a third of Beetruvian's latest international release, but my former boss refused to give me a contract for the rights to my own translation.
If I took charge, it had to be "because I was excited to have my name on it," as if visibility (which I don't deny is important) would feed me in the future if the book became a bestseller.
I suppose he preferred to use that experience that he once claimed to possess when he said "I have more than 30 books translated under my belt" (post-edited after going through Google Translate)
and settle for doing things mediocrely instead of trusting that a professionally translated book might attract more sales.
Perhaps this publishing project would have been more viable if the love of books and a job well done had overcome greed and selfishness, but unfortunately, and much to my regret, this has not been the case.