Learn the Basics About Translation and International Rights

These used to be called "foreign" rights, but that's a pretty colonial way to consider it, so the industry is moving towards calling these "international rights" (because while it's generally thought about as selling different language rights to countries/territories besides where your book was originally published, you can sell the same language rights to multiple countries/territories) and "translation rights" (because you can sell different language rights in the same country/territory, including where your book was originally published.)

The Not-for-Profit Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA)* recently held a webinar "Translation Rights 101" that explains the basics of how the world of translation and international rights work, and also includes some information about the IBPA member benefit programs that can help you sell these rights for your books. (Of course, you need to control those rights to sell them. If you're working with a traditional publisher, check your contract and/or chat with your agent.)

You can watch the webinar video recording and see the slides here.

Your book reaching readers in other languages and parts of the world is a thrill (So far it's happened for one of my books, a German version of my picture book Red and Green and Blue and White (illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky, published by Levine Querido), which the German publisher Sauerländer called Für Jeden Ein Licht (which translates back to English as A Light for Everyone). 

Selling the translation and international rights for your book is also another stream of income, which is always appreciated.

The original English version of my picture book (left) and the German translation (right)

The webinar is free. And for those who don't know, IBPA and SCBWI have a reciprocal member discount (members of one organization get 20% off membership in the other organization.) 

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

*Full disclosure - in my day job I'm the Chief Content Officer for IBPA, and I hosted this free-for-all webinar as part of our efforts to provide empowering education for author publishers (a.k.a. self-published authors) and small independent publishers.