I found the session Getting down to business delivered by Ros Schwartz at Middlesex University very helpful and practical. The complexity of the translator/publisher contracts had raised my awareness for the whole set of information which the translator has to access and understand before signing a contract with a publisher.
Most of the time, the information about the appropriate rates and reasonable stipulations are not available to a beginner who is in search of publishing his/her first translation. However after this session I have understood the legal stipulations of such a contract and its implications for me as a translator.
Questions that came out from reflecting on this matter:
From where does the translator get a professional opinion about such a contract if he/she does not receive any opinion from a Translation Association?
How serious do we (the translators) take the legal stipulations of such a contract? Do we only hope that its stipulations are in our favour without doing any research about that?
