Dealing with the Competition of English-language Export Editions: Voices from the Dutch Trade Book Market

Abstract

This project explores the responses of the Dutch trade book market to the ever-increasing influx of Anglophone publications. Based on in-depth interviews (n = 42) carried out between 2015 and 2017 with Dutch publishing professionals, this research identifies the approaches and strategies they adopt to defend their market from the competition of English-language editions. Findings show that the main defence strategy used is to release translations simultaneously with English-language originals, but that this creates significant pressures on both publishers and translators. Concomitantly, there has been an increasing focus on Dutch originals and non-Anglophone books. The strategies and approaches documented in this study may be of interest for scholars and practitioners in relation to other book markets and linguistic areas facing similar circumstances.

Language, Power and Success: Bestselling Translations in the Dutch CPNB Top 100 archief

“…Although the CPNB list is rather objective (only 10% of sales are estimated and there is no weighting or selection by genre), only Dutch-language books appear on the list. Yet, as Trentacosti and Pilcher report, the Dutch increasingly read books in the original English, mainly due to the on average high level of English proficiency [36]. The turnover share of foreign-language books of total paper book sales in the Netherlands has been steadily rising and doubled from 7% in 2012 to 14% in 2020 [25].…”

English in Dutch‐speaking Europe: Features, competence, domains and status

“…An indication that the passive knowledge of English is high indeed is that Dutch and Flemish publishers publish fewer and fewer translations of English books. If they publish a translation of an English book they try to publish it simultaneously or even in advance of the original publication in order to avoid that the Dutch and Flemish will buy the English edition (Trentacosti & Pilcher, 2021). Another indication of the high passive knowledge of English is that young people aged between 14 and 18 are increasingly reading English language young adult novels at the expense of Dutch books (Van Gelder, 2022).…”