Translate your book with AI: how to do it, what it costs and tips

A book in Swedish reaches at most the readers who understand Swedish. A translation opens up new countries, new streaming services and new listeners – but has long been the most expensive and slowest step in publishing. With AI translation, it's now possible to have an entire novel translated in about an hour, at a cost an independent publisher can afford.

In this guide we go through how AI translation of books works, how it differs from a traditional translation, which languages you can choose, how to do it step by step with GoRead, what it costs and how to get the best possible result.

What is an AI translation?

An AI translation is done by a large language model instead of a human translator. Unlike older machine translation, which translated sentence by sentence, today's models work with the context. They keep track of who is speaking, what tone the text has and what has happened earlier in the story.

The result still depends on how the translation is done. Pasting a manuscript into a chat tool gives an uneven text where names, places and recurring expressions may be translated differently in different chapters. A book needs a process that holds the whole together, and that is what GoRead has built.

AI translation or human translator?

Both have their place. The differences are primarily about time, cost and how much you want to be involved yourself.

Time

A human translator normally works for weeks or months on a novel, and skilled translators are often booked up well in advance. An AI translation at GoRead takes about an hour.

Cost

A professional translation is one of the largest costs in book publishing, and for an independent publisher it is often hard to make it pay off. An AI translation costs a fraction. See the calculation examples further down.

Quality

A skilled literary translator makes their own interpretations and finds solutions to wordplay, rhymes and cultural references that are difficult to replace. For poetry and highly stylistically demanding prose, a human translator is still the safest choice. For narrative prose and non-fiction, a well-executed AI translation is at a high level today.

Feel free to combine

A common approach is to let AI do the translation and then ask someone who has the target language as their mother tongue to read through the text. This gives much of the quality at a small fraction of the cost.

Why should you translate your book?

More readers and listeners. Every new language is a new market. In all the countries whose languages GoRead supports, the audiobook market is well developed.
Same book, new revenue. The manuscript is already written. A translation lets that work generate revenue once more.
English and German open up Audible. Audible is largest in English and German, and is reached via GoRead.
You can make an audiobook right away. Once the book is translated, you can produce an AI-narrated audiobook in the target language.
Low risk. The cost is so low that you can try a language and see how the book is received before moving on to more.
Both directions. If you have written in English or Finnish, you can translate to Swedish just as easily as the other way around.

Which languages can I translate to?

GoRead translates to and from:

Swedish
Danish
Finnish
Icelandic
German
Polish
Dutch
Bulgarian
British English
American English

English is split into British and American, because spelling, word choice and expressions differ. Choose the variant that suits the market you primarily want to reach.

How GoRead's translation process works

The translation is not done in a single pass, but in several steps where each step has its own task:

Translation. The entire text is translated into the target language.
Names, places and local terms. Proper names, place names and other local expressions are extracted and handled separately, so that they become consistent throughout the whole book.
Uncertain words and expressions. The places where the AI model is itself uncertain are reviewed separately.
Linguistic review. The translated text is reviewed linguistically.
Final decisions. A concluding step weighs the review's suggestions against the context and chooses the expression that fits best.

It is not only the body text that is translated. The title, back cover text, cover and all the details about the book are translated at the same time, so that you get a complete book project in the target language.

The language models GoRead uses are not trained on your manuscript.

Prepare the manuscript before you translate

A translation is never better than the original. What you correct in the original manuscript, you avoid correcting in every translation.

Finish the original first

Proofread and make all changes before you order. When you upload the manuscript, we do a free spell check that you can choose to make use of. A spelling error or an unclear reference in the original can become an error in the translation.

Use clear headings

The manuscript is uploaded as a Word file (.docx). Set chapter headings in Heading 2 and subheadings in Heading 3 and 4. The structure carries over to the translated book.

Pay attention to what is difficult to translate

Puns, rhymes, dialect and references that only work in one country are difficult for all translators, human and digital. Go through such places in the finished translation, or consider whether something could be rephrased already in the original.

Decide on a title

The title is translated together with the book. Consider whether a straight translation works in the target language, and check that there isn't already a book with the same title and author name.

How to translate your book with GoRead – step by step

Upload the original manuscript. Log in with BankID and upload the manuscript as a Word file (.docx).
Go through Manuscript, Details and Cover. Enter title, author and language, edit the back cover text and choose a cover. These steps need to be complete before you can order a translation.
Choose target language and order. You see the price for your specific book before you pay.
The translation is done. It normally takes about an hour. Text, title, cover and all details are translated into the target language.
Review the result. Read through the translated book in the preview. Look especially at the title, back cover text, first chapter and the places you know are difficult.
Produce an audiobook. Listen to samples of the AI voices in the target language and order an audiobook if you want.
Publish. Under the Streaming tab, you publish the e-book and audiobook to the streaming services.

What does it cost to translate a book?

The price is a startup fee of SEK 249 plus SEK 300 per 45,000 characters including spaces. It is the same pricing model as for audiobook production. A few calculation examples:

Short story, about 45,000 characters: about SEK 550.
Shorter novel, about 135,000 characters: about SEK 1,150.
Full-length novel, about 360,000 characters: about SEK 2,650.
Longer novel, about 495,000 characters: about SEK 3,550.

You can see the number of characters in your manuscript in Word under Review and Word Count. The exact price is calculated automatically and shown before you pay. The price applies per language.

This is included:

translation of the entire manuscript in several steps
translation of title, back cover text and other details
translated cover
e-book in the target language
distribution of the e-book to the streaming services

How long does it take?

Translation: normally about an hour.
Audiobook in the target language: normally ready within a few hours after ordering.
Publishing: the streaming services normally make the book available within a few hours.

Your own read-through is what takes the longest, and it is worth spending time on.

Translation and audiobook – a strong combination

The greatest gain from a translation often comes in audio. Once the book is translated, you can listen to samples of the AI voices in the target language and produce an audiobook, in the same way and at the same price as in Swedish: SEK 249 in startup fee plus SEK 300 per hour of finished audiobook.

A novel of about 360,000 characters, roughly eight hours of audio, thus costs around SEK 2,650 to translate and the same amount to produce as an audiobook. For just over SEK 5,000 you then have both an e-book and an audiobook in a new language.

Read more in our guide on producing an AI audiobook.

Where does the translated book end up?

The e-book and audiobook are distributed to Storytel, BookBeat, Nextory and Audible and become available in the countries where each service has customers. A book in Danish thus reaches Danish listeners, and a book in German or English reaches, among others, Audible's customers.

Printed books are currently distributed to bookshops on the Swedish market. Read more in our guide on publishing a book with print on demand.

You get 70% of the sales revenue, with monthly payouts within 60 days after each month-end. The statistics are updated every Monday, and you see sales per title, channel and format. That way you also see which language generates the most.

Rights and copyright

You retain the copyright to your text, and no copyright is transferred to GoRead. This also applies to the translated edition.

Keep two things in mind:

You must have the right to translate the book. If you have published the book with a publisher, the publisher may own the translation rights. Check your contract before you order.
AI-generated material is labelled. We label AI-generated material according to applicable rules. Copyright normally arises only for works created by humans, so in many cases an AI translation receives no copyright protection of its own. Your original is protected as before.

How to get the best possible result

Start with one language. Choose the language where you think the book has the largest audience, and learn from how it is received.
Choose the right English. British and American English are two different choices. Think about where your readers are.
Let someone read it. Ask a person with the target language as their mother tongue to read at least the first chapters and the back cover text.
Review the title and back cover text extra carefully. These are the texts that sell the book.
Check the cover. The title on the cover is translated. Make sure it looks good and is readable in a small format.
Listen to samples in the target language. The voices differ between languages. Listen to several before you choose.

Common mistakes – and how to avoid them

Translating a manuscript that isn't finished. Every error in the original carries over to all languages.
Publishing without reading through. Published books cannot be changed easily.
Translating to many languages at once. Start with one, so you know what to look for next time.
Forgetting to tell people about the book. Marketing is not included in the service. Readers in a new country won't find the book on their own, so think through how you reach them.
Only publishing an e-book. On several of these markets it is the audiobook that reaches the most people.

Frequently asked questions about translating a book

How good is an AI translation?

For narrative prose and non-fiction, the result is good. The multi-step process ensures that names, places and recurring expressions become consistent. Always read through the result, and feel free to ask someone with the target language as their mother tongue to read.

How long does a translation take?

Normally about an hour for a whole book.

Can I translate to several languages?

Yes. Each language is ordered and paid for separately.

Can I translate a book that isn't written in Swedish?

Yes. GoRead translates between all supported languages, for example from English to Swedish or from Finnish to German.

Is the cover translated too?

Yes. Text, title, cover and all details about the book are translated into the target language.

Do I have to publish the original with GoRead in order to translate?

You need to upload the original manuscript and go through the Manuscript, Details and Cover steps. You choose yourself which formats and languages you then publish.

Can I make an audiobook of the translation?

Yes. Audiobooks can be produced in all languages that GoRead translates to.

Who owns the translation?

No copyright is transferred to GoRead. You retain the rights to your book and its various formats.

Is it visible that the book is AI-translated?

We label AI-generated material according to applicable rules.

Are AI models trained on my manuscript?

No. The language models GoRead uses are not trained on your manuscript.

Get started with your translation

Upload your manuscript at GoRead, choose a language and see the price before you decide. Read more about translations in the post Translations are a success. You'll find more answers in our frequently asked questions.