We transcreate rather than translate, then produce the entire edition, and hand you the files. You publish it yourself, on your own account, under your own name.
more on request
to publish
anything ships
you give up
Transcreated, not translated
The title, the register and the form of address are decided again for the target market, because a title that works in English is an argument about the book, and arguments do not survive word-for-word. You choose the direction before anything starts, and you approve the title and a three-chapter calibration sample before a single further chapter is written.
If you do not read the target language, every approval comes with a back-translation. The literal meaning of each title option. The English rendering beside the calibration sample. A plain list at the end of everything the localisation changed and why. Approving text you cannot read is worse than not approving it at all.
Localised, not just translated
Anything that only holds in your own country is replaced rather than carried across. Emergency numbers, helplines, legal and employment references, institutions, examples that do not land.
On the last edition we produced, that meant a page of UK crisis resources becoming a page for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with every number checked against the body that issues it on the day it was written. One of those services had launched three months earlier. Written from memory it would have been missing.
If your book touches health, law, safety or crisis support, this step is a condition of delivery rather than an extra.
How one book crossed into another language
The full record of one edition. The title decision and the word we rejected. The help page rebuilt for three countries. The 284 corrections our proofreading pass found after every mechanical check had already passed. And the two mistakes we made on the way.
Read the record →Checked before anyone reads it
Every chapter is run against the source on fifteen mechanical checks before a human sees it. A chapter can be right on average and still have one paragraph quietly compressed, and an average hides exactly that.
Then a separate proofreading pass, by someone who does not see the original. On the last edition that pass returned 284 corrections to a manuscript that every mechanical check had already cleared. Nearly half were the same fault, an English idiom rendered literally into the target language, which is precisely what someone holding the original cannot see.
Finally a native reader signs off on the calibration sample and a sample of the finished text.
Where the machine sits in this
A model produces the first draft of each chapter. It runs against a brief, a settled glossary and a calibration sample you have already approved, so the decisions that shape the text are made before it starts, and the checks, the blind proofread, the native sign-off and the localisation research all come after.
We say so plainly because you would find out anyway, and because the first draft is not the part you are buying. It is the eighteen steps around it, and those took two editions and a written record of every mistake to arrive at.
What you receive
- Title and subtitle, transcreated and approved by you
- The complete text, paragraph for paragraph against the original
- Interior for paperback and hardcover, in the house design
- A new front cover for the target market, and both wraps
- Ebook, and a narration file with the pauses written in
- Description, categories, search terms and a price recommendation for that marketplace
- A written account of everything the localisation changed, with sources
The rights stay yours
We take no licence and no share. A fixed price for the production, the files delivered, and you publish. Your original edition is untouched. There is no term, no reversion, no imprint, nothing for an existing publisher to object to.
If you would rather we ran the edition instead, we can, under the InkAtlas imprint, with its own ISBN and its own place in the catalogue. That version does involve a licence for one named language, limited to three years with no automatic renewal, and it is the exception rather than the rule.
When we will tell you not to
A book with no sales history. A second market multiplies what is already there. It does not create demand that was never there.
A book built on one country. If the argument rests on a national tax code, school system, health service or broadcaster, it stops working at the border, and production does not change that. Subject is not the test. Psychology, work, relationships, attention, money and health all travel, as long as the book is about living with the institution rather than about the institution.
A language we cannot have read. We do not deliver a language nobody has read as a native reader. That is not removable to hit a price.
Before you commit, 200 €
A production check on the book you already have out. We run your existing files against what the retailer actually requires and send you a findings list, with the location, the measurement and the requirement for each one. Page geometry and bleed, embedded fonts, spine width against page count, safe margins on the cover, contents against the typeset pages, orphaned image data, and whether the ebook file validates.
It is not an opinion on your book. It is a measurement of your files, and most books have three to five findings in them. If you go ahead with a localisation within six months, the 200 € comes off in full.
What it costs
| Localisation | €2.500 | The complete edition, per language, delivered as files. You publish it yourself and keep every right and every royalty. |
|---|---|---|
| With publication | €2.900 | The same, published by InkAtlas with its own ISBN, a place in this catalogue, and a launch. Involves a licence for one named language, limited to three years with no automatic renewal. |
Per language, per title, for books up to roughly 70,000 words. Longer books are quoted on the two steps that scale with length, the transcreation and the proofread. Where you publish, we take no share of your royalties, ever. Where we publish, we carry the costs of that edition and keep its revenue.
Two smaller things we also do
Hardcover edition, 400 €. Interior and full wrap for a book that already exists as a paperback, built against the retailer's template for the actual page count. No new cover design, no editing, no text changes.
Narration file, 400 €. Your existing text prepared for voice recording. Chapter structure, everything that is not spoken removed, a pronunciation list for proper names, and two output versions for different narration engines. The recording itself is not included.
Both assume a published book and a settled text. Neither includes editing. They are quoted flat because they take hours rather than weeks, and they are booked and paid in one step.
Languages
German and English. Any other language is tested on a calibration sample first and quoted separately, before the book is committed, because we do not deliver a language nobody has read as a native reader. That rule is not removable to reach a price, and a longer list on a website is easy to write and hard to honour.
Submissions open in September 2026. The house is not yet accepting enquiries.
Or write to . Tell us the title, the language you have in mind, and roughly what it sells. We will say honestly whether it is worth doing.