Christoffer Petersen

Authentic Arctic Thrillers

translation

A Estrela do Gelo

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For the first time ever, The Ice Star is available in another language. Thanks to Ana Catarina, Konstabel Fenna Brongaard has been translated to Portuguese! A Estrela do Gelo is live!

I’m excited about this. Not just because The Ice Star has been translated, but because this is another one of those moments when it’s possible to really feel the benefits of being an indie writer. The world of traditional publishing has had writers in a stranglehold for so long, paying peanuts while the people at the top of the company rake in the bucks.

New writers seeking to be published via the traditional route can expect horrendous contracts signing away the rights to their book and the individual characters, for the life of copyright, and, as has been seen “in all formats including those yet to be invented”. It’s all about Intellectual Property, and the potential for publishing houses to sell not just a book, but a million ways to create more IP from obscure characters mentioned in book 2 for a paragraph or two in a popular series.

I believe it’s possible to agree to sensible contracts with film studios and the like, without signing away the rights for everything. If that ever happens, you’ll be the first to know!

But, rant over, back to the point of this post… Translation, as I’ve mentioned before, used to be something you could just forget about unless you were traditionally published.

Not any more!

Thanks to amazing translators such as Françoise Chardonnier and Ana Catarina Palma Neves, I feel empowered to keep going, keep publishing, and to explore new markets!

And, as Buzz Lightyear is sitting on the windowsill by my desk, it feels right to say “To infinity and beyond!” 😉

Chris

Témpano de sangre

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Témpano de sangre (Blood Floe), book two in the Greenland Crime series, comes out today in Spain.

Here’s the teaser in English:

David Maratse is settling into early retirement in the remote Arctic settlement of Inussuk, when an expedition yacht is discovered at the edge of the sea ice. Patches of blood have frozen to the decks. Three of the crew in the cabin are unconscious but alive, the rest are dead or missing.

Blood Floe has a bit more action than Seven Graves, One Winter, and sets the scene for the much darker We Shall Be Monsters.

I’m still making it up to Petra for “Monsters” with the Greenland Missing Persons series.

The Greenland Crime series has always been a bit darker, a bit bloodier, and in the case of “Monsters” … well, not so nice to be honest.

Prefer your books in Portuguese? Blood Floe can also be read as À Flor das Águas.

Chris

 

Milestones

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This short post can’t do it justice, but I just wanted to say a huge thanks to Françoise. She’s translated six of the Greenland Missing Persons stories into French this year. It’s a huge project and I am both humbled and fortunate to have Françoise helping me get my books out to a wider audience.

Thank you, Françoise!

I’ve just uploaded La Fille du Chaman – book 6 – and am waiting for it to reach distributors.

The game changer this year was Draft2Digital – a book aggregator who distributes books to eBook platforms (stores). In late 2020 they announced plans to make it possible to do a royalty split between authors. Previously, independent authors had to trust each other to share the royalties, much like a traditionally published author must trust the publisher to give them their share of the royalties. Well, that’s not transparent at all, and there are far too many associated pitfalls and problems – including traditional publishing.

But with the tools available today, it is possible to make things work, and setup transparent and legally binding processes that make it possible for authors and, in this case, authors and translators, to collaborate.

For the authors among you – independent and traditional – you might like the following links to Draft2Digital (affiliate link) and Eversign for legally binding digital contracts. It’s up to you to decide and agree on a fair contract with your collaborator, but remember that it’s a marathon, not a sprint, and a fair contract can last the length of copyright.

The future is really bright for collaboration, and I look forward to posting more milestones soon.

Oh, and a last thought, with tools such as the ones I’ve linked to, it feels like anything is possible. And that is very exciting indeed.

Chris