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Comment by WAthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

I translated some well-regarded public domain works into English. I make around 2-3k a month from the ebook sales. If you find niche areas of interest or research it can be quite lucrative. Of course you invest the time to translate but I find it rewarding and less like actual "work"

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You just search for them and translate them by yourself? Or do you have some kind of publisher?

I often have specific authors or periods in mind - such as when I am reading a book and come across a reference to an untranslated author or piece - and so I just search for the source text (usually on wikisource or gutenberg) and make sure its public domain.

I publish them myself, yes - there is a "press" I put them under but its just me. I have a few friends who do reviews and I am also on several academic mailing lists

Interesting. Could you provide an example?

I'd prefer to stay anonymous online. However someone I've worked with in the past recently translated this and makes a comparable amount from the residual sales http://www.lulu.com/shop/natan-dubovitsky-and-vladislav-surk...

which?

I'd prefer to stay anonymous on this site but I will say there are a lot of French horror /occult stories from the 19th Century that are in the public domain and attract a niche following. For instance, one of the seminal works of demonology, "Dictionnaire Infernal", remains largely untranslated into English.

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