Non-native English authors publishing for the US/UK market: What is your writing, translation, and marketing process?
Hi everyone,
I’m a non-native English speaker (I’m fluent in English, but it’s not my mother tongue). I’m currently looking into publishing my work on Amazon KDP for the English-speaking market, and I’d love to hear from authors who are in the same position or have already gone through this process successfully.
I have a few specific questions regarding writing, editing, marketing, and the overall ethics of presenting oneself to an English-speaking audience.
Before I dive into my questions, I want to clarify one important thing: I’m not talking about using AI to generate stories, plots, characters, or ideas. The story, world-building, character arcs, and the creative work itself are entirely my own.
My question about AI is strictly related to translation — using tools like ChatGPT or DeepL to translate my original text into English while preserving my personal style, voice, and narrative structure.
1.
For those who didn’t write their first draft in English: did you write in your native language first, use AI tools (like DeepL or ChatGPT) for the initial translation, and then self-edit?
Did you hire a native English editor afterwards, or did you rely mainly on AI and your own language skills? How did that affect the final quality?
If you translated your book, do you openly mention it during marketing (TikTok, Instagram, blurbs, etc.), or do you generally keep it private?
Is it considered unethical to present a translated book as if it were originally written in English, assuming the prose is polished and high-quality?
If you interact with your audience, send newsletters, and post on social media entirely in English, do readers generally care whether the original manuscript was written in another language?
3.
Has anyone been open about writing in their native language first, with the intention of hiring a professional human translator later, once they could afford it? How did readers respond to that transparency?
4.
Realistically speaking, is it possible today for a non-native author to succeed on Amazon KDP and achieve decent sales using these methods?
I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences and opinions on this.