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Special "Best of Three Percent" E-book to Directly Benefit Translators
September 15, 2011—To mark Three Percent's four-year anniversary as a site for literary commentary, essays, and reviews, Open Letter Books is releasing a special "best of Three Percent" e-book, The Three Percent Problem: Rants and Responses on Publishing, Translating, and the Future of Reading. Based at University of Rochester, Open Letter and Three Percent are dedicated to increasing the diversity of voices available to American readers. To help fulfill this mission, all proceeds from The Three Percent Problem will go toward directly supporting literary translators.
The e-book collects dozens of articles, ranging from pieces that explore the economic and cultural reasons that fewer than 3% of books published in America are in translation, to the very different publishing scenes found in other countries, to profiles of contemporary translators, to mini-rants about book marketing, technology, and $.99 e-books.
"It's an entertaining mix of irreverent shorts and longer-form essays that both dissect and explain the state of the publishing industry—which, as it turns out, is a very strange place," said Taylor McCabe, an intern at the University of Rochester's Open Letter Books (www.openletterbooks.org), who helped compile and edit The Three Percent Problem. "It's never stuffy, and it's a great introduction for anyone interested in the world of publishing, international literature, and even reading, itself."
All proceeds from the $2.99 e-book will directly benefit literary translators, helping to pay them for their too-often undervalued work. Immediately available on Amazon.com, BN.com, and soon on Apple's iBookstore, Open Letter and Three Percent are asking everyone to download the book on Friday, September 16—pushing it up the sites' sales rankings and, hopefully, leading to even more support for literary translators.
Open Letter—which publishes ten books each year—is one of the largest publishers of literary translations in the United States. In addition to publishing these books, Open Letter runs Three Percent and administers the Best Translated Book Award.
For additional information about the The Three Percent Problem: Rants and Responses on Publishing, Translating, and the Future of Reading visit Three Percent or contact Chad W. Post at 585.319.0823 or chad...@rochester.edu.
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