Streetwise Publications

This has been a big month so far. We have published the 8th Hilda Hopkins novella, ‘Hilda Hopkins, Mother Wouldn’t Like It’. We have also published the first Spanish language edition of one of our titles, ‘Hilda Hopkins, El Asesinato que Ella Tejio’, or ‘Murder She Knit’. That is now being converted into a dual-language reader to help Spanish readers learn English and English readers learn Spanish.

As a small, independent imprint (read that as a one man band), time is the enemy. So much to do and so little time. I plan to outsource as much as possible but the budget is tight. Still, that makes it a challenge to get these projects happening and one does become very adept at making do while hitting the standard required. Above all else, it sure beats working for a living!

The first StreetWise Publications Spanish Edition is out! ‘Hilda Hopkins,El Asesinato que Ella Tejió ,  or ‘Murder She Knit’ is now available in Spanish.  Maria Nalus from Bogota, Columbia did a superb job with the translation and will be coming on board as our representative in South America. Maria is a marketing professional and will be a full partner in the project, bringing StreetWise Publications to the hundreds of millions of Spanish speaking readers around the world.

It is still early days with this project with a long way to go but I am confident it is a good move to make. Already I can see sales on Amazon.es doing very well and when we produce the dual language readers the many retirees looking to escape to Latin America will see them as interesting and fun reading while learning the local lingo! Sad to say the other translation title, ‘Making a Living in the Philippines’ is only 15% complete due to a miscommunication between the translator that won the job on Elance and myself.

I do have Hindi, German and Tagalog translations in the offing , so stay tuned!

So far I haven’t had time enough to convert to mobi and epub for eBooks but the 8th Hilda Hopkins adventure, ‘Hilda Hopkins, Mother Wouldn’t Like It’ is now in  print. Following the success of the serialization of ‘Murder She Knit’ in Britain’s leading Machine Knitting Monthly magazine and the appearance of the author Vivienne Fagan at the London Knit and Knatter Meeting, interest in the series of novellas  telling the adventures of Britains notorious machine knitting serial killer has gone ballistic.

StreetWise Publications is proud to announce we are going multi-lingual! Even as you read this the first title, ‘Making A Living In The Philippines’ is being translated into Spanish and German editions. I am excited to be able to service these huge markets. I think there may be more buyers for the German edition than the Spanish but I am looking at what sells the most copies in English rather than what may sell the most copies in one of the other languages. I would like to see my novels translated, especially into German, so my relatives can read them.

We in the Anglo-centric world need to realise there is a huge non-English speaking world out there that needs to read what we write! The Internet allows me to source qualified translators and negotiate a price per title I can afford, and then publish the book and get it into the hands of those who read other languages than mine. I plan to create a short story anthology and publish that in several languages simultaneously,  a world wide launch. Watch this space, us indie-publishers are starting to make our mark. I bet Random House is trembling in it’s boots!