Should you rush out and have your book translated into Cantonese or Mandarin?
Well as fate would have it, I have a young Chinese gentlemen working for me in my tire warehouse. One of the things you have to love about America is we are the great melting pot!
America is made up of every type of person, nationality, religion, and language of the entire Earth all rolled up into one democracy. If you follow my blog I pick on our dysfunctional government all the time, but in reality I wouldn't want their job for anything! I wouldn't be a politician if somebody guaranteed I would be number one on the New York Best Sellers List for the next twenty years! No Way, No How! No matter what they do they are going to piss off one group or another! Freedom is Hard! That's part of why it cost so damn much, and is worth fighting for. Can I get an AMEN!
Anyways according to the young Chinese American who works at the same company as I do for my day job, moving rubber, you do not need to rush out and have your book translated. China mandates the teaching and reading of English in their schools because it is the World Language, even though more people in the world speak Mandarin, or other Asian dialects. According to him there isn't a great wealth of literature being produced in their language, and since they read English anyways they buy books in the English language.
So then my next question is how do you make a connection with people in China to get them to check your book out and try it? My Blog gets visited by just a random few people from China. According to my friend and co-worker he says when he gets on the computer he checks out Forums which are subject related and not so much with Blogs which are Item or personality based. He said he would guess young Chinese people probably also browse Forums.
I also wonder about the ability to purchase things on-line on China through the internet compared to being able to buy things in North America or Europe through the internet. Everything is set up in North America and Europe to have secure sites, most people who indulge in on-line purchasing have credit accounts and accounts set up through the places they purchase things. The same may not be true in every part of the world. They may be able to visit a site and look at things, read about stuff, but not have the means or ability at their disposal to click and buy like people do in other parts of the world.
He mentioned there are parts of China which should be another country but are part of China where they exist just to work as cheap labor. The people work, eat, sleep and go back to work. They don't have a life anything like what the rest of the world has.
People in the U.S. forget that most people in the world, do not have cell phones, their own car, their own house, they have no idea what you mean when you talk about mowing your lawn, riding a ski doo, and can't imagine flying somewhere to take a vacation. American's especially truly forget how freaking rich we are compared to the rest of the world and yet most of our lower income people are richer than most of the world. Our middle class live like kings compared to most of the world. Our Rich people! Let's not go there.
I remember reading where teenagers are spending x amount on coffee everyday and I wonder why my .99 cent book doesn't sell, and somewhere somebody is barely eating thinking what a snob and selfish person I am. We forget in America that restaurants and American households throw more food per day than some people in other countries get to eat all year.
Posted in: Chinese Asian Market Books
0 comments:
Post a Comment