Head First International (continued)
By Caitrin McCullough
Yesterday I talked a bit about how our Taiwanese and Japanese offices feel about Head First books (short version: they love them!)... 
Today I've got some information from our German and UK offices. The UK office manages a lot of the translation licensing, and I got the skinny on recent Head First translations. Head First has been particularly successful in Korea (Hanbit), Poland (Helion) and Brazil (Alta Books). The Belgian publisher LannooCampus published the Dutch edition of their first Head First book, Design Patterns, in September 2007 with plans for more. 2007 has been the most successful year to date with 12 sales of various edition, including 2 titles to a Turkish publisher, the first Turkish sales of the series.
Publishers do say that these are fairly complicated to translate—particularly as it is the aspects of the books that make them successful and different—the humour, puzzles and slang that cause the most problems, but the effort seems to have paid off for those that have persevered.
In Germany, O'Reilly's top three books by revenue are Head First titles -- Entwurfsmuster (Design Patterns), Java, and HTML mit CSS & XHTML. Ariane explained the particular challenges associated with translating Head First books:
For instance it was tough to get Head First itself translated adequately. We did quite some brainstorming to find a good solution. Finally we decided to name the German translations "von Kopf bis Fuß" (something like "from tip to toe"). So the meaning differs a bit from what Head First proclaims. It says that the whole person is getting involved in learning a new programming language like Java and refers to the all-embracing learning experience the books offer. The German title nicely goes with the illustration on the cover. We thought that this is very important.Translating all the little puns, jokes and cross word puzzles into German is a challenge and we really have to look for translators who are technical experts, but have a playful attitude, a feel for language and are willing to reinvent lots of stuff. We are using a special software to create cross word puzzles that work with the German terms and expressions.
There will be some great German translations in 2008: SQL von Kopf bis Fuß in January, C# von Kopf bis Fuß will be out in March or April, and translations of JavaScript and Software Development will follow in the summer.
So it sounds like Head First is doing quite well internationally, and growing in popularity all the time. What translations would you like to see?
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Thanks for these behind the scenes look at the international market for Head First books. Very interesting.
I was just waiting for a moment like this to comment about Brazilian translations of Head First series.
This is TERRIBLE in Brazilian portuguese. The publisher from here, Brazil, introduce syntax erros, mistranlations and the pictures(one of the most importants parts of the books) are, some times, put in places that don't make sense. I understand that it is difficult to translate Head First into another language like portuguese, but as me and friends of mine have seen, the publisher doesn't care too much about the quality of their work. I love Head First series, but in english!
Caitrin, do foreign publishers contact you regarding translations, you do you contact them? In other words, who initiates a translation? I am asking because I am trying to figure out why the only HF book translated into Russian is "HF EJB".
I am a teacher of the University Estacio de Sá Brazil, and Development Manager also. I knew the series when I read a Brazilian magazine specializes ! Almost 2 years, my students are using the books in Portuguese of Head First Design Patterns, Head First OOA&D and HF Java, and the books really are very good! Congratulation for All ! Simply Perfect ! The books are an excellent purchase. Easy to understand and fully illustrated. But, I would like to know if the book HF EJB will be launched here in Brazil ??? - in Portuguese ? Last year the Alta Books Publisher reported that it had not sure whether or not the publication. I believe it important publish all the books in the series, because aid in the training of students. We are also awaiting the book HF JavaScript ! I hope this series will never end !Many Thanks,