Clients’ success stories
How do you measure success? In the case of books, sales rankings are a good indicator. And there’s no way you can achieve good sales results and become a bestseller with a poor translation. Here are some success stories of how our clients have benefited from our work and made a splash in Italy.
Crystal Kaswell and the Italian edition of Dirty Rich
When we approached author Crystal Kaswell to offer our book translation and promotion services, she had previously had just one of her books published in Italy, and that was with a small Italian publisher that did not yeld particularly brilliant results.
Crystal hired us to translate one of her most succesful series, Dirty Rich. She had already selfpublished the German and French translations, with an enthusiastic response in France where book 1 of the series, Dirty Deal, got as high as best selling ebook in the general kindle ranking. We therefore knew we had some very big shoes to fill and were anxious to see how the Italian readers would respond to the Italian translation.
Crystal was not disappointed. A few days after release (yes, you read that right, just days, not weeks) book 1 of the series got as high as best selling ebook in the general kindle ranking in Italy too, with book 2 and 3 releasing a week later following close behind (you cannot have all books ranking number 1 in the general ranking at once, but all three books got to number 1 in their specific categories LOL).
This success was the result of the author’s clever Amazon ads campaign combined with our promotion on social media in partnership with several bloggers who shared their reviews on their pages and on Amazon. And we like to think that our accurate translation of the author’s excellet writing played a part too.
Tess Thompson and the Italian edition of Emerson Pass
When we approached author Tess Thompson to offer our book translation and promotion services, she had never published her books in Italy. Never.
While the success of the Emerson Pass Historicals series in the US was a good sign, it was not necessarily an indication that it could be equally successful in Italy. It was a very American story that Italian readers might not be able to relate to.
However, there were stories with a similar spirit and setting that Italian audiences had appreciated. One was the television series “When Calls the Heart” which had been dubbed into Italian and had aired on Italian television a few months earlier.
When the first book in the Italian edition of the Emerson Pass series was released, we were amazed by the warm reception. But we were even more surprised at how long this success would last.
All books in the series became bestsellers in the Family Sagas category. Almost a year after its release, book 1 of the series, The School Mistress of Emerson Pass, was still the bestselling family saga novel in Italy.
On the occasion of Tess Thompson’s presence at RARE in Florence in September 2023, we acted as her press office and managed to get her mentioned alongside Julia Quinn in several newspapers covering the event, including the best known local newspapers La Nazione and FirenzeToday.
Jess Michaels and the Italian edition of The 1797 Club
Historical romance author Jess Michaels was already well known in Italy when she decided to hire us to translate her most successful Regency series. Before she went indie, Mondadori, Italy’s largest publisher, had translated a few of her books.
But it had been several years since her last appearance on the Italian market. Reactivating her fan base and attracting new readers to her work was not a given.
We worked hard to get the books out there. Book 1 of the series, The Daring Duke, made it to no. 48 in the general ranking. By book 4, The Silent Duke, the reader base had grown so large and eager to read the sequel that the novel became the bestselling romance within hours of its release. And went as high as no. 2 in Amazon’s general ranking.
