The Three Percent Problem: Rants and Responses on Publishing, Translation, and the Future of Reading

by Chad W. Post

A collection of occasional essays, a series of meditations on the book industry as it transitions to its electronic future, and a reader on modern publishing, The Three Percent Problem stands alongside Andre Schiffrin's The Business of Books and Jason Epstein's Book Business as primers on the publishing industry.

Genres: Nonfiction

422 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 6, 2011

About the author

Chad Post is the director of Open Letter Books, a small press specializing in fiction and poetry in translation.

Reviews

[Declan · Rating 3 out of 5]

For anyone who believes passionately (or even half as passionately as Chad Post) in the importance of translated literature, this is a very worthwhile read. Much the same applies to anyone who is concerned about the decline of real bookshops. Post has much to say about both and he never holds back on giving an opinion.
Because much of the content is compiled directly from a blog, and much of the rest comes from lectures, there is quite a bit of repetition. But I am completely on his side and it is great to read someone who is so well informed about his subject, and so enthusiastic in his wish to see more people reading translated literature.
The book is only available as an ebook and I don't have an electronic reader but, I learned, you can download one onto your laptop and read it there.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why did I care so much about this book? I hardly ever read non-fiction, but found myself riveted by this wonkish, somewhat out-of-date collection of essays. (RIP Borders.) Part of its success is Chad Post's voice; a mix of sincerity and good humor, straightforward with his likes and dislikes (it's nice to read something that's not shy in its preference for literary fiction even if that means being called an elitist), and the gossipy view into the indie/non-profit/university publishing world.

But, also, I care about it because I care so much about literature in translation. César Aira, Machado de Assis, Alejandro Zambra, Ófeigur Sigurðsson, Dubravka Ugrešić, Ismail Kadare, Juan José Saer, Antoine Volodine, Ingrid Winterbach, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Carsten Jensen, Gabriel García Márquez, Macedonio Fernández, Roberto Bolaño... (and so many more who I'm leaving out, some because I probably forget they're in translation)... all these authors I love, books that have changed my life, books I've had to order from the UK because the English translations weren't available here, translators I follow and read whatever they've translated because they've become just as important to me, the sheer amount of time I've spent repeatedly checking out GoodReads author pages in the hope that someone somewhere will have translated just... one... more... Winterbach.

It turns out my interest isn't expanding world culture or eliminating borders, there's nothing altruistic about it. It's about me having access to the best writing in the world.

(Looking at that above list--Saer, Volodine, and Winterbach--these are my favorite favorite favorite authors, and I discovered them all through Open Letter. I really owe them a debt of gratitude!)

But this essay collection really drives home that these translated books don't just magically appear. They're the work of many different people, authors, translators, publishers, agents, marketers. The economics of the industry are so thorny and problematic, the bet-on-the-next-blockbuster-with-a-huge-advance model almost guaranteeing that no other books get any support, the fact that so many other areas of art and culture in American society are non-profit and donation-based but literature is capitalism through and through. It's amazing any of it gets published at all! Since I subscribe to multiple books-in-translation presses, the backlog of books on my shelf can sometimes feel overwhelming, but that's because I'm a single human being. In the context of everything that's published it's a trivial percentage, an embarrassing English-language blind-spot, a rounding error. And something we need to fix.

And, oh, I want to thank everyone working in translation. The incredible effort for craft rendered invisible, all for the lovely rewards of lousy pay and minimal respect. Thank you one and all. You've made my life so much fuller and more beautiful.

(Also, I checked this book out as an e-book from the library and read it on a Kindle, so I'm part of the problem here. As per my self-imposed rule, it's time to go make a donation. You listening Chad?)

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection of essays on the state of the book publishing and selling in general and the issues associated with the marketing of translated books. Post's enthusiasms and dislikes are palpable, making the reading that much more intense and exciting--he's a writer you can argue with, nod along to, etc., but only if you're a reader who cares about the issues he addresses. (Nobody who doesn't care already about book culture will be moved in the slightest--a sad comment on them, not the essays found here.) . . . On the demise of Borders, which wasn't complete at the time the essays for this collection were culled together, let me just add my 2¢ worth: As someone who began shopping at Borders within the first two or three years they opened up in Ann Arbor, I can say the most frustrating thing to watch in their painfully long and entirely self-inflicted death was their transformation from a store that catered to me--i.e., people who buy and read 100+ books a year--into a store that catered to the average American reader, who reads only one book a year. (That the average American reads only one book a year is a statistic I've heard over the past 35 or so years. Readers at Good Reads are probably responsible for skewing that average *up* to one book.)

[Julie Capell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really opened my eyes to the whole world of literary translation, how difficult it is for authors from non-English speaking countries to get their books published in English in the US and how that deprives US residents from accessing a lot of great literature. I also learned a lot about the publishing business in general in the US and also about the struggles faced by independent bookstores to stay open and competitive.

The book is a series of blog posts from the late 2000s which made it extremely interesting to read Post's take on the then new ebook phenomenon. Many, if not all, of his projections have come true in the intervening years. This does not make the book feel old, on the contrary, it made me aware of how quickly ebooks have changed the publishing landscape.

This book made me realize my love for books by authors from other countries is not that common, and has made me all that much more determined to find more literature in translation.

[Lacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it is certainly dated (prior to Borders' bankruptcy), this collection of blog posts from the the Three Percent blog provided insight into the business of translation.

[Oriana]

Chad Post is the publisher of Open Letter, and he has a lot to say about the woeful state of publishing today. Can't want to read this!