24 April 2014

The long-tail market, part 1

The term 'long-tail marketing' was popularised in a 2004 article in Wired magazine.
This Wikipedia article gives a good but not quite up-to-date overview.
The phenomenon began in conventional book publishing but quickly expanded to second-hand books and all manner of niche and obscure products.
Translations on niche and obscure topics have benefitted enormously as have specialised glossaries, terminologies and the like.

Clearly, translators need to understand these trends and their impact on their work, how they market their services and other opportunities.

The publication this week of 101 things a translator needs to know, comments by co-authors of this publication and thoughts triggered by some of Sarah Dillon's latest posts brought me to the sudden realisation that some of my own glossaries and books I translated some years ago are still available thanks to the long-tail market for second-hand books.

ChatGPT, a drafting aid for translation by emulation

On 17 October 2011, I published the first of two posts summarising my general approach to the type of translation/adaptation services I was ...