Attn: All Men’s Rights Activists

Here’s an opportunity for all of you to get published in different languages in print form and reach an international audience. I will use our earlier publishing experience in getting it done. Here’s the details of the activity and a golden OPPORTUNITY TO EARN ROYALTY for your work you have already done. This will be published in different volumes and in different languages as Know Indian Men’s Rights Movement (we can decide on a more attractive name later) book with the proper introduction of each author and translator with their photos at the beginning of the book.

Here are more details of the activity –

1. Each men’s rights blogger who wants to get published sends me five of his / her own articles in English only (no copyright violation please) in word format with proper word count.
2. A panel of bloggers (the core team of three members excluding me) will first quality check the articles and decide on which ones need to be selected for the first volume. Please note that these three-member committees will oversee the whole project.
3. We need to select articles of different areas within men’s rights. So even if you submit five articles there may be three published.
4. Your articles can be on any topic related to or of importance to Men’s Rights Movement in India, your experience of counseling victims, our activism, photoblog etc. (NO COPYRIGHT VIOLATION please).
5. Each blogger can submit maximum of five different articles on different topics with no article more than 2000 words and all articles together not more than 8000 words. In case anyone violates this norm one / more articles may be removed from the list.
6. Please volunteer yourself as translators and editors in different languages. I will maintain the database and coordinate the whole project. No writer shall be published if he/she does not volunteer for translating into at least one Indian language.
7. Translation productivity will be set and measured per English word count only and not based on any other language word count.
8. We may also need one graphic designer, so please send in your names to me. Your details will also be in the book with your photo. (Sorry no royalty for the graphic designer as this is a one-time activity for all languages)
9. We are planning to have at least three / four translators and editors for each language. Remember, only translators/blog writers get a chance to be the editor of other’s articles. So you can’t just choose to be only an editor. You can get famous even by doing the only translation but not by doing only editing.
10. For translation, we will use free online Google typing tool to type in different languages. The translator just translates the articles given to him/her and type in Google translate. I will give you more details once we have the volunteer names.
11. Please note, each translator or graphic designer or editor introduction will only appear on the book with their photo if he/she delivers the work with 80% quality (being measured and validated by two editors). If the quality or delivery failure then there will be no acknowledgment/royalty.
12. Please note, that quality will be measured based on your choice of appropriate words, spelling, and grammar. It does not mean you need to translate verbatim, I understand that each language is different and hence the sentences need to be tweaked accordingly.
13. The productivity of translation work will be fixed beforehand considering at least six hours per week (three hours on each weekend day). You can distribute your time whatever way you want.
14. Books will be published using Amazon publishing tool (free) where there is no cost of publishing and each one (including the writers) pay for their copy. The book is published and promoted by Amazon in different platform and the writer earns a royalty for his / her work on each book sold.
15. Please note that the original royalty of the translated work remains with the main author and NOT with the translator. The translator of an article can not republish the same in any manner without the written permission of the main author in question. Royalty discussed here is only royalty from the sale of the particular publication in question. This does not apply to any other publication that the author may wish to go for with his / her writing.
16. There will be a separate bank account created only to track the royalty of this activity. (suggestions invited to make this system more transparent and also how to execute the same effect)
17. Royalty earned by each book sold in a specific language is distributed among the writers and the translator. 50% of the royalty goes to all the writers together and rest 50% goes to the translators together based on their translation contribution.

E.g. if in the Bengali edition if there are five writers and three translators/editors then the profit of Rs. 5000 is divided like this – Rs. 2500 (50% of overall royalty) is divided among the five writers (so each one of them gets 10% of profit) and rest Rs. 2500 goes to the translators (so that each one gets ~17% of the royalty). If I am a writer as well as a translator in Bengali, I get 10% for being a writer and 17% of the rest as a translator. The reason the writers are given less royalty for each language edition is they get a royalty from all languages whereas the translators get royalty only for their translation work.

Calculation of translation contribution – suppose there are a total of 50,000 English words (of five different writers) need to be translated into a specific language. This work is initially divided among the three available translators equally. But if any of them can’t meet the deadline set by the project team, then the project team will have the authority to distribute his work to others. Final royalty for translation will be decided based on final work completed by each translator with proper quality. Please note, time spent for editing of others work is not considered here and all translators need to definitely do editing work.

Also Note, all translators need to achieve a certain number of words and quality to claim any royalty or recognition. We can discuss the minor points before we start the work. While distributing the work for translation/editing the name of the original author will be kept confidential to maintain integrity and fairness of the system.

Please remember the whole activity will be managed following project management principles with a proper timeline and quality standards.

You can also check – https://www.createspace.com/pub/l/diy.do?ref=1383688&utm_id=6072 to get more on how the royalty system works on Amazon. Get benefit from the write up of other amazing bloggers in the group, contribute to the cause while you earn for your hard work.

Please note, the core committee (three blogger members to be decided from amongst prominent MRAs from different cities) decision will be final and binding on everyone. I will restrain myself from voting as the project manager.

Only discussion/questions raised in this blog post within the specified timeframe (26th January, 11pm IST) will be considered for discussion/incorporation. No other question raised in any other forum (such as Facebook, Yahoo groups etc) or outside the timeline will be considered.

This is an activity for the overall movement, so forget personal differences and come forward and get rewarded. Please spread this message to all MRAs in your own groups so that we have the best series published and all our writers/translators get rewarded.

All Indian MRAs please feel free to discuss/add any point you wish.