United by skies, divided by language -- astronomy publishing in languages with small reader base

TL;DR

This paper examines the challenges faced by astronomy publishing in Bulgaria, a country with a small reader base, highlighting linguistic barriers, market limitations, and proposing strategies leveraging recent technology to improve publishing in small-language contexts.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of Bulgaria's astronomy publishing history, identifies key challenges, and suggests practical strategies to enhance publishing in languages with limited audiences using recent technological advances.

Findings

Limited local authorship due to financial constraints

Market dominated by translations with high costs

Technological solutions can improve publishing prospects

Abstract

The mysteries of the Universe are international, the skies are not crossed by borders. However, the knowledge is transmitted by language, imposing linguistic barriers that are often difficult to break through. Bulgaria is considered as an example of a country with relatively small reader base -- it has a population of about 6.5 million (2021) and the Bulgarian language has probably $\sim$7 million speakers, if the diaspora in US, Germany and elsewhere is accounted for. The smaller-scale market, in comparison with larger non-English speaking countries, poses a number of limitation to the publishing landscape: (i) the local authors are discouraged to pen both popular and scientific astronomy books, because of the limited financial incentive; (ii) the market is heavily dominated by translations (from Russian before 1989, from English nowdays), but even those are fewer than in bigger countries, because the translation overhead costs are spread over smaller print runs. The history of the astronomy publishing in Bulgaria is summarized, with some distinct periods: pre-1944, the communist era 1944-1989, the modern times post 1989. A few notable publications are reviewed. Finally, some practices to help astronomy book publishing in languages with smaller reader bases are suggested, taking advantage of the recent technological developments.