© 2019 Georges Michelson-Dupont
© 2019 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
| When Are We Granted Personality? | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 88 — December 2019 | Search, Discover, Understand |
¶ An Update on Translations
Translating the Urantia Book is a real challenge due mainly to the nature of the content but also to the size of the project (197 fascicles, or 2196 pages). Translating such a book requires first of all a passion for revelation coupled with an openness of the mind to the Spirit of Truth. This is the reason why the call for professional translators has twice been a failure. Then, qualified people with specific talents are needed because the translation must be as faithful as possible both in terms of ideas and in terms of style and fluidity of the target language. Finally, strength of character, tenacity and determination are necessary to face the difficulties, sometimes weariness and discouragement because a translation lasts from 8 to 10 years, you have to sit at the work table every day for hours. As you will have understood, it is a monk’s work, most of the time alone.
I wish here to express my heartfelt thanks to all the translators and reviewers who have had the courage to devote themselves completely to such a cosmic task. Thanks to them, every day throughout the world, more and more seekers of truth are discovering the revelation, are exposed to its salutary teachings, and in turn are sharing The Urantia Book with other seekers.
We know that revelation comes ahead of its time in order to prepare the ground for a much wider diffusion when the time comes, that is to say when humanity will be more inclined to live the Gospel of Jesus. Translations are an integral part of the plan of the revelators, they are essential to eliminate ideological and theological confusions, raise the quality of thinking, change social mentalities, improve the quality of human relationships, broaden the level of consciousness of the universe in which we live and enhance the spirituality of our humanity. Translations participate in the construction of the foundations that will effectively support the new times to come, the time when love, that is to say the desire to do good to others, will become the watchword of spiritual progress and social justice.
“You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of the will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each day you learn to love one more human being. If each day or each week you achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing your personality. Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent and wise, love is more catching than hate. But only genuine and unselfish love is truly contagious. If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of man.” (UB 100:4.6)
¶ A short history
In August 1996, the first conference organized by the Foundation was held in Gonesse in the Paris region, bringing together all the translators of the Urantia Book with the aim of structuring everyone’s efforts, providing a common framework for their work, ensuring a minimum of coordination and being able to share their experiences. At the end of this conference, the Foundation set itself the goal of having The Urantia Book translated into as many languages as possible so that by 2035, more than 80% of the inhabitants of Urantia could read it in their native language.
¶ Available translations
To date, the book has been translated:
For Europe, in French, Spanish, Finnish, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Danish, Greek, Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian.
From left to right: Andrei Reznikov (Russian), Nienke Grugman-Begemann (Holland), Seppo Kanerva (Finland), Kwan Choi (Trustee — South Korea), Michael Hanian (Russian), Guiseppe Zechinato (Italian), Marlène Michelson-Dupont, Georges Michelson-Dupont (Trustee France), Richard Keeler (Trustee — USA), Jacques Dupont (France), Harald Kempf (German), Patricia Mandelius-Sadler (Trustee and President of the Urantia Foundation — USA), Nicole Ruchti, Urs Ruchti (German), Peep Söber (Estonia), Joel Rehnström (Sweden), Seppo Niskanen (Finland), Natalia Shidlovskaya (Russia), Vadim Knorre (Russia), Jean Royer (France); Crouching: Tom Burns (Trustee), Antonio Moya Serpa (Spanish), Philip Rollnick (Trustee)
For the Middle East, in literary Arabic, Hebrew.
For Asia, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese.
By 2025 translations into Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Iranian, will be completed.
¶ CORRECT THE FIRST TRANSLATIONS
The first translation of The Urantia Book is rarely perfect. It is a human work and therefore subject to improvement. Drawing on its experience, the Foundation has set up a systematic revision program following an effective protocol for evaluating and selecting candidates for revision. A methodology based on teamwork guarantees the greatest possible objectivity in order to correct personal interpretations as can occur when a translator works alone. A revision cycle involves a team of 3 to 4 revisers and a group of long-time readers. The revisers compare the translation with the original, sentence by sentence. They analyze the semantics, the accuracy of the translation of concepts and the coherence of the terminology. They check the grammar, spelling, syntax and typography. Once completed, each corrected issue is submitted to the group of experienced readers, giving them the opportunity to comment and even make recommendations. A revision cycle generally lasts from 5 to 8 years.
For example, the French translation by Jacques Weiss began in 1956 and was printed in 3 volumes in 1961. In 1978, 17 years later, a first revision was undertaken by a team of 3 long-time readers. It lasted 15 years and ended in 1993. Finally, a second revision was undertaken in 2011 which lasted 3 years and ended in 2014. The cycle lasted a little over 50 years.
To date the revision cycles concern the Spanish and Portuguese translations.
¶ Once the translations are available WHAT DO WE DO WITH THEM?
Translators work on a web platform configured and dedicated to translations. Once completed, they are “milled” in a C.A.T. (Computer Aide Translations) software whose purpose is to check terminological consistency, control italics and capitalization, and ensure that there are no missing paragraphs. They come out in the form of an HTML or Word file depending on whether they are intended for electronic publication (Web, e-book, etc.) or in the form of a physical book.
Concerning the physical book, I receive the texts from the C.A.T. in the form of 197 Word files. Each language has its own typography. For the layout I use
InDesign, the professional software par excellence, which has the advantage of incorporating for each language, its own typography such as, the hyphenation table, the management of spaces between punctuation characters etc. I created a model based on the pagination of the original English text and I “flow” the text of the translations into this template which already includes all the elements of pagination, paragraph styles and enrichments allowing the automatic creation of common titles. Given the fact that the translations are generally longer than the original text, I make adjustments manually page by page.
This is long and tedious but necessary so that each reader can easily compare a paragraph to the original text by simply giving the page number and the Paragraph Number on the page. A PDF file is then created for the printer.
¶ ONCE THE PDF IS CREATED, WHAT DO WE DO WITH IT?
The year before, the Foundation’s board of directors, which operates on an annual budget, looks at the inventory status, translation by translation, and decides whether to print a new translation or reprint another one for the following year. Thus, each printing is ensured to be properly financed.
Depending on the language, they are printed in such a way as to optimize the number of copies in relation to storage and sales rotation. Thus, the majority of European languages are printed in 2100 copies, or 7 pallets of 300 books covering approximately 2 to 3 years of sales with the exception of Spanish and Portuguese, which are printed in more than 5000 copies each because their rotations are rapid. The European translations are printed in Germany and stored in Rotterdam. The Spanish and Portuguese translations as well as The Urantia Book are printed in the USA. Each European country has its own distribution system, which makes the logistics of supplying distributors and bookstores expensive and very complicated.
¶ Structure of the Selling Price
The unit price for manufacturing a book is around €8 to €10 depending on the quantities. This price includes printing, packaging on pallets and shipping from Germany to Rotterdam to the warehouses of a Dutch company specializing in storage and distribution logistics.
Henk Mylanus is in constant contact with the various European customers to ensure that they are supplied and that invoices are paid. On Henk’s orders, based on the requests of European distributors and bookstores, the company prepares the invoicing according to the VAT rates of the different countries, loads the pallets into a truck and organizes transport to the destination (including Russia and Eastern European countries). All these external services have a variable cost depending on stock rotation and the destination of the books. To the €10 for manufacturing, we can add €2-3 for all services, making a total of €12-13 (with the exception of Russia where we must add almost €5 per book).
Finally, the Foundation sells the book for €15 to distributors and booksellers who margin at 60% (this is the norm in Europe) or €20. The final sale price is €35. A margin of €2 to €3 per book does not even cover unpaid invoices and damaged stock. It is the same in the USA and South America.
As you will have understood, the sale of books does not generate any profit. So where does the money come from for translations, for distribution, for the maintenance of the building, for the salaries of the three employees of the Foundation, for all the other social activities and free services such as the UBIS school, the creation and maintenance of the website in 23 languages by an external company?
¶ Average Annual Operating Budget of Urantia Foundation
The average annual budget is €800,000. It is distributed as follows:
Below are two pie charts showing 1: the source of income and 2: how the money is spent.
TOTAL REVENUE BY SOURCE
YTD through Q2 2019
⚫ Total — Actual Unrestricted Contrib Revenue
⚫ Total — Restricted Contrib Revenue
⚫ Total — Gross Profit from books
⚫ Total — Other Income (Events, Rent, Royalt...
Actual Unrestricted Contribution = Actual unrestricted contribution. Restricted Contribution = Reserved contribution (for a project) Gross profit from books = Gross margin from book sales Other income (Events, Rent, Royalties) = Other income (events, rents, royalties)
(By contribution, we mean donation.)
TOTAL EXPENDITURES BY PROGRAM
2019 Program Expenses
⚫ Total — Outreach Program
⚫ Total — Website Program
⚫ Total - Education Program
⚫ Total — Book Distribution Program
⚫ Total — Building Program
⚫ Total — Translation Program
⚫ Total — Fundrasing Program
Book Development program = Book development program
Outreach program = social program
Website Program = website development program
Education Program = Educational programs
Book Distribution Program = book distribution program
Building program = Foundation building maintenance program
Translation Program = Translation program
Fundraising Program = Fundraising program.
It should be noted that the sale of books brought in a gross margin of due mainly to the e-book version of the book and its translations which has the advantage of being downloaded without any other costs. The paper sale, however, is largely in deficit by more than .
¶ How many lives are sold by the Foundation?
Below is a diagram showing the number of paper books sold per year and per translation since 2015. Note that this graph was established in July 2019 and therefore the 2019 sales only reflect the first 6 months.
Concerning The Urantia Book French version, a printing of 2150 copies was carried out after the second revision of 2014 then another of 2150 in 2016 then another in April 2019 of 2150, that is to say that 4300 copies were sold between 2014 and April 2019, an average of 860/year. Unfortunately it is impossible to say where they were purchased the most. Amazon is a major distributor for France (fortunately because the Librairie de l’Inconnu is blacking out our book in order to facilitate their sales of A Course in Miracles). As for Canada, it is the American distributor who takes care of it as well as Amazon).
¶ Conclusion.
Apart from the three full-time employees of the Foundation, all the various and numerous activities are carried out by volunteers who spare no effort in their time, money or commitment to ensuring that the revelation spreads throughout the world. Their number can be estimated at just over 200 people and all their activities are coordinated by the Executive Director Tamara Strumfeld.
More than 3000 donors contribute to the Foundation’s annual budget, 95% of whom are North Americans. 10 of them provide 60% of the income. Our association AFLUB has contributed and continues to contribute around 2000 to 3000 euros depending on the year.
The Foundation also has reserve capital with the aim of ensuring the transition from one generation to the next through legacies received from generous readers who, at the time of their death, decide to invest a portion of their fortune for the dissemination of the fifth revelation.
Basically, isn’t there a better investment than this?
For those who would like to make a donation, however small, they can go to the Foundation’s website: www.urantia.org/fr; click on “make a donation” and follow the procedure.
For those who wish to make a bequest, they can contact me at: georges.michelson-dupont@wanadoo.fr or by telephone at 0631105144 because the procedure is a little more complicated.
Thanks in advance.
Georges Michelson-Dupont
International Vice President.
Translation Manager for the Foundation
| When Are We Granted Personality? | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 88 — December 2019 | Search, Discover, Understand |