Explore Success Stories
Going global shouldn’t feel risky or complicated. These testimonials show how a simple workflow—upload, choose a language, review—can open doors in new storefronts and subscription platforms. Read what fellow indies say about the process and support.
ScribeShadow’s translation service helped me break into the German market with my first book launch. Within the first ten days of release, my book reached around #1000 in the Kindle store in Germany, earned over 12,000 KU page reads, and received multiple five-star reviews. This strong start has given me real momentum in a brand-new market, and I’m excited to keep growing my readership here. I couldn’t have done it without the quality and reliability of ScribeShadow’s translation.
- JE Rowney
I've been a full-time, self-published author for the last 11 years. It's been an exciting career that's had plenty of ups and downs. The last 18 months have been the toughest of all, and it was getting to the stage where writing books for a living no longer seemed sustainable. ScribeShadow has changed all that. Translating my books into multiple languages has made me very optimistic about the future, and, for the first time in a while, I feel hopeful that things are on the up once again.
- George Mahood
I started using Scribeshadow to increase sales as an author. I’ve found Brazilian Portuguese to be a big market for my books right now! I’m so grateful to Scribeshadow for providing a way to get my books translated into different languages! It opens a whole new world for indie authors!
Before using ScribeShadow for translations, I had paid a human translator for 3 German translations. My ScribeShadow translations are getting better reviews. And my income went from five figures to six figures. I love what ScribeShadow has allowed me to do.
I've translated five of my series into German and am thrilled with the sales and page reads I'm getting! I paid big bucks for a human translator and didn't make my money back. (Still haven't, lol). ScribeShadow has enabled me to share my stories with others around the globe. As soon as I finish my German translations, I plan to do both Dutch and Italian! Thank you ScribeShadow for providing a viable financial option for translations!
- Laura Scott
I used ScribeShadow to launch translations of a few of my novels in French and Italian and got a great 5-star review from Italy. I'm so happy to find new readers who appreciate my work in other countries. Translations always felt like such a far-off dream as an author because of the cost, but ScribeShadow has made it affordable to translate multiple books into different languages. And the quality of the translations is good, too.
When I finally decided to translate the first series into German, it was a leap of faith that they would one day earn back what it had cost to make them (translation, covers, proofreading). What was it a wonderful shock to see that I was in the black within a month! Six languages and nine months later, my income is three to five times what it was a year ago and only seems to be growing with each new release. Thank you, ScribeShadow for making this possible!
Translations were historically not financially viable for me until I discovered ScribeShadow. Now, I'm adding $15,000 to $20,000 to my monthly revenue just from translations. This has transformed my business in incredible ways, and opened doors globally instead of limiting me to the increasingly competitive American market.
I started using ScribeShadow in October 2024 with French, added Spanish a month later, and then German in January. Not only have my European royalties surpassed my English ones, but I now have wonderful superfans who write to me in multiple languages!
ScribeShadow is super-easy to use and extremely affordable. I immediately saw a nice jump in sales when I translated my books into German. Plus, their customer service is amazing! Very glad an author friend turned me on to them!
- Riley Rose
In past I've been on the new release hamster wheel. I could only maintain my level of income if I continuously wrote and released new books. I have a 100 book backlist in the English language. Using ScribeShadow to translate those books into other languages has allowed me to tap the value in that backlist. I have not released a newly written book in English yet this year, but I'm earning more royalties than ever thanks to my foreign sales and ScribeShadow. Thank you!
I translated my entire 1.3-million-word series into French and German - they paid for themselves within 2 months and are now making more money than some of my English-speaking markets on Amazon. A great investment! Can't wait to do more languages.
- Sara Creasy
Eight months ago, I was diagnosed with heart failure, and suddenly everything made sense—the exhaustion, the lack of energy, the loss of motivation to write. I cried, I panicked, because writing is how I provide for my family.
A good author friend told me about Scribe Shadow, and I decided to give it a try. I signed up for a plan and began translating my backlist into German. I couldn’t afford new covers at the time, so I used the English ones and started a small Facebook ad campaign—just $3 a day. That first month, I earned over €9,000 across 12 books, against only $453 in ad spend. I cried again—this time with relief—because I had found a way to provide while focusing on my health.
That success continued as I expanded into French and Italian. I thank God every day that my friend told me about this program and I highly recommend it.
- Stacy Reid
I dramatically increased my overall earnings for my indie-published books by releasing translated versions, and I'm receiving messages from international readers thanking me for making my books available in their language. More than one reader has told me my book is their new favourite novel – and I never would have reached them without the help of ScribeShadow. As technology advances, it's apparent that authors who aren't embracing new streams of income like translations are falling behind. I'm so grateful that ScribeShadow has empowered me to keep up in this competitive landscape and help me reach new readers in other countries.
I started using ScribeShadow in January 2025. I released a German series and my income has now DOUBLED thanks to translations! I’m talking 4-figure numbers which is nothing to sneeze at.
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I now release simultaneously in English and German. My German readers love my books, and all of them have at least 4.5* review averages.
ScribeShadow has definitely helped me level up my author business.
I started using ScribeShadow earilier this month, and my translation income is over $1200 so far. The Amazon reviews are in the 4.5 star range. I am sorry I took so long to start using it!
- Karen Brown
I was able to break into the German market with my zombie series, getting my first ever All-Star Bonus. In the last year I've been able to develop it into a steady revenue source, and it has allowed me to turn my work into audio for Germany. At the moment I"m working to get monetized on YouTube and via Podcasting with my German translated audio. Next year I'm hoping to expand to Italian. It has been life changing, helping to solidify my career in writing full time.
In June, I started translating some of my backlist into German with ScribeShadow. I now have 2 complete romance series available in KU and am working on the third. Translating and uploading these books has taken my Amazon.de income from being almost always less than $10 per month, to it being 28% of my total Amazon royalties for August! Consider me amazed and delighted! I am hooked and plan to continue translating more books and more languages.
My Scribeshadow French translations are sometimes out-earning their corresponding books in English. It's been incredible to take my intellectual property and transform it for new readers in other countries.
We used ScribeShadow for the first time this month and we were so pleased with how easy it was to use. All 8 books in one series are now in German and ready for the market. We are hoping to carry on with translations in French, Italian and Spanish as well to really open our readership in more countries. Such an easy tool to use and the scope seems limitless! Thanks ScribeShadow!
- Gemma Ford
I tried out ScribeShadow earlier this year after reading comments about it on an author group. I was initially worried to have my books translated. Much less by AI. But now I can't look back. In the past, translating my books was a daunting task. Unthinkable. But now, I've translated most of my back-list into German and it now makes up 75% of my income. I can't wait to finish translating my back-list into German, and then try out other languages.
- Nicholas Woode-Smith
Since I first started self-publishing in 2014 I've wanted to see my books in translation, but the costs for my lengthy novels proved to be prohibitive. ScribeShadow came along and made my dream come true! Now my series is halfway translated into German, and it is so thrilling to be reaching a new and hungry audience on Amazon Germany. I can't wait to broaden my books' horizons to France, Italy, and the Netherlands and beyond. It'a a brand new era of thriving and publishing.
So far I've made over 5k from translations. I post a book a month, sometimes I skip a month. I have newsletter subscribers for both Germany and French (the only two languages I've published in). Some of them have become true fans who love to hear from me and I love being able to grow in more than just English. Without ScribeShadow, I wouldn't have been able to do this.
I've previously spent thousands using translators and editors for each book. It takes months, translators vanish part way through a project, or are months late on delivering. I recently used ScribeShadow for a German cozy mystery translation and then paid a proofreader to check the translation. The whole process cost less than $400 and I made that money back on release day (my old school translations took over a year to earn out!) I also got a German All Star bonus for the latest SS book - none of the old school translations ever got one.
I first looked into translations in 2022, and was not impressed with the quality of AI assisted translations and found human translation prohibitively expensive. I’m an indie author in a small romance niche with a fierce readership, but I don’t make thousands of dollars a month. Partly because I don’t have a big backlist.
In June 2025 I started translating my books using ScribeShadow, after reading case studies of other authors who were finding the quality had improved to a level comparable with human translation. I have a completed romance series of three books and one novella that was published in English in 2022, and a separate novella and a short story. That’s it. That’s my entire list.
I translated everything into German first, then Italian, slowly completing and releasing the books on my own and with updated covers from my cover artist. I put them in KU and didn’t tell anyone. My sales jumped! Then I did French and in July of 2025 I had the second best sales I’ve ever had, second only to when I released a new book back in 2022.
August isn’t over yet, and I’m already tracking to have the third best month ever. I’ve well and truly earned back the costs of the translations and new covers, easily within 6 weeks of release, and I have not spent a cent in advertising.
My next step is to translate into Brazilian Portuguese, as I have a readership there in English and I suspect what I write could be popular in Brazil. And I’m going to start Facebook ads for my French, German and Italian books.
I’m writing a new series and will release my front list in multiple languages alongside English, and am looking into updating my website so I have pages for all my books in the languages I release in.
Without ScribeShadow I would not be having the success I am, which has meant my little business is now supporting itself and I hope, with more frontlist titles and some advertising, it will help me reduce my day job hours. What is a small business for unless it helps improve your quality of life?