Do publishers really need to translate between UK and US English?

Question

Is there really a need for a book to be translated from UK to US English? I'm nearing completion on my own great work, and just want to know if it is truly worth doing a British and an American version, or just release the current version in its UK form, as I am British.I personally feel that works of fiction become truly great when the writing becomes invisible. When you're so lost in a novel that you don't even notice the sentence structure and intricately constructed prose.So while I can't see an American throwing an otherwise enjoyable book away in disgust just because there's a 'u' in 'color', is it jarring? To an American, would the odd British word, (Grey, mum, offence, theatre) actually cause them to not be engrossed in a novel as much as they could be?I'd like to think not, I'd like to think a British book with British spelling would make it a little bit more interesting, especially considering it's set in a post-apocalyptic UK and narrated by a British person. But publishers spend thousands of pounds translating UK books to US English, so why do they do this?

Answer 1

The only reason I could see a work being translated from UK English to US English or vice versa would be to make it more culturally relevant. In translation studies, we call this 'domestication' and do it when the original text is too 'foreign' for the target audience to understand. However, if you want to keep the British tone of your book, I recommend not adapting it to US English.