Amazon offers AI translation for self-published Kindle books

Amazon is making it easier for self-published authors to release their ebooks in multiple languages with Kindle Translate, a new AI translation tool that launched in beta on Thursday to a limited number of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) authors. In its early form, it can translate between English and Spanish and from German to English, at no extra cost to authors. 

Authors can select the languages they want their books translated to, set individual list prices for those translations, and preview them before publication. Amazon states that “all translations are automatically evaluated for accuracy before publication” and specified that there will be a “Kindle Translate” label on ebooks that were translated with the AI tool. 

According to Amazon, “less than 5% of titles” on its site are available in multiple languages, a stat Kindle Translate is intended to improve. Books translated with the tool will be eligible for KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited. The ebook translation tool arrives a few months after Amazon’s audiobook platform, Audible, began offering a multi-lingual AI narration tool.