Amazon is making it easier for self-published authors to publish e-books in multiple languages with Kindle Translate, a modern AI translation tool that launched in beta version on Thursday to a confined number of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) authors. In its early form, it enables translation from English to Spanish and from German to English at no additional cost to authors.
Authors can choose the languages they want their books translated into, set individual list prices for these translations, and preview them before publication. Amazon says that “all translations are automatically assessed for accuracy before publication” and specifies that e-books translated using the AI tool will have a “Kindle Translate” label on them.
According to Amazon, “less than 5% of the titles” on its site are available in multiple languages, and Kindle Translate aims to improve this. Books translated using this tool will be eligible for KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited. The e-book translation tool comes months after Amazon’s audiobook platform, Audible, began offering an AI-powered multilingual storytelling tool.