Amazon announced that it will introduce artificial intelligence translation services to the Kindle platform to help independent authors translate their works into other languages at a lower cost. This new feature, called “Kindle Translate,” is still in beta and is only available to some Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) authors. Amazon pointed out that currently less than 5% of the books in its US store support multi-language versions, and the company hopes that this tool can help authors "reach new readers and earn higher incomes."
The first batch of features only supports translation between English and Spanish, and translation from German to English. Authors can manage the entire process through the KDP portal, including selecting target languages, setting prices, and publishing translations.
Complete translations are typically generated within days and automatically assessed for accuracy by Amazon. Authors can choose to preview the translation before publishing, or publish it directly after automatic detection. At the same time, all books using this service will be clearly marked as AI translations, and readers can preview the translations through the "Look Inside" function before purchasing. Translations can also be added to the KDP Select program and included in the Kindle Unlimited content library.
While Amazon didn't specify the technical details of Kindle Translate, it's almost certainly powered by a large language model (LLM). LLM can cope with the delicate language style of books, maintain the original layout, and perform automatic quality inspection.
Since this year, Amazon has continued to expand the application of LLM technology. Only yesterday, it announced that it will integrate the new generation LLM version of Alexa+ assistant into the Amazon Music application to provide users with in-depth music conversation services. Related functions have been opened for experience in advance.