Amazon has renamed Kindle Unlimited to Kindle+ and opened it to audiobooks from self-published authors, including ones read by a computer-generated voice. The company announces both changes in a post for its Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) authors.
KDP lets authors turn an eBook into an audiobook read by a computer-generated voice, free for now, in a beta that’s still invite-only. Those audiobooks now join Kindle+ on their own whenever the eBook is enrolled in KDP Select, so authors already enrolled don’t have to do a thing. They land in Audible’s Plus catalog, too.
Audiobooks made through Audible’s ACX can join as well. The title has to be exclusive to Audible with Amazon’s read-and-listen sync turned on, and for now only books where the author paid the producer’s full fee qualify, not royalty-split deals. So a computer-voiced version costs an author nothing and goes in by default, while an ACX production comes with strings.
Authors are paid for listening the way they’re paid for reading: by the page, from the KDP Select Global Fund, which Amazon says it’s adding money to for audiobooks. Each page pays once, so a subscriber who listens to a chapter they already read earns the author nothing extra.
Kindle+ costs $11.99 (about Php 760) a month plus taxes in the US, lets you borrow up to 20 titles at a time and isn’t part of Prime, Amazon’s guide for readers says. Its audiobooks are for US listeners for now, and Amazon tells authors more markets will follow.
That guide doesn’t mention computer narration at all. On Audible, at least, these titles list “Virtual Voice” as the narrator. Fair warning, then: the narrator of your next Kindle+ audiobook may never have needed a sip of water.
