Kindle Unlimited becomes Kindle+ and adds AI-narrated audiobooks

Amazon has renamed Kindle Unlimited as Kindle+, keeping the price at $12 a month and expanding its audiobook selection to include titles narrated by AI. ZDNET reports the change as a rebrand rather than a new subscription ^[1].

What changes

Kindle+ continues to offer unlimited reading from an eligible Kindle catalogue ^[1]. Amazon is not raising the price, the subscription remains separate from Prime, and subscribers can still borrow up to 20 titles at once ^[1].

The two big changes are about audio. The audiobook category is being expanded, and authors can now choose to include more eligible audiobooks in Kindle+, including AI-narrated ones ^[1]. Amazon wants readers to be able to carry on with their ebooks through virtual narration after they put their Kindle down ^[1]. Subscribers will be able to choose from many more audiobooks, from traditional narrators to those created with a service called Virtual Voice ^[1].

How Virtual Voice works for authors

Amazon is offering Virtual Voice free to authors in its Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) programme, so they can have books narrated by AI at no cost and potentially reach a wider audience ^[1]. KDP authors enrolled in Kindle+ are paid by pages read, not per download, with earnings depending on the month's payout rate and total pages read ^[1].

Listening to books on Kindle is not new. Some Kindle Unlimited ebooks already came with a professionally narrated audiobook, and accessibility features such as Assistive Reader and VoiceView have long read text aloud ^[1]. The biggest difference is simply more titles, and an easier route for authors to produce them ^[1].

The concerns

ZDNET's writer, Maria Diaz, argues that AI narration may detract from the human side of audiobooks and could take work from professional narrators, many of whom have their own followings ^[1]. She also notes that authors may skip a human narrator when a virtual one is available for free ^[1]. For listeners who want exclusively human-narrated or dramatised audiobooks, she points to Audible and other platforms, including Libby through local libraries ^[1]. These are the reviewer's opinions, and the article does not include a response from narrators' groups or Amazon on those points.

Why it matters

This is a small change for subscribers and a bigger one for the publishing trade. When creating an audiobook costs an author nothing, the number of titles can grow quickly, and quality and discoverability become the next questions. Readers may want clear labelling so they know whether a voice is human or synthetic. The sources do not say whether Amazon will provide that.

For small businesses and independent publishers, the lesson is the falling cost of producing audio content. If you publish guides, manuals or books, AI narration could widen your audience cheaply, but weigh that against how your readers feel about synthetic voices.

Source: ZDNET — Amazon's Kindle Unlimited is now Kindle+, and the 2 big changes include AI audiobooks