Amazon's Kindle Translate beta offers free AI translation
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R. S. Breed Founder
Amazon has announced Kindle Translate, a beta, open to selected KDP authors for now, that uses AI to translate ebooks at no cost to the author. At launch it covers English to Spanish, Spanish to English, and German to English, and the translated editions are eligible for Kindle Unlimited.
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/books-and-authors/amazon-kindle-translate-books-authors
On paper this is a real opening. Translation has always been the expensive way into other markets, and most indies never tried it because a human translator for a full novel can cost more than the book will ever earn back in that language.
My hesitation is the obvious one. If you don't read Spanish, you can't check what's going out under your name. Machine translation has got good at getting sentences right. It's much less reliable on voice, humour, dialogue that's meant to sound a particular way, and the hundred small choices that make a book feel as if it was written in that language. A reader who gets a flat translation won't blame the software. They'll blame you.
If I were trying it, I'd start with one book, ideally something plot-driven rather than voice-driven, and pay a native speaker to read at least the opening chapters before it goes live. Treat it as an experiment you can measure, not a switch you flip on the whole backlist.