Amazon’s AI Translation Shortcut: Smart Strategy or Costly Mistake?

Amazon just removed one of the biggest barriers to international publishing, and authors are going to be tempted to move fast. With Amazon quietly rolling out an AI-powered translation tool inside KDP, turning your book into Spanish, German, and other languages suddenly feels almost effortless. But easy and effective are not the same thing.

In this episode, Penny Sansevieri and Amy Cornell unpack what Amazon’s new AI translation feature actually means for authors and why this could become one of those publishing moments where convenience creates a wave of expensive mistakes. Because when translation becomes a checkbox instead of a strategy, it becomes dangerously easy to expand into markets you do not understand.

We get into the risks many authors will not see coming: AI missing emotional nuance, humor that collapses in translation, phrases that work beautifully in one culture and feel awkward—or completely wrong—in another. We also discuss a bigger misconception: assuming a language automatically equals a market. “Spanish readers” are not one audience. Readers in Spain, Mexico, Argentina, and the U.S. often buy differently, respond to different pricing, and even prefer different styles and tones.

We also look at what happens inside the Amazon ecosystem itself. How translated editions may appear on your Author Central profile, why ratings and reviews can become fragmented across marketplaces, how weak social proof in a new market can affect perception, and why a poorly translated book description may quietly destroy conversion before a reader even downloads a sample.

And because we never leave authors with fear and no roadmap, we walk through a smarter testing strategy: how to validate demand before translating, identify genres that travel well internationally, choose the right title to test first, and support launches with country-specific Amazon ads and market research.

Global expansion sounds exciting. But before you hand your backlist over to AI and click publish, listen first.

This episode could save you time, money, and a lot of one-star reviews.

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Transcript

Welcome And Tool Overview

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the book marketing tips and author success podcast. This is Penny Santa and Amy Cornell. And we just hit Amy's 15-year anniversary of my college. We've been working together for 15 years. We have stories, people. You ever see us? You ever? If you ever write into us at a writer's conference, we will tell all our stories for a great work pretty. But let's go. Yeah, it's been a great 15 years. We have we have both learned uh and grow so much. And it's just it's a really fun industry to work in. And the topic today, especially that we're gonna talk about is you know, it's just another big change in the industry that I think, and that's one of the reasons why I love doing this podcast, because we get to talk about the realistic view, like the Amazon translation tool, which, you know, on its on its face sounds fabulous, like, oh my gosh, now I can get all my books translated. And so we really uh this was that show was actually Amy's idea. Wanted to break down what it is, does it make sense? The good news, bad news kind of thing. Because Amazon is always a little bit of good news, bad news, right? Every time. Every single time. Want to remind you all um, we love your uh to get your show ideas. We've gotten a few of those. We really love that. Uh, show feedback um and questions, any publ and question publishing questions that you have, text the word podcast to 888-402-8940. Um, so Amy, since this show was your idea, would you like to just just intro what we're gonna talk about? I mean, I know I kind of alluded to it already, but intro kind of what we're gonna talk about today.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah. So Amazon's new translation tool, it sounds very cool. It sounds very much, and I fully appreciate authors are paying attention to what's going on and they want to do anything and everything they can for sure, get their books out there. So I applaud those of you that are trying to keep up with what's changing in the industry and what new opportunities are available, because that's really important too. You know,

How Authors Are Using The Beta

SPEAKER_00 2:20

doing the same old stuff over and over again doesn't work very well either. So, but actually, the reason that this was even fully brought to my attention is that we had an author reach out to us, you know, just potentially that we would work with. And I was checking out, as we've talked about before, I was checking out their author central page, checking out their book pages, things like that, just getting a feel for what they had going on already. And I had noticed that his author central was flooded with books in different languages. And I, you know, I was intrigued. And so I asked him about it. I said, What's going on here? What, you know, what's the plan? You know, all these things. And that's when, you know, that's when I was alerted to this is apparently out in beta. And some authors have access to it, some authors don't. But he said, I saw it, I used it, I basically am running all my, and he's a series author. He's like, I'm running all my books through this translation option. And so that's why I've got all these new books now. And so that's when I reached out to you and I was like, we should talk about this because you know, he was just on board right away. But of course, anytime we hear that, you know, our little alarm bells go off and we think, I think this is worth a discussion because you should never just jump in feet first without some sort of plan or a full understanding of how something serves you, what some of the drawbacks may be, things to look for, how to prep, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

So well, and you know, yeah, exactly. And I think that, you know, Amazon absolutely removed the friction from global publishing with this. The problem is, is that this friction sometimes protects authors from making bad decisions, which is what we hope to kind of unpack in this podcast. Because translation, you know, the so the first piece of this

Nuance Problems And Genre Fit

SPEAKER_01 4:10

is that and and we're gonna talk about this too. There are language nuances that an AI is l is not going to be able to grasp. Okay, and that's uh I think probably one of the you know, not all translation markets are created equal, right? No.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

And Kenny, you can just from personal experience, right? With your family overseas.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Well, yeah. So I I I spent 10 years in Belgium, my family there, and I I speak fluent, but my writing it leaves a lot to be desired. So like when I have family and we're chatting on WhatsApp or whatever, I will use Chat GPT and I'll write it in English and I'll have it translate. And the new the English nuances do not translate well to Dutch nuances, just full, full stop. So a lot of times I'll have to go in there and just remove some stuff and things like that, right? Um and so you have to really be careful of be, you know, be careful of that. And then there are like there are genres that translate really well internationally. And I know we're gonna dig into this more just kind of regionally, but you know, genre thriller suspense. In fact, um we had an author a number of years ago who sold something like $70,000 worth of their thriller book in Germany, right? Because thrillers do very well in Germany. Thriller suspense does very well in Germany, but romance fantasy, children's book, personal development, self-help, commercial fiction do well in um, you know, in in international markets, the caveat again being not all, you know, not all translations are created equal, right? Right. Yes. What what are some of the what are some of the ones that you've seen the genres that tend to struggle more though internationally? Like, because I think that when, you know, it was kind of like when when Amazon launched the audiobook piece of it. And I I actually tried that with a couple of our authors, right? It's like, okay, let's see what this sounds like. And the problem, and maybe that's changed now. I haven't checked it out recently, but the problem with this AI narration of these books is that you don't get the inflection, right? You don't get, again, the nuance. Like I listen to a lot, and you listen to a lot of audiobooks, right? You you don't capture that like pivotal moment where you know, maybe the voice, the narrator, the live narrator, not the AI narrator, their voice would drop or speed up or slow down or whatever. You don't get that with AI.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Well, right, and in this the phrasing that is very American that doesn't translate either. We had when we were in Europe and we had a guide to take us through Normandy and things like that, it was it was very interesting. And I remember specifically in an email, I'd use the phrase, I'll keep an eye out for it. And he was just flabbergasted by taking your eye out and what this meant like. And I thought I thought that is so funny, but so true. There's so many things that are second nature to us using American English that just again, those and not that, you know, people that speak other languages couldn't figure it out, but that is exactly what you don't want readers doing. You don't want your reader sitting there and getting pulled out of the story because something doesn't make sense. We would never do that, do that to them intentionally, to your American audiences, right? Right. Exactly.

Auto-Translation And Strategy Risks

SPEAKER_00 8:00

And so setting it up to be that kind of experience for an international audience just really doesn't make sense. And I wanted to mention, too, that, you know, I think some of the things that are potentially also dangerous about this, in addition to these nuances, is that in it's easy to kind of just click all the things when you're in Amazon. But one of the things that I was reading up on too, Penny, is that you have the option to auto-enable this. So any other book that you're book you release just automatically get translated. Currently, they have it in Spanish and German, but there are more languages coming. But so, yes, the automation part of it really scared me too. Because again, I think we need to start jumping into what the strategy is behind this and things to consider. But as we continue to chat through this, y'all will notice that you know, auto anything when it comes to this is dangerous, especially, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Right. And I mean, could you imagine? Because if you had, so I would never translate my books into another language because I know there's just there's there's no way. There's no way that this will translate properly, right? And I think that falls into like the genres that struggle more. So books that are humor heavy, because a lot of times like our humor doesn't people in Europe don't, or wherever they they they don't, they just think that's crazy. They don't, and and and sometimes like when I remember when I was traveling over to Belgium and my family would they would have like a comedy show on. I really I wouldn't get it. I like I I don't know. You know what I mean? Yeah, you know, uh culture is culturally specific fiction, obviously, right? Um dialogue heavy, contemporary fiction, books that are deeply into pop culture, politics, slang. Yeah, this is not an across the board thing that you really want to, you know, that you really want to do. And so, like, let's take, for example, so somebody says, I'm gonna translate my book into Spanish and I'm gonna hit all the Spanish reading markets. Well, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, US, you know, Spanish language reader readers. Spanish, it's kind of like, again, I just go back to like my my Belgian heritage. You know, a lot of times what they say is people in Belgium speak Flemish, right? And and people in Holland speak Dutch, and they're essentially the same language. It's kind of like we what you know, uh American English and uh UK English, right? The king, the Queen's English isn't is that called the Queen's English or something? Anyway, it it's very we we we say things very differently and we can understand one another, but nuanced makes a huge difference. Right. You know what I mean? Makes a huge difference. Um so what are all right, so next up, what are we, what's next up on the list to talk about? Amy, why don't you take that one?

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Yeah, I mean, I think we really got to talk about as if y'all weren't already convinced everybody's just like fine, we won't do it.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

But no, it and it's not though, and yeah, and this is really just us kind of like I think that this will definitely work for some people because book translation, you know, there's a lot of there can be a lot of pitfalls if you do it traditionally in book translation. And we can certainly talk about that if we have the time at the end of the show, because I think that's also worth noting too, if you're doing it the traditional way.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Right. And so what this new feature encourages is translating multiple books at once. So if you have a backlist, Amazon is making it very easy to just apply this across the board. You can expand into multiple languages very quickly. And then obviously I mentioned the auto-translation, but the issue with this is you're not actually evaluating demand. And as Penny's mentioned, like this takes out any review process per language. This is not like the audio book version where you get to go through with a fine-tooth comb. They just handle this for you, which can sound appealing. But again, like everything we've said, very careful. And this is also just producing books without any sort of strategy, which you would never do, hopefully. Anyone listening who's been listening for a while knows that you don't just hammer out books with no plan. And that's that's essentially what this is doing. You're hammering out books without an actual plan that makes sense based on who those potential readers could be, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, exactly. And I also think that when you have again, so being smart about you know, transl translation. So if you've written a thriller or suspense, yeah, they do well on the German market. And and I think it's worth researching um where your um what markets are going to respond you know best

Reviews Branding And Cover Localization

SPEAKER_01 13:05

to your book. Right. But the other piece of this is, and we'll talk about that in a second too, just in terms of you know, maybe how to go about that research. Translation can also fragment social proof, right? So let's say that you have, you know, a hundred reviews on Amazon.com, and then you translate your book into Spanish or German, and then it doesn't translate well. And then on the Spanish site, you have three reviews and they're not great, right? Two point two and a half stars or something, one German review, which is not great. What this does is it it really drags your entire brand down. Right. And I also go ahead. Sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

No, a hundred percent, because I was just gonna tie this back to the author that reached out to us, and that's one of the reasons I was can I asked some questions because his were all showing up on his author central. And unfortunately, the way Amazon automatically presents your online catalog, it it just looked like he had a bunch of books in other languages with no reviews, nothing going on. You know what I mean? Yeah, and that was my first impression. Obviously, I know to dig, I am there for a very different reason than a shopper is. And so I dug through and I finally found the the original versions of his book that were published here in the States. And I was like, okay, that this is interesting. What's going on? That's why I asked him for more. But to that point, the first impression was very fragmented. Like you said, Penny, it was just books published, a lot of books published in different languages with zero reviews. And that's, you know, we talk about that all the time, just in every day publishing here in the States. Like you don't want to just keep hammering out books without a plan to get them out there, to get them seen, to get them reviewed, because it looks like nobody's showing up to your party. You know, right. And that's a bad, bad way to convert people. You know, I think unfortunately, sometimes authors shoot themselves in the foot by being prolific in terms of production, but when they're not following through with promotion, because again, you don't want to look like you've been putting a bunch of books out that nobody cares about, because that's that's an unfair viewpoint of your work, also.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and the other thing, too, that I think we rarely we we actually almost never talk about. And I don't think we've ever done a show on this because there hasn't we there hasn't been anything that sort of necessitated it, but um traditionally when authors got book deals in other countries, right? So they had the whether it was audio translation or you know, just the translation of the book, the covers were revised to match the market in those countries, right? So when you look at a book, so even let's just take the US to the UK, right? So you have a book with a with a with a US cover, and then you have a book with the UK cover, right? Because we know in publishing that that matters. Different culturally, people respond differently to covers, right? So that's not even so I I I don't think, I mean, obviously, I don't know. I have to dig into this more, but I would be curious if that is something down the road that Amazon's going to allow. So when you get your book translated, do you have to keep the same cover? Because look, if you're gonna do it, you may as well do it right. You may as well, you may as well do it the way that traditional publishers have always done it because there is a method to the madness when you're trying to reach global markets. I mean, do you see what I'm saying? Absolutely. And I think that you really want,

Test One Book And Promote It

SPEAKER_01 17:00

so I think the first piece of this is is if you like if we haven't totally killed your buzz, like we haven't totally killed all of your fun on this, validate the demand first. So first, so look at markets and see if your genre is selling there right. So I rattled off a few um genres that do well, and we also talked about, you know, obviously about ones that don't do well. But I think it's kind of obvious too, you know. I think that we know books that have gotten big translation deals and things that and they typically fall into genre fiction. Um and then I think it makes sense to start with one book because as opposed to every single book in your library, and this is super exciting. And I gotta tell you, like when the audiobook stuff started this now a couple of years ago, I was like everybody got really excited, like, oh, we can have audiobooks, which is you know, now that I you know fast forward to today, when I've listened to hundreds of audiobooks, I don't think that I would listen to an AI narrated audiobook. I and maybe I have and the joke's on me. But I you know what I mean? Like, so I think that this is something um the proof of whether or not this actually works well. We will really won't know this until it starts to roll out. So I think start with one book. Yes, you know what I mean. Start with your your, I mean, would you agree? They should somebody should start with their strongest title.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah, start with your strongest title, start with what makes you look the best, because realistically, these when it's sitting next to everything else on your virtual shelf on Amazon, people that want to read either the Spanish or the German or future, you know what I mean, they are going to look at what else you've done. Like these people don't operate in a bubble, you know what I mean? It's like they are going to look at what else is there. So you're going to present better if you translate a version of your book that already has traction and proven demand in English speaking. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think it's also one of those things we say it all the time, but it's very true, you know, and we've kind of met sprinkled this in throughout the show that very few people just read all thrillers, right? Or all mysteries, or all romance. You know, there are so many subgenres to that that people are more interested in. So, like just because you put a book into Spanish or into German does not mean that, oh, great, everybody that speaks Spanish is going to be in my potential buyer market, right? Or everybody that speaks German or people that are potentially going to buy my book now. This is brilliant. You know, that's not how it works. You still, you know what I mean? You are realistically working with a much smaller pool. It doesn't mean, like Penny said, that it can't be potentially really great for you if you have the right book, if you've proven that the demand is there, you have some sort of marketing plan behind it, even if it's very small scale. You know, again, just because a book is translated, it doesn't turn into the field of dreams. You know, we've said that before too. Just because the book exists doesn't mean people are just gonna flood in and buy it. You have to get it out there too.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah. Yeah, you have to get it out there. So you have to plan, you know, you also have to plan strategically. And I would say that running some Amazon ads in the country that you are um that your that you know, that your translated book is launching in would be a great, a great way. You know, you you want to plan something around it. So this is not me, you know, this is not Amy and I on the show saying, okay, we'll plan a trip to Germany if you're gonna launch there.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

No, you don't have to Although if you can write it off, go for it. I support you.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Now we're giving tax advice. I love it. But but truly, I mean, the thing about it is is that I know it it gets to be, we just did a show on book sales, and I I realize that sometimes it gets to to be kind of a slog, you know. But you if and and when Amazon opens the doors on this, they're just like, oh my gosh, this is exciting, and we're gonna do all the things. Just be strategic about it and and make sure that you've planned at least a little something around the launch. Run some, you know, low the Amazon ads, frankly, in other countries are gonna cost you less anyway. So, you know, spend a couple hundred bucks, run some Amazon ads, boost the title, and you know, kind of see how it does. And if it and if it does well, we want to hear about it. So you wanna, you know, definitely text us and let us know how your book is done. And if you've used this, I'd love to know that too. Because the other thing that I'm really curious about, and Amy, I know that you've done such a deep dive on this. Do you get to pick, like, how does how does that work? I mean, I realize now I'm asking you about the mechanics, which you may not know about. Do you get to like review some of their translation? Or is it just this robot, this Amazon robot, you throw your book in and it spits it out? Do you know? Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

You do get to preview it. Okay. But I think that's very different than I mean, for most of us at least, unless you're a native speaker yourself and this is just a cheaper version of something you can do. Well, how are you gonna know? Exactly. That's what I like to be. Like, okay, I could preview a book in German and be zero help to anybody, you know? Right. So, and I think, and the thing is with that too, is that it also, oh, I mean, across the board, from what I can tell, it translates everything. So we're talking about your description as well. Like it just kind of runs with everything for you. So again, I think and that's another, I mean, again, we've already discussed how important it is, those nuances and things like that, the differences between different languages. So, yes, obviously that definitely matters for the book, but so of course it would matter for the description as well, you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know it. Yeah, it it's gonna be interesting to kind of see how this um how this plays out. And I think, you know, as authors, we have to use every tool at our disposal. We have to be open to new tools. We just want to make sure that we're using them smartly and not skipping the strategy. And none of these tools are there to help you skip the line. But um certainly, I mean, I like I said, we'd love to know if you've used this, if if this isn't something that's really worked for you, because if it helps to expand the horizon your horizons and get you into new markets, I think that's fabulous. Just want to be smart about it.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Right, exactly. Just make sure there's a purpose behind it. Because, like I said, you just you don't want to start throwing this huge party that nobody's showing up to because it's it's not sometimes, oftentimes, actually, you know, you only get that split second first impression, also. And unfortunately, if if this is not something that you're able to really oversee and critically assess on your own, or you, you know, without hiring somebody to do a review for you, spill and think like somebody that's a native speaker, things like that. Um it it just it can get out of control really quickly. But it does sound cool. Like I I love the idea behind it. I love the idea of accessibility, of expanding into different markets. I mean, the inspiration is definitely there, but I think the execution

Wrap Up Links And Text Line

SPEAKER_00 24:40

leaves something to desire at this point.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Yeah, yeah, I think I I for sure I do. And um, I'm gonna post some links in the show notes, just some articles that I found discussions that have happened. So if you're considering exploring this, you definitely want to dive deep into those, and and I'll put those into the show notes. But we'd love your feedback. We'd love to know what you think of this episode and all of our episodes. And actually, next week uh on the topic of getting more exposure for your for your book, which is always our focus. Next week we're gonna talk about why you want to launch your book multiple times, which is kind of a cool twist on the book launch topic. Text the work podcast to 888 402 8940. We want to hear from you. And we will see you next week. Bye bye.