Kindle 2: Are you listening?

[Update: Since I wrote this post on Friday, Amazon has changed their policy re: the Kindle. Though I still think this topic is worthy of discussion, it does make the point somewhat mute. No pun intended.]

So you’ve probably heard that the second generation of Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle, has been released. The mania finally got to me and I ordered one. The reader in me is excited to play. The writer in me has other things in mind; I’d like to better understand the reading function that has many authors, agents and publishers nervous.

If you haven’t read about this yet, let me fill you in. The new Kindle can read to you. It can read newspaper articles and it can read books. Entire books. At no extra charge. If you’re wondering if this puts Amazon in violation of copyright law, then you’re not alone. Everyone is wondering about that. Everyone is talking about it. Neil Gaiman had an argument with his agent over it. Jason Pinter then disagreed with Gaiman’s disagreement, which is to say he doesn’t believe the Kindle should be able to read anyone a bedtime story or any other kind of story.

Has Amazon crossed a line, made it so that you will now have both a regular e-book and an audiobook whenever you download a Kindle book? Will more people purchase Kindle books because of this benefit? Will fewer people buy audiobooks if they have this reading option available to them, even if it means hearing a less-than-desirable voice spitting out those words?

Critics of the feature say yes, absolutely, and they’re ready to battle it out. Others say no, that when you buy a book, you buy the rights to read it aloud or have someone else read it aloud or record it for yourself and listen to it if you like. Besides, the Kindle’s voice isn’t something you’d want to listen to for long stretches of time, they say; it’s a convenience for between times, like when you’re driving or getting dinner ready or taking a shower, when you just can’t put the book down.

But. It’s slippery, isn’t it?

I guess the argument comes to this: Why do you buy audiobooks? To hear the storyteller? Or are you just buying the book because it’s more convenient for you to hear the content read aloud, regardless of the vocalizations? Personally, I purchased every single one of the Harry Potter books in addition to all of the audiobooks, just to hear Jim Dale tell the story; the man is a genius with voices. But if I just had to slog through something hard–let’s say, a nonfiction book that wasn’t particularly interesting to me–might I listen to the whole thing via a less interesting voice? Maybe. So what does that mean? Line crossed? Copyrights violated? Kindle 2 bad? My bad? Amazon very bad?

[Note: Again, Amazon has completely changed its, er, tone since I wrote this post–which I guess goes to show that I should never try to do things far in advance and should instead stick with my tried-and-true method of scrambling to pull something together at the last second. The new policy is that publishers will get to decide whether or not their books will be translated for text-to-speech usage. This is an outtake from the policy:

…rightsholders can decide on a title by title basis whether they want text-to-speech enabled or disabled for any particular title. We have already begun to work on the technical changes required to give authors and publishers that choice.

And frankly, I think this change takes Amazon from the ranks of the potentially “very bad” and puts them into the ranks of “very smart.” Back to the pitifully outdated blog post…sorry.]

Here’s a sample of what the Kindle 2 sounds like when it’s reading part of an article. Though it sounds a little clunky in the first part, it’s actually quite fluid in the second, and the program seems to have a decent grasp of human inflections.

What do you think of this new function? Would you use it? When?

Write on, all.

Therese Walsh

Therese Walsh (she/her) co-founded Writer Unboxed in 2006 and is the site’s editorial director. She was the editor of WU’s only book, Author in Progress, and runs the Writer Unboxed UnConference.

Her second novel, The Moon Sisters, received starred reviews and was named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal and Book Riot.

Learn more about Therese on her website, and sign up for her newsletter to be among the first to hear about any new projects.

www.theresewalsh.com/