Kindle Unlimited Is Now Kindle+: What It Changes for Your Book

Kindle Unlimited, Amazon's reading subscription, is now called Kindle+, and since October 22, 2026 it includes audiobooks too. If your book was already in the subscription, there's nothing to do: it's there, and payment for reading hasn't changed. The real news is about audiobooks, and for now it mostly concerns books in English, Spanish, French and Italian. In other words, your book after it's been translated.

What exactly changed with Kindle+

Amazon posted the announcement on the official forum of KDP (Amazon's self-publishing platform). You can read the full announcement here. It has two changes.

The first is the name. Kindle Unlimited is now Kindle+. Amazon explains that the subscription today includes books, audiobooks, magazines and comics, and that it wanted a name that fits.

The second matters more: subscribers in the United States can now also listen to audiobooks, not just read, at no extra cost. Amazon writes that more countries will come later, with no date.

What didn't change

If you've read our post on what Kindle Unlimited is, almost everything there is still true.

• The way in is still KDP Select. This is the program where you commit to selling the ebook only on Amazon, in 90-day periods. According to Amazon's requirements page, during that period the ebook can be distributed only through Amazon and public libraries. You can keep selling a print book anywhere.
• Payment for reading hasn't moved. You're paid by the pages readers read, from a shared fund that Amazon divides every month.
• Books already enrolled stay in. No form, no approval, no new button.

How an audiobook gets into the subscription

There are two ways here, and each has its own rules.

An audiobook in a computer-generated voice. Amazon offers to create an audiobook read in a synthetic voice, straight from the ebook. If the ebook is enrolled in KDP Select, the audiobook goes into Kindle+ on its own. If it isn't enrolled, you enroll the ebook and the audiobook joins it.

An audiobook produced through ACX. ACX is Audible's platform where you produce an audiobook with a human narrator. A book like that gets in only if a few conditions are met: the ebook is enrolled in KDP Select, the audiobook is distributed only on Audible, the option to read and listen at the same time is turned on, and the narrator was paid up front. Books where the narrator gets a share of the royalties don't get in for now. Amazon writes that it's looking into this.

Amazon notes that enrolling an ACX audiobook doesn't add any new exclusivity requirement beyond what it already has.

Why this matters for a translated book in particular

Here's the part most articles about Kindle+ skip.

To create an audiobook in a computer-generated voice, according to Amazon's help page, the book's language has to be English, Spanish, Italian or French. Hebrew isn't on the list. And even this is still an invitation-only trial, not something open to every book.

So your book in Hebrew won't get an audiobook like this. But if you have a translation into English or Spanish, published on Amazon as an ebook, it might. And that audiobook will now also reach Kindle+ subscribers in the United States, an audience that looks for books without paying for each one.

One more useful detail: Amazon writes that authors from any country can enroll audiobooks, and that distribution for now is to the United States. You don't need to live there.

If you haven't thought about an audiobook yet, we wrote about how a book becomes an audiobook and about whether to start with an ebook, print or audio.

How listening gets paid

Amazon writes that listening will be paid exactly like reading: by pages, from the same fund. It's adding separate money to the fund for listening, so that pay for authors who are only read doesn't drop.

Three rules from the announcement worth knowing:

1. Each page is paid once, per subscriber. If someone read a page and then listened to the same page, that counts as a reread and isn't paid again.
2. If someone reads and listens at the same time, and the formats pay different rates, you get the higher rate.
3. Amazon writes that reading and listening are different experiences, and that it will adjust the fund as it understands how people use them.

What's not in the announcement: how much a listened page pays, and how much money is being added to the fund. If someone gives you a number, ask them where it came from.

In your KDP reports you'll now see pages read and pages listened to, separately.

What to do now

If your book is only in Hebrew, nothing for now. The change doesn't touch it.

If you have a translated book on Amazon that's enrolled in KDP Select, it's worth logging into your account and checking whether the option to create a computer-voice audiobook shows up. If it does, listen to a sample before you decide. A computer voice suits some books more than others.

If you're thinking about translating now, this is one more thing to weigh when picking a language. We wrote about that in which language to translate your book into. And remember that Amazon asks you to label a book translated with the help of artificial intelligence, as we explained here.

And if your book isn't in KDP Select and sells in other stores too, there's no reason to rush. The decision whether to go exclusive hasn't changed. The only thing that changed is what you get in return.