Kindle 2 Text-to-Speech Feature Now Optional (to Publishers)

We haven’t reported on Amazon’s new Kindle 2 yet, but a new story has given me the push needed to talk about it a bit. First and foremost, the Kindle is a great e-Book reader, no question. One cool feature on the “2” though, was “text-to-speech”, which does exactly as you’d expect. Rather than have to go purchase an audio book, you could simply load up your e-book, and let the Kindle 2 read it to you.

Now, given what I’ve heard from text-to-speech software in the past, I’m assuming that the voice quality is nowhere as good as a real audio book, but that doesn’t much matter, because the Authors Guild (there’s another guild??) had something to say about it, and Amazon had very little delay before caving in. Now, the text-to-speech feature is optional to book publishers, so while some books may use the feature without issue, others will ignore it.

This move, of course, is one of the dumbest that the Authors Guild could have pulled off. As I mentioned, there is no way the quality of the voice is so good that it could actually replace a real audio book, and aside from that, if someone is actually keen on having this feature (someone who is blind, or hard-of-seeing, or someone who just wants to sit back and listen), the best option once again becomes piracy. So, not only would they lose an audio book sale, but they’d lose a book sale in general. I can’t wrap my head around organizations like this…

Well done to the Authors Guild! Amazon revealed last night that the text-to-speech feature in the Kindle 2 will now be optional for publishers. The guild had been tenaciously fighting this feature, arguing that it had the potential to turn the Kindle 2 into a de-facto audiobook player. Right or wrong, Amazon has caved, and now publishers will be able to dictate whether or not the Kindle 2 is able to read aloud their books.