There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs. Dr. Thomas Sowell
“KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) now offers artificial voice for Audible.”
I’d been asked, from time to time, whether any of my books were available on Audible. The answer was, well, no. There were two main problems.
First, let’s reject out of hand the thought that anyone would want to hear me reading an “Oh Adam” - “Oh Karen” passage. My late mom said she enjoyed Out of Ideas but wondered why there had to be sexual content. Friends have pointed out that they were “creeped out” when they seemed to be hearing my voice reading to them. So, that was out.
Having someone else read the book was a possibility. As an introvert, I have limited friends and would not like to lose one in the endeavor. Hiring a voice actor is a theoretical possibility, but I’d only be able to offer them a percentage and, frankly, I think Federal Law prohibits working at those wages. Then, there are the logistical aspects - renting or buying the equipment, reviewing and editing… It just never seemed practical.
Text-to-voice has been available on Kindle for a number of years, such as it was. It sounded like a machine voice, a flat affect that simply read the words as written. Similarly, the writing software WORD has a read feature that is useful for proofing, but lacked character as well. One of those things that worked, after a fashion.
And then, “the” email. KDP had introduced a feature allowing AI to provide a voice, free. More accurately, they featured a menu of voices, each subtly different from the others. Male, female, different accents, different inflections. Initially the software required a table of contents (I’ve never seen the need) but later iterations provided one. Don’t ask me how. So, I did one.
It was a hit! The money started pouring in. Okay, not exactly pouring. It wasn’t a dribble, though. Looking at the analytic is interesting. Ready for some geeking?
An Audible subscriber can listen for free with their subscription. How do I get paid? Some fraction of a cent per page that the person finishes. Listen to ten pages, I make $.04. With me?
I suspect that many of my “readers” listen as they commute, because I tend to make a lot more during the week - especially in the morning - than I do on weekends. In addition, there is the pinball effect where someone will listen to a book and then start another. I’ve also witnessed the buffet reader; someone who listens to fifteen or twenty pages of three or four books. I interpret this as being a lot like surfing TV channels.
The software gets better and better every week, with new voice versions available. Some of it is behind the scenes material that makes setting up a book easier for me. The voices get clearer and more accurate with every passing month. Sometimes, it seems that the software is reading ahead and anticipates what is coming.
It’s uncanny. There is a downside, which is the books are written to be read. It’s likely there are dialogue passages where the listener will get a bit lost. Some of that I have fixed in the process of tweaking pronunciation, violating some of the rules I learned in writing classes but making the book easier to understand. In other cases…
Okay, this is cool. I have gone back into a book that needed some typos fixed (A More Perfect Union) and added dialogue cues. “What?!” you say. “I’ve already downloaded that book!” But, wait!
If you have the Kindle version, and the device is connected to the Web, the revisions populate a day or two after I upload the new file. You now have the latest, and greatest. And, if you are early into the Audible book, those changes populate, too.
If you bought the paperback… Send me an email and I’ll make it right.
Give the Audible version of one of my books a try. I think you’ll be pleased. It may not be a solution, but the trade offs are awesome!