Computer voiced narration

[skip.knox]

Has anyone tried their hand at using text-to-speech tools to produce a narration of their book? Some of the latest tools are surprisingly good, and I'm tempted by the ability to upload my own voice then let the AI tools do the reading. But I imagine they will not get pronunciation right on invented terms, foreign language phrases, and so on. And that correcting those bits (I do have a simple recording setup) might be more trouble than it's worth.

So, I ask here: has anyone used such tools? Natural Reader is one example, but there are others popping up monthly.

 

[pmmg]

I have not.

In the brief time when I was looking at it, I found it to still be costly, to the point that I wondered why not just use a real person. But that was a good while back.

 

[skip.knox]

$110 a year (to pick just one at random) or even $240 a year (to pick another) is far, far less than hiring a narrator. I tried narrating my own, and they aren't kidding about how it takes three or four hours for each finished hour, so narrating it myself is also off the table.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[pmmg]

I'd have to look again, but I had 93K words and I think $1200 was not uncommon on the sites with the AI voices.

 

[skip.knox]

I think prices are lower than that, but the quality is an issue.

 

[Mad Swede]

Has anyone tried their hand at using text-to-speech tools to produce a narration of their book? Some of the latest tools are surprisingly good, and I'm tempted by the ability to upload my own voice then let the AI tools do the reading. But I imagine they will not get pronunciation right on invented terms, foreign language phrases, and so on. And that correcting those bits (I do have a simple recording setup) might be more trouble than it's worth.

So, I ask here: has anyone used such tools? Natural Reader is one example, but there are others popping up monthly.

I use this sort of software every day because I am dyslexic. Modern text-to-speech tools are very very good, they cope with many more obscure words than they used to. However, they still have a tendency to sound a little robotic and they perform poorly with foreign (relative to the language you are using as standard) words. Also, when reading novel and stories I find that the software lacks emotion, the reading is very flat.

 

[Rexenm]

You need to obey the rules of grammar for the narration to turn out any good. I have messed with dictation, and that works out pretty much theoretically. There is also minute taking on TV, that I don’t know if you call AI.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I've handed 3 novels to Apple Books for AI narration. In terms of cost, it was free, which is hard to beat. They don't offer any customization though. It was basically hand them your book and that's it. I haven't checked the quality of them. They don't sell anyway, so it's too much time for me to do so...

$110 a year is decent. I think a good narrator charges something like $250-$500 per finished hour, and an audio book takes something like 11 hours. So you can subscribe for 25 years before just hiring a narrator becomes cheaper.

As for quality, I guess it depends on how many strange words you have. If you don't have too many weird words with impossible to pronounce sequences of letters, you'll be fine. I think most people will recognize it as AI read. There are plenty of Youtube videos that are AI narrated, and they always stand out. The reading is too perfect / constant. It lacks the imperfections of a human narrator.

The question is if that's a bad thing. It can be a choice between no audio book at all and an AI narrated one. After all, an audiobook can easily cost $3.000, which is a lot of money to earn back, and not the kind of money many people just have lying around. Also, there are people who listen to audiobooks at double speed. For them, the difference between human and AI is smaller and might not matter anyway.

 

[pmmg]

On natural reader, the personal plan is $110 a year. That's just, you upload text and I read it to you. But if you want an audio book that you can distribute, its a bit more. I would like an audio book so I am on the more expensive path.

 

[Finchbearer]

Does the audiobook version actually sell? I’ve never really been interested in audiobooks apart from as a child I used to love listening to cassette tapes whilst falling asleep. I can see audiobooks being an accessible option for those who can’t read / don’t want to read, but I’m not sure I would push for this for my own work, that is if I self publish, which is the most likely route.

 

[pmmg]

I use audio books in the car. I think the market for them is big.

I would like an audio book, but ROI just isn't there for me. I'd want to do a high quality job of it.

 

[skip.knox]

I'm thinking along these lines: I upload half an hour of my own voice (that's the usual recommended length). That's enough to AI-generate my voice. Let that read my book. So far, I'll I'm paying is the monthly fee, which runs $20 to $50 depending on the service.

At best, I'll get back a relatively natural read, probably a bit flat (but I expect that to improve), but with stumbles over names, terms, that sort of thing. In theory, I should be able to record those myself and punch them (old-timey recording term there) into the file and wind up with an acceptable read. I was wondering if anyone had tried something along those lines.

Right now, I expect the results will still be a bit flat, certainly without the range of a professional. And I expect there would still be a substantial time investment on my part to correct the flubs. A year from now, though? Five years from now? Hm. That may be the future I'm seeing, off there on the horizon.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Does the audiobook version actually sell?

In general, yes. Audiobooks sell. They sell really well and are the main growth market in publishing at the moment. Something like 10% of all book sales are audiobooks.

The main issue with them is the cost to create them. In general it's only worth it if your book is already selling reasonably well. As mentioned earlier, creating an audiobook costs something like $3.000, which you have to pay up-front. It would be by far the biggest expense (covers are in the $250-$500 range, and editing in the $500 - $1.500 range). And while a good cover isn't really optional (you need one to publish a book, and it has to be good enough if you actually want to sell the thing), an audiobook is. (Editing is debatable...).

So, if you are expecting to sell 100-500 books (which already is a lot...), then you're not going to create an audiobook.

That means there is (a bit) less competition in the audiobook space. Which makes it profitable and easier to stand out for those authors already selling enough.

And yes, there are royalty share options (where you don't pay the narrator full price up front, but they get a % of sales). But again, that's only worth it if you at least sell decently.

Which is where AI narration comes in. It's cheap and fast. Which makes it one of the few options for authors without a lot of cash who don't expect to sell thousands of books.

 

[Mad Swede]

In general, yes. Audiobooks sell. They sell really well and are the main growth market in publishing at the moment. Something like 10% of all book sales are audiobooks.

The main issue with them is the cost to create them. In general it's only worth it if your book is already selling reasonably well. As mentioned earlier, creating an audiobook costs something like $3.000, which you have to pay up-front. It would be by far the biggest expense (covers are in the $250-$500 range, and editing in the $500 - $1.500 range). And while a good cover isn't really optional (you need one to publish a book, and it has to be good enough if you actually want to sell the thing), an audiobook is. (Editing is debatable...).

So, if you are expecting to sell 100-500 books (which already is a lot...), then you're not going to create an audiobook.

That means there is (a bit) less competition in the audiobook space. Which makes it profitable and easier to stand out for those authors already selling enough.

And yes, there are royalty share options (where you don't pay the narrator full price up front, but they get a % of sales). But again, that's only worth it if you at least sell decently.

Which is where AI narration comes in. It's cheap and fast. Which makes it one of the few options for authors without a lot of cash who don't expect to sell thousands of books.

My publisher does audiobook versions of my books. There are two aspects to the costs, one is the reader and the other is the time taken to record the audio book. A good reader (usually an actor) costs about 1500 SEK per hour and recording takes between 30 and 40 hours for a good quality audio book. So the cost land somewhere between 45000 and 60000 SEK.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I haven't played with a punch and roll for recording your own voice over AI mispronunciations, but in theory, it's doable. However, it also has the potential to be a major pain in the ass if something is even a little bit off. There are two main issues for AI voice from my goofing around with it months back:

Pronunciation and Emphasis—or lack thereof—of words and phrases that can change the meaning of a sentence. There are workarounds for both, but Yikes! The amount of time involved might begin to challenge narrating it yourself. Honestly, with some of the editing tools out there and practice, 3-4 hours per hour is excessive.

 

[ThinkerX]

MS Word has a text-to-speech function that I discovered by accident. I had it read aloud a couple of short pieces. It wasn't horrible. I thought about having it read one of my novels back to me, but I don't know how that would go.

Robot voice narrators are common in Facebook videos. They do have the occasional mispronunciation.

Hm... I just checked. The 'right-click' menu brings up a 'read aloud' function (female voice.) I used it to read aloud a couple of the posts above mine.

 

[skip.knox]

I had the computer voice read my previous novel, The Signet Ring, while at the proofing stage. It was actually good to have the oddities of pronunciation and emphasis. Since it wasn't how it was *supposed* to read, I tended to listen better and got a few giggles as it stumbled over names and terms. And I did catch some places where my phrasing was clumsy.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Oh yeah, for editing, a read back can be useful to catch stuff.

I had the computer voice read my previous novel, The Signet Ring, while at the proofing stage. It was actually good to have the oddities of pronunciation and emphasis. Since it wasn't how it was *supposed* to read, I tended to listen better and got a few giggles as it stumbled over names and terms. And I did catch some places where my phrasing was clumsy.

 

[Ianto]

$110 a year (to pick just one at random) or even $240 a year (to pick another) is far, far less than hiring a narrator. I tried narrating my own, and they aren't kidding about how it takes three or four hours for each finished hour, so narrating it myself is also off the table.

Thanks for the reply.

I've narrated and produced books for authors on Audible, and have always done it through royalty share, where there is no upfront payment. Unless you think you are going to make a lot of money from audiobooks, royalty share is a much better deal than upfront payment. And if you are going to sell a lot of audiobooks, you really don't want the kickback from people who don't like AI narration.
It's up to you, of course, but I'm one of the many people who has a visceral dislike of using AI for writing, for art or for narration.

And I've read some of your writing on this forum. In my view, it deserves better than an AI narration.

 

[Ianto]

I had the computer voice read my previous novel, The Signet Ring, while at the proofing stage. It was actually good to have the oddities of pronunciation and emphasis. Since it wasn't how it was *supposed* to read, I tended to listen better and got a few giggles as it stumbled over names and terms. And I did catch some places where my phrasing was clumsy.

On another forum I did offer to read chapters of people's works for that purpose! [No charge (I'm not narrating books for Audible at the moment, but quite fun to do a chapter or so to keep my hand in!] But didn't get any takers. I think people were suspicious, and thought it was a trap. Either that, or they were just completely uninterested and unimpressed by me! I like to believe the former.