Did any, or all, of you fellow authors with books on Amazon receive an invite to try out Amazon’s new beta program of converting your ebooks to audiobooks to be sold on Audible using their virtual voice narration?
I did and I was wondering if anyone else received the invite and if you have, have you tried this service. I gave it a try, so if you have the opportunity and are interested in my experience, let me know, and I’ll describe my experience.
Published by chucklitka
I was born in 1950 and spent the 1960’s reading hundreds of SF books while dreaming of becoming a SF author when I grew up. I enrolled as a journalism major in college, but dropped that after my freshman year when I realized I was too shy to be a journalist. I then decide I either had the talent to write or I didn’t. Time would tell. In the late 1970’s I finished and submitted a SF novella, a SF short story, and a fantasy novel. They brought me a small collection rejection slips. I continued to write for fun. In 2009, now with a computer with a built in spellchecker I got more serious and completed three novels the course of next six years, for the fun of writing. I had no intention of submitting them to traditional publishers. Been there, done that. If I felt they were good enough, I’d self-publish them, which I did in 2015, for free since I don’t need to be paid for having fun. As of 2021 I have published 10 SF/adventure novels, 2 novellas and one children’s short story.
I’m married. My wife and I have two children, and two grandchildren. I have lived most of my life in Wisconsin. I’ve worked at various jobs, including 13 year with a commercial printer and small town daily newspaper. I operated a cottage industry mail order tea business for a decade, and quit my day job at 53 to try my hand a making a living as an artist. Never made it big, never went bust. We’re retired these days and living a quiet life. The type of life I like.
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Writers Supporting Writers 
I have not received such an invite from Amazon, but I would be interested in your experience.
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Hi Audrey,
It was very simple and fast. Your book needs a table of contents to quality. I downloaded and used the Kindle Create app they offer to create one for all of my books, since my books didn’t have one and I couldn’t get one to work in LibreOffice that would work for Amazon. Once the Kindle Create is installed, you can upload a Word document into it, and it creates a TOC, fairly reliably, but check it, sometimes it misses things. I used the app all my books and it seemed to work for all – no warnings of “no TOC” when I uploaded it, but three of the books ae still listed as ineligible – I’m going to have to contact Amazon support about that.
To make the audiobook, you click on the option on your Amazon bookshelf next to the eligible book. You then have 3 American female and 1 British female voice, and 3 male American voices to choose from. You can open up the voice studio to listen to any and all parts of your book. You can add pauses, slow down or speed up words, and play with a word’s spelling to get the AI voice to pronounce it like you want. You can’t edit the text however.
When you are satisfied, you then select a price from $3.99 to $14.99 @ 40% royalties. They bundle the ebook version for an additional $1.99 @ 40% royalties.
Hit publish and you’re done. Mine books were available within an hour or two.
I thought the Amazon’s virtual voice did a good job of reading my text. You can sample it on any of the books that have it on Amazon.
I don’t expect to sell many/any. But it’s a free service, so nothing ventured, nothing gained. It’s far superior to Apple’s terrible service with no options, but it has less features than Google’s audiobook process. The big advantage would be that your books are offered on Audible where most people go for audiobooks.
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I’m in Canada so don’t think this option will be available right away. I saw something to the effect that it will be an option in the KDP Bookshelf, along with Create Paperback and Create Hardcover. Right now I don’t see that option on my Bookshelf, but if/when it appears I will try it.
My TOCs were created using the process in the Smashwords Style Guide. I would probably have to redo them using the Kindle Create thing.
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I cannot listen to audiobooks, even in my mother tongue.
Not enough patience, I would be lulled to sleep. I guess I am more visual, I need to see the letters, to read actively.
(English without subtitles, be they also in English or in another language I know, again, a lost cause even at movies, as each one has its own accent and way to chew words…)
As for my books, someone tried to record a chapter or two with an AI voice and it was horrible.
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I feet the same way about my audiobooks. The voice never matches the voice in my head. And it’s kind’a creepy listening to your own words. Plus, like you, I find them too slow, I can read so much faster. And seeing how I tune-out music, I wonder how long it would be before the book was just background noise.
And you are right about the visual clues in the book. You can have stretches of dialog with no dialog tags without getting confused. But if you just hear it, it is easy to get lost as to who is saying what.
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Yes–reading print is both faster and more absorbing. I have to admit that while I’m listening to something (not fiction, but some sort of current affairs thing on radio) I often end up reading blog posts. To make myself concentrate on listening, I have to take off my glasses.
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I never listen to fiction audiobooks. I prefer to read text. On the other hand, I listen to radio all the time for news and opinions, etc.
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I received the invitation and promptly ignored it.
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I’m curious. For business, artistic, or for philosophical reasons, or all of the above? There is a case to be made for any and all of them.
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Artistic and philosophical reasons. I’m trying desperately to keep the “human” in my small contribution to the humanities.
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I would have been tempted to try it, but probably would have procrastinated and overthought the whole thing. That’s my style!
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🙂
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I don’t believe I got the email and I don’t know if I would be interested. I’m one of those people who is anti-audiobook. Not for others, but for me. I just can’t consume books that way, so it’s just not something I pay much attention to when it comes to publishing my stories. And if I were to ever pursue an audiobook for one of my stories, I hope I would get somebody to read it and not rely on AI.
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