Making an audio book from a published book

[bluescape]

I'm looking for a service or app that will take a book in text form and make an audiobook of it. I know there are some quality voice generators now days. I'm just looking for one that is legit and not too expensive.

I reread a large number of books I loved from years ago but many aren't in audio format. More are getting converted all the time but I'd use a good app for some others if it had good feedback.

---

TOPICS: Books/Literature; Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: audiobook; authors; books; librivox; pages

[Dr. Sivana]

I have to admit, as a former audiobook producer, I am partial to real human readers.

What kind of books do you need converted? Old stuff might be in public domain on librevox (quality varies). Mark Steyn is an exception reader and you can download some great titles for a $40 trial membership.

[ConservativeMind]

I miss the Radio Reader, Dick Estelle.

I was able to correspond with him, prior to his death.

[T-Bird45]

There’s enough bad AI narration on YouTube so I encourage utmost discernment when making this choice. If the book has worthwhile content, don’t compromise it with clunky AI voices & pronunciation. Those distractions devalue your writing, IMO.

[z3n]

I have to admit, as a former audiobook producer, I am partial to real human readers.

~~~

Yep.
Computers have come a decent way in the last few decades in making artificial voices sound more human, but when it comes to delivering sentences with contextual inflection, the technology still isn’t quite there yet.

It requires the listener to concentrate harder on the meaning of the words that they are hearing, because we are so used to communicating with each other, we can add so much extra semniotics to our oral communication subconsciously that a listener just automatically knows what is being said. With the digital reading, the listener gets worn out translating heard words into contexts.

[rlmorel]

I have some experience in dictating audiobooks from books that no longer enjoy copyright protection. (I have done five or six so far, and have another one on deck if I can ever shake a case of bronchitis I have had for months now!)

I know there are applications that can read a PDF aloud, but in my experience, they are not pleasing to listen to. If you are interested, check out librivox.com, they have a lot of free audiobooks there.

[Dr. Sivana]

Besides that, different readers are suitable for different types of books. Mark Steyn is the rare talent who can read books with lots of foreign names, use different voices in novels for multiple characters, be serious or silly depending on what's required.

My biggest seller was Anne Catherine Emmerich's "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ", based on the visions and interlocutions that she had about the Passion of Our Lord. Mel Gibson used it as the basis for his movie.

The book was in the public domain, but my employer, TAN Books, was the leading publisher, and Gibson himself read our edition.

Despite the fact that the book was authored by a woman, I purposely chose a male reader, as nearly all the dialogue (Our Lord, Apostles, Pilate, guards, etc.) was done by males. Blackstone Audiobooks used an older female with a thick British accent. I used a mid-Western Protestant in his 30's only requiring that he read every word as written. By the time he was done, he was convinced the work was inspired (small "i", not like Scripture, of course).

The final product was so good that several formats were optioned out by Recorded Books, a leader in the industry. Our production well-out sold the Blackstone version.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Last year Microsoft produced a huge quantity of public domain audio books. At first glance they seem OK. But after listening to a few of them, THEY ARE BORING. The Stepford Books.

A real "actor" reading the books aloud is WAY WAY WAY better than any "AI" crap. It is so obvious. Even if AI can fake a "reader", it can't fake "human".

[ProgressingAmerica]

What are the books you are looking for? (That are not currently existing as audio)

We produce new audio books all the time so adding one more to the list really isn’t too much trouble. Just started a new one about one of our Founding Fathers, a bio about Elias Boudinot.

[ProgressingAmerica]

FWIW, on an initial listen this sounds pretty good to me:

https://librivox.org/the-dolorous-passion-of-our-lord-jesus-christ-by-anne-catherine-emmerich/

(same book)
https://archive.org/details/dolorous_passion_2208_librivox

[Dr. Sivana]

I disagree. The reader mispronounces the name of the authoress (ee-mare'-ick instead of the correct eh'-mer-eck). Audio processing is NOT great (some fuzziness and background noise). She does a straight read, somewhat wooden, with little change in vocal characterization.

I still prefer having a male reader for this particular work.

That said, if you don't want to spend the money for a professionally done version, this one will do the job. What little I heard did demonstrated good editing, and nothing in the way of pops or artifacts. She put a lot of work into it

If you'd like a short comparison, here is a portion of Chapter 1 (TAN Edition)

Beginning of TAN Chapter 1

[Hootowl]

You might try Natural Reader. As far as I know, it’s free: https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/

[Albion Wilde]

Ask freeper “progressing america.”

[bluescape]

stephen baxter vacumn diagrams
timelike infinity
xeelee endurance

A e van vogt the silkie

vernor vinge marooned in realtime

Julian may all the saga of the pliocene excil execept the
many colored land. I have that one.

These are a few. I know they’re all over the place but I’ve been reading for 60 years. Some of them are like new all over again. I can’t remember the details but just that the book was great.

[mlitefan]

Might give this on a try:

https://revoicer.com/b-search?msclkid=28c8bf8d724712ee9498d7aa0dc8e876

[ProgressingAmerica]

Well, what you provided definitely sounds wholly professional in every regard.

I will usually spend the money for a good audio book when its a work I want to consume, one such example I own is The Road To Serfdom - Hayek’s classic. However pretty much the entirety of what I am interested in consuming has no audio component so I am forced to read the pages which I don’t make time for sitting and reading, or I can try going to some fake AI audio thing which I always find terrible, or I can work out a human-produced audio version.

Even with some small issues the human-produced versions, even if amateur, are perfect for my tastes. I don’t have world-class tastes but simple existence is key. :-)

Besides, I think many of our Founders deserve to have an audio book of their life story(s) and even if I don’t listen to all of them its something we all need. The Founders have been erased because nobody puts time into remembering them but progressives surely put time into destroying them.

We need this convenience. We cannot survive without it. Emphasis on the cannot. If I had billion$ I’d make movies but I’m lacking in billions so this is what I can do. It definitely beats sitting, doing nothing, and complaining.

[ProgressingAmerica]

None of these titles look like they are old enough to have been passed off into the public domain.

It would be significant legally via copyright to do anything other than a private reproduction. That is, you record it yourself or have an AI program do it for you. And do not put it online. I do not think there are any other options if the publishers are refusing to create audio versions of these works.

I would recommend not breaking copyright law. That’s bad for one’s health.

[Dr. Sivana]

I have heard some VERY well done free books on Libravox. The best was the lady from Waco Texas who read “The Scarlet Pimpernel”. That is a challenging book because French accents are needed everywhere.

I always wanted to see someone do Disckens’ “Tale of Two Cities” as a mini-series (book is too long for a regular movie to do it justice).

There is a climactic scene where the English governess Miss Pross is physically holding the door shut against the very French Madame DeFarge to by time for an escape for her employers. Dickens simply states,

“Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the other’s words; both were very watchful, and intent to deduce from look and manner, what the unintelligible words meant.”

That would look great depicted in a well-done screen adpatation, with each one yelling in her own language.

[Chickensoup]

Yes! I was just thinking of him and Robret J Lurtzama the other day

[Chickensoup]

I belong to cloud library via my local public libraries.

They have audio books.

All the agatha Christie’s

And others.

Since they are librarians you do have to wade through leftist trash but good and free is available. Check with your local library.