No publisher is going to pay a professional to narrate their audiobooks when they can have AI do a shitty job for much less.
A shitty narrator can get me to hate a book I like. A great narrator can bring the characters to life, enhance the experience, and turn me from a listener to a fan. I’ve searched for books by narrators like Nick Podehl and Jeff Hayes and bought audiobooks I wouldn’t have otherwise.
That depends entirely on how profitable it is and how much they can get authors onboard.
I do agree that a good narrator delivers a performance that adds the work. James Marster will always be Harry Dresden in my head.
That depends entirely on how profitable it is and how much they can get authors onboard.
A. Anything can be profitable when the cost to generation will be counted in singles of dollars instead of multiple thousands for a good narrator. They don’t even have to sell many to turn a profit too.
B. You think authors are going to have a choice? Lmfao. It’s the publishers that hold any real power and they will jump all over everyone’s IP with AI slop to make an extra three cents.
It’s the publishers that hold any real power
It might be time to finally change that, especially considering what a piss poor job they have been doing for decades at their own part of the production of media.
Your view seems to be hyper focused on the most pessimistic way of interpreting things. Are you doing OK? Seriously, I know how easy it is for everything going on to overwhelm you with negativity. How are you doing?
Maybe this is a culture clash thing, but FWIW, to me your post comes across as incredibly condesending asking a total stranger about their mental helth and implying its bad like you were their close friend.
I find the constant stream of people hyper focused on the worst possible outcome tiresome and frustrating. But instead of responding with that, I intentionally tried to express compassion and concern for a complete stranger. But because this is the Internet, naturally people interpret my actions with the worst possible intent.
That being said, how are you doing? Have anything fun you are looking forward to?
So despite me giving my opinion that that style of posting seems (to me) to be condesending you decided to apply that same style of message, which i just said I thought was invasive, to me?
I get you think you are being nice but trying to force unearned intimacy comes off as creepy.
I tried, and failed, to get into audio books for years. Then I listened to Dungeon Crawler Carl narrated by Jeff Hayes and what an absolute delight it was. There’s no way I would’ve gotten even 10 minutes in if it was one of those soulless AI voices instead.
Currently listening to the first book.
I made some AI animated content that I never released because I don’t have the rights to the voices I was using. Even though I was blending several voices together to make them unrecognizable, it made me uncomfortable.
But in the process I learned the capabilities and limitations of AI voices. If you’re going purely from text to speech, it’s horrendous (as far as I experienced). Very robotic. It’s a bit better when melodic information is included (as in Suno) but still sounds like AI.
But when I recorded my own voice saying the lines and then converted it to another voice, it took all of the nuance of my line reads and converted it into the other voice.
So, would your opinion change if it turns out they’re going to use purchased voice rights to have a single narrator perform the whole book and then use AI to turn the narrators voice into a full voice cast?
I could see how it would allow lesser known books to have a better experience with a truly separate voice for each character, but I could also see how this might drive out lesser known/minority voice actors. Not advocating one way or another, just providing a piece of this conversation I think we should bear in mind.
So, would your opinion change if it turns out they’re going to use purchased voice rights to have a single narrator perform the whole book and then use AI to turn the narrators voice into a full voice cast?
It would make me hate it even more because I already hate the existing full cast of humans audio dramas 99% of the time and actually prefer a single (or low number of) narrator approach.
Completely fair. I kind of like them. They did it for Redwall and I listen to those books on long drives sometimes. It works for me. Now I guess the advantage could be to have both versions and get to choose which you listen to–but even I’m skeptical that a corporation would have that much regard for the preferences of its consumers.
Using different voices to read different parts of a book turns an audiobook into a bad audio play, and arguably, a bad audio play is worse than a mediocre audio book.
What audible misses is, that, while reading is a technique that can be automated, narrating is an art. They can use AI to read books, they cannot use AI to narrate books.
Your example of AI use is a good example of this: AI can read your content. AI can enhance your capabilities. But only you can narrate it.
Oh. That’s an interesting use-case I hadn’t considered.
A shitty narrator can get me to hate a book I like.
And that is where I see potential for AI. There are quite a few books which I’d love to listen to but they are all narrated by a guy whose narration I can’t stand. AI would open the possibility to choose a voice and I might actually get to enjoy those books. It’s Amazon though so the ethical implications and quality concerns are something I’m worried about.
Did you ever heard a single AI-narrated content that did not make you run away screaming?
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You think they’ll be narrating books with Tiktok TTS?
Some use even worse, if YouTube content is any indication.
But you think Audible would use those to narrate books?
Honestly audible are terribles. They are constantly doing things that annoy me, like they must have a team somewhere that spends its days going, how can we kill this golden goose?
They are going through and replacing audiobooks recorded in the 1980s with new ones which in theory should improve their quality but they’re getting rid of the classic sounds of those books.
like they must have a team somewhere that spends its days going, how can we kill this golden goose?
I wouldn’t put it past Bezos to have an actual enshittification department.
Maybe we’ll start reading again.
There is literally zero shame in someone consuming audiobooks, and it’s deeply weird to act like something is lost to you if others enjoy them. And this is coming from someone who virtually never listens to audiobooks.
I never said there was. I offered an alternative. . Outrage is misdirected and it’s by design. There are constructive ways to direct it
“Maybe we’ll start reading again” obviously implies that something is lacking presently and that with luck, we’ll go back to the way things were
Not sure if you’re saying I’m outraged but I promise you I’m not, just thought it was lame to try and imply audiobook enjoyers were somehow less than because of how they prefer to enjoy stories
Reading is not an alternative to listening. Both have different use cases. You cannot read while driving, to name just one.
Nick Podehl is such an amazing narrator. The voices and performance are amazing.
I’ve been slowly getting through the Kel Kade books and the narration just makes it for me
I’m not sure why AI would automatically mean it’s doing a shitty job.
Because… the tool has no understanding of anything? It reads written words, yes, but no intention, no cultural context, no intonation. Unless everything is spelled out like a script, then it will not sound great, would it?
Someone can manually go through it and correct and edit it, as one would a regular, human made recording. It’s not rocket science exactly. It wouldn’t be a story time for children but it would probably be alright for more plain stuff
If the “fix” for an AI implementation in a use case is, again, to manually correct it and find a less demanding audience then… yes, by definition it’s shitty.
The point isn’t that it’s infeasible, just that it will be low quality.
For fiction, yeah, that’s true. For nonfiction, this could work pretty well.
I’m still generally opposed to it because it’s using the work of existing voice recording without compensation, though.
nonfiction, this could work pretty well.
Only in rare cases.
If you have for example some explanations to a complex topic, then a super emotionless voice would still make you hate it and block you from learning it. Even the most dry and hard topics need some good and alive voice in explanations.
If it is just some reference list, where you need to search and hear small parts of it, then it could be Ok.
The thing with this is that there won’t be shitty narrations any more. Hate it all you may, fact of the matter is that AI-powered voice generation is pretty good at what it does. So in the future you won’t have shitty narrations and great narrations. You’ll have decent narrations and great (human) narrations.
And teslas will have full self driving tomorrow and crypto currency will replace normal currency within one year! Always believe in the hype!
I can get that for free. There are apps that will read an ebook to you already. The whole point of paying the premium on audible is the superior reading/acting. Not put up with mispronounced words, weird cadence and an inability to handle acronyms
I’ve tried one that works surprisingly well. Each sentence had great pacing, cadence, and correct enunciation- even had tone right when someone was shouting or angry or sad.
I wouldn’t really recommend it, though. While I couldn’t pick any single thing out that was wrong, overall it just didn’t quite flow. It’s like watching someone try to act that is technically doing everything right, but it just isn’t good. It basically didn’t understand the greater context of the story and was saying lines.
It was uncanny valley, but exclusively with voice.
Is there an offline tool that generates realistic audio for epubs as Mp3 ? Something like the free Ai tool, Vibe which is for transcription. Is there something similar for TTS, runs locally without complicated setup ( most are complicated using python and etc just for installation)
edit: needs to be close to realistic or at least accurate pronunciation because I am using the audio from books to learn languages. To improve listening comprehension while reading book.
I’ve loaded epubs into the app ReadEra, which lets you read it like any other novel app or will, in real time, read it to you. It’s not the most natural of speech, but was good enough for my commute when I was in the midst of a compelling book.
Download TTS Server, and change the engine in Readera to use it. Use the Microsoft Azure settings in TTS, much more realistic. Little slow though is my only complaint as it sends/receives a paragraph at time, resulting in a pause now and again.
Great question! I need to come back to this thread to see if something is suggested.
Looking for iOS recommendations, preferably without a subscription that can read epub/pdf
I’m an android user, so not sure if it’s on iOS but I’ve used ReadEra
It’s on iOS.
I thought people mainly paid for the large library
This is dumb as hell… if I wanted AI to read a book poorly to me, I’d just use screen reading accessibility features.
Are there any good ones nowadays that don’t sound like a robot?
Sure there are. ElevenLabs is one. You can probably tell they’re not human but they’re really decent.
They still don’t understand the context of what they’re reading though so they can’t apply tone correctly.
From what I’ve been able to hear it’s not that bad. They’re pretty good at having a general tone. But they may fail when it comes to emotional tones, like anger or sadness. But for just reading a book aloud there shouldn’t be any issue.
Fair. Definitely some awkward phrasing, but it’ll get better.
Just tried it. Still a machine buy much better than default TTS.
In 10 years it’s probably gonna be really impressive.
No
Speechify is probably the best option for this particular usecase.
trained on stolen books? then I guess I can download these from anywhere I may find for free as well, right?
free AI read audiobooks coming up
you couldn’t pay me to listen to an AI narrated book
How about I spin up an AI model that outputs a near 1:1 copy of the training data?
Does that circumvent the copyright?
AI voices are not trained on books.
The ethical issue there is more around cloning celebrities
but AI itself is
Not sure what you are trying to say here. AI itself is an equation.
AI models have been trained on copyright protected books illegally. Maybe the voice have not
In this case the AI voices are reading the exact copyrighted material so the original author or rights holder must be contacted to secure the necessary rights and licensing agreements. There is no free use argument.
Now, if the voices have been trained on copy protected sources to create a likenesses (e.g. Scarlet Johansson) then there could be a lawsuit.
This has actually got me thinking differently about AI all together.
The best use for AI needs to be for the individual. I want MY ai to read books or research with or complete tasks for me.
I don’t want another company to do it for me or monetize it or steal content with it.
Well, yeah, you can. Whoever told you that you can’t, don’t believe them, they are probably being payed to say it. You could also pay for the book to support the author but most likely your money will not go to the author so don’t bother.
I like your way of thinking
Fucking gross. Maybe it’s the 250+ audiobooks I have influencing me, but the very best ones I’ve listened to transcend just turning words into sound. Sound effects, music, tone, emotion, accents, sarcasm, and god damn BLOOPERS all improve the experience beyond just hearing what is written down.
I’m against it, fuck that literal noise.
Sound effects, music […] improve the experience
Actually hard disagreeing on that. I absolutely hate the audio drama versions of audio books and prefer the narrator only ones since they are much clearer and require a lot less focus to listen to and work in more contexts (background noise,…). Sound effects and music (while something is read, intro or outro style music is okay) distract from the actual content.
Usually I agree with this with the exception of hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy where the audio drama is much better than the audiobook version.
All I can think of is Jim Dale’s reading of the Harry Potter books. Fucking epic.
Also Andy Serkis reading the lord of the rings. 11/10
What, no way, they did not replace Steven Fry.
They didn’t replace Fry. When the Audiobooks were released in the US, they were read by Jim Dale. Fry was for the rest of the English language releases. During the run, Jim Dale broke the world record for the most character voices performed by a single actor in an audiobook (146).
That award was rescinded and given to Roy Dotrice for A Game of Thrones (2004) where he voiced 224 characters. I believe Jim Dale did hold the record before that though with 134 voices for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Meanwhile I unveil a plan to continue not giving a goddamn cent to J Bozo. Ever.
It was bound to happen. I’m okay with ones that were never going to be turned into audiobooks to begin with… but they likely will use that as the norm for all books… I guess unless the author/publisher says not to.
Yeah currently contracts require the author’s or publisher’s consent. If anyone is a writer make sure to triple check your contracts for this shit.
And unless you are Stephan King or the like exactly how are you going to get the publishing cartel (I think they re consolidated downs to 3-4 publishers now) to change their contract to not include this? Their response will almost certainly be either “that’s non-negotiable” or “ok then you get half as much money”.
Publishers will at least retain the right to use AI audio books for themselves. And it’s much easier for an author to get a piece of something the publisher does than it is for them to get money for books Amazon recorded without their consent.
I’ve listened to a couple audiobooks where the author did the voice and i liked them. They know how phrases need to sound like better then an AI i would assume.
youtube already does it.
And it’s shit
YouTube is crawling with it. It’s unlistenable shit. The prosody is badly implemented, pronunciation is infuriatingly bad, and a lot of the text that these TTS are reading appears to be AI-generated. Otherwise, already dire standards of literacy are getting worse at an accelerating rate.
For now at least I bet this’ll be pretty mediocre. I’m a big audiobook fan and voice actors have a massive impact on the quality of the finished product. A great voice actor can make a mediocre book fun and engaging, a bad one can make a great book unlistenable. The best do great voice differentiation. As an example I’ve really enjoyed Andrea Parsneau’s work in The Wandering Inn series.
Imagine not liking the voicing of a book, so you just pick a different one.
You seem to be implying that’s ridiculous, but it is indeed exactly like that, though it’s not like I’m expecting every performance to be a masterpiece.
It’s also pretty subjective, for example folks either seem to love or hate R. C. Bray. My mother can’t stand the guy’s style, I think he’s okay.
No, I think it’s great to be able to get rid of shitty voice work with the click of a button. Wish I could use it on my bf’s Brian Sanderson audiobooks. That guy’s simpering, exaggeratedly high pitched female voices are so unpleasant to listen to.
Ah, I see what you’re saying, I misunderstood and thought you were taking about picking a different book. Indeed, for the worst case scenario a mediocre AI voice could be an improvement!
It’s Amazon, what did you expect? Enshittification and monopoly abuse, no surprise.
Idk, they have pretty good stats that nobody will listen to an audio book if they don’t like the narrator, so being able to choose your own narrator on the fly isn’t really shitty
AI will write them and AI will read them to us.
Let AI pay for them and AI listen to them too. That way we can pay for and listen to actually good ones.
that’s gross.
Stock up on old physical books
It is easier to keep the books than what’s written in them…
Is voice AI trained on stolen data? I was under the impression that was LLMs.
Pretty much anything handling unstructed data (audio, video, text) is using training data that has copyrighted content.
I listened to one recently that was using AI. It was kind of off putting because of how robotic it came off.
It wasn’t the tone really, but I find that AI tends to not get human speech inflections right most of the time during active speech. And that can be jarring to me at least.
I just wrote a novel (finished first draft yesterday). There’s no way I can afford professional audiobook voice actors—especially for a hobby project.
What I was planning on doing was handling the audiobook on my own—using an AI voice changer for all the different characters.
That’s where I think AI voices can shine: If someone can act they can use a voice changer to handle more characters and introduce a great variety of different styles of speech while retaining the careful pauses and dramatic elements (e.g. a voice cracking during an emotional scene) that you’d get from regular voice acting.
I’m not saying I will be able to pull that off but surely it will be better than just telling Amazon’s AI, “Hey, go read my book.”
Would infinitely prefer no voice changer.
Agreed. No AI voice changer please. Hopefully every one of us at one point in our lives has been read a story by someone else. Never once did the fact that all the different characters dialog was coming from one voice did that detract from the story or the immersion.
I’ve listened to audiobooks recorded with extremely deep masculine voices (think James Earl Jones) and when the voice actor was doing the voice of a 5 year old girl, (in only a slightly higher whiny timbre which matched the character traits) it was never immersion breaking. However, AI voice would. If I want different actors for different characters I’ll listen to radio dramas.
I think it would be a good idea to do a section of your work with and without AI modification. Then have people listen to both and give feedback. Good to find out if people like the modifications before you do a tone of work.
AI aside, different voices may be immersion breaking. I tend to avoid audiobooks with more than a single narrator.
They are redoing all of the discworld books like this, and personally I can’t stand it.
Two narrators with one reading the male and one reading the female characters is usually okay but the full cast dramas are the worst.
tiktok voice:
hate. let me tell you how much i’ve come to hate you since i began to live. there are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex…
unironically, that is a character that could use an uncanny robotic AI voice.
The professional ai voices are amazing
