The digital industry is booming in both content creation and content consumption aspects. Intending to serve entertainment and education anytime, anywhere, the digital industry is coming up with many outlets to serve information. And one of these is audiobooks, a voice-recorded file of books in the author’s voice or narrated by someone else. Audiobooks provide the convenience of being portable and easily accessible with thousands of options at your fingertips, accessible for the visually impaired, and with the ability for readers/listeners to multitask. Audiobooks have multiple benefits, and hence the industry is growing rapidly. It is predicted that the industry will reach USD 35.05 billion by 2030, with an expected growth of CAGR 26.4% from 2022 to 2030.
Audiobooks are also a great way to reach a large audience in their preferred language quickly and easily. While with all the benefits that audiobooks have to offer, it is tedious to make an audiobook. The process of making audiobooks once your book is complete goes from hiring a voiceover artist or recording your voice, then getting a studio to record, recording the audiobook. Then post-production edits and all this is both time-consuming and expansive.
Using A Text-To-Speech To Make An Audiobook Is A Better Option,
A text-to-speech tool or an AI voice generator is software that uses speech synthesis and converts written text into audio, also known as a read-aloud. Tools like Listen2It, have nailed down the AI voice generation/text-to-speech to a point where the voiceovers generated are close to human voiceovers with an option of over 140+ languages and accents in 900+ voices. There are options for modifying the voice style, pitch, pronunciation, and more.
Here Is How To Make Audiobook Using Text To Speech In Four Easy Steps
1. Create and Upload the Manuscript to the Text-to-Speech Editor
Start with writing a script to inform the text-to-speech editor of the story’s tone. Depending on the genre of your book, the script-writing process may differ, from the tone of the book to the pace of the book and the overall feeling of the book. Here are some tips for creating a perfect script for text-to-speech editors,
- Divide the book into chapters and sections to create an organized system for generating voiceovers for your audiobook.
- Create a theme for the sections, which will help you in the editor add background music and create a feeling.
- Note the characters’ tone, accent, and feel(how someone reading the audiobooks will imagine the character, for example, if the character is an energetic child, sad lady, a man reporting news, etc.) Deciding on the feel can be helpful as the Listen2It has a feature where the voices change given different styles like sad, energetic, etc., to create a more realistic voiceover for the audiobook.
- While the tone and the feel of the story are noted, make a note of external elements like symbols or pictures and create a script to describe them.
- Upload the section to the text-to-speech editor. You can either copy and paste the section into the editor or import the document into the editor. And add a title for the audio file.
Listen2It’s editor allows you to create multiple audio files, which can be of great help to organise multiple sections and chapter of your audiobook. And you can always come back to the audio files and edit as every change is saved instantly.
2. Select the Language and Voice for the Audiobook
Selecting a language and voice for the audiobook is subjective to the genre of the book and the section of the audiobook you are creating audio for. Listen2It currently has 140+ languages and dialects in more than 900 voices in both male and female voices, giving a plethora of options to select the voice for your audiobook.
- Click on the editor block with the current voice name
- On the new dialogue box, select the language for the audiobook voiceover
- And click on choose voice.
Pro tip:
Choose from Listen2It’s Premium voices, which are highly realistic AI voices, and add filters like voice styles to avail the option of style (cheerful, sad, reporting, etc.). Also, you can use the filter to select a male or female voice and standard and premium voices.
3. Edit and Adjust the Voice for the Audiobook
Now that the script is ready and entered in the editor, the voice and language are selected, it is time to play and listen to the first version of your audiobook. Hit on preview, listen to the individual blocks, and check what are you liking and not liking in the voiceover.
To make the voiceover for your audiobook furthermore realistic, fine-tune the voiceover by making changes like
- Adding ‘Pauses’
- Changing the ‘Style’ of the voice
- Adjusting the ‘Pitch’.
- Adjusting the ‘Speed’ of the voiceover
- ‘Emphasis’ word-by-word
- Adding custom ‘Pronunciation’
- Use the ‘Say as’ feature to say a particular word differently.
- Add ‘Background sound.’
Pro tip:
Adjust the background sound with features like ‘fade in’ and ‘fade out’ for a dramatic and professional effect.
4. Preview and Download your Audiobook voiceover
Now that all the editing and script writing is done, we are at the final step of making an audiobook voiceover. Preview, preview the entire chapter, and understand if the voiceover for the audiobook aligns with your book and the feel of it. If you feel that some changes are needed, go back and make those changes and preview again. Hit download once you are satisfied with the audiobook voiceover.
The Best Features of Making an Audiobook with Listen2It are,
- Data is saved, and you can edit your audiobook voiceover whenever possible. With Listen2It, you can create multiple chapter//file of different parts of your audiobook and save it in the product itself so that whenever even after generating the voiceover, you can come back to the chapter and edit and download again.
- Saved voice profile, customize voices in the editor, and saved the voice profile for future use.
- Add background music in the editor, and you don’t need to go back and forth on multiple editing tools to edit the audiobook’s voiceover. With Listen2It, you can add background music and edit it too.
Making audiobook voiceovers with text-to-speech tools has become much more realistic, relatable, and professional. There are options for voices that sync with the book’s theme and not just a robotic voiceover. Suppose you are a budding writer looking to dip your toes in the growing audiobook industry. In that case, Listen2It is a great option to create voiceovers for audiobooks using text-to-speech that sounds realistic and professional.
