Writer’s Corner: A Look at AI Narrations for Audiobooks

Three of my books are now available in AI narrated audiobooks: The Rock Star & The Outlaw, Delilah and Hidden Secrets. I’ve been wanting to get into audiobooks for some time now, but narrators are expensive. Their time is worth it and I don’t begrudge them that, but the hourly rates for narration are high enough to keep audiobooks out of reach for me. But the rapid rise and availability of AI narration has made having my books available in audio a possibility, and I’m really excited about it.

I’ve heard the argument that AI narration is taking work away from human narrators, but in this case, it just isn’t true. I would not have hired a human narrator instead, so I don’t see the harm in utilizing these tools which are now available to me.

I’d love to hear what you think about these AI narrated audiobooks or your thoughts on AI narration, in general. I’ve included my summaries of both experiences here and you can click on the links to hear a preview of each one. If you are feeling generous, you can buy a book while you are there.

Apple Books

I uploaded The Rock Star & The Outlaw to Apple Books through D2D, using the manuscript I uploaded for ebook. They offered four or five narrative voices to choose from. The quality of the narration is acceptable, but they offered no way to preview the content, and did not provide an audio file that could be used on other sites. It also took almost two weeks from the time of upload to publication. Keep in mind that I am not publishing direct through Apple Books, but going through D2D. Perhaps publishing direct, the process might be faster and preview might be available through their author dashboard.

Google Play

I uploaded The Rock Star & The Outlaw, Delilah and Hidden Secrets on Google Play using the same digital epub files uploaded for ebooks. They have a wide selection of narrative voices to choose from. Through Google Play, I was offered a chance to preview the recordings and their dashboard offers the opportunity to edit the text if necessary without changing the digital ebook file. They took a few days from upload to publication, but I was also going through the account approval process at the same time, which may have slowed the process.

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About Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Book 1 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah, and her Time-Travel Adventure novel, The Rock Star & The Outlaw. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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