![]() ![]() With the growing audiobook market and hundreds of thousands of new titles being published each year in print, is “good enough” good enough to be effective in selling the finished audiobook?Ĭonsider going to the theatre: we will go see Romeo and Juliet more than once, even though we know the story. I’m uncertain how the computer will know which emotion is called for, however, and when to switch from one to another and how to mix emotions and in what quantities, or even how they will manage the implantation of emotion. ![]() It may be that iSpeech “opens many opportunities in application development,” and they are working on trying to get more emotion into the computer-generated voices. An actor brings life and understanding to the text through means as mysterious as the life force itself. Human voice conveys so much more than just words-words form the skeleton that carries the flesh and blood of feeling and of meaning.Īnd isn’t it really that-feelings and meanings-that the words are there for in the first place? The flesh requires the skeleton as the feelings require the words. Listening to samples of TTS technology is not reassuring. I return to my opening: if we take such care with the crafting of our text, is it in the best interest of the author or the listener to then deliver an audiobook through the voice of a computer? Checking It Out ![]() While applications such as TTS conversion might work well as a fast and inexpensive way to deal with materials an individual needs for study, broader audiences will expect and demand, I believe, the clarity only a human can deliver. My experience, however, suggests that non-fiction can be even more dependent on the clarity and emphasis an actor brings to make sense of complex content for listeners. What about non-fiction, where there may be greater application than in fiction. iSpeech provides voices of both genders in most of the 27 languages included in their system. This technological approach allows them to have an audiobook completed in just hours-instead of weeks-at about one tenth the cost of hiring a narrator. I found evidence online to support this idea in this blog showing that e-learning programs may benefit from TTS.Īn example is Pearson, who experimented with the iSpeech technology and received a ‘good enough’ response to the computerized voices with younger listeners to warrant going ahead with a project. ISpeech says that there is demand for this technology in e-learning, and with institutional designers who are looking for a quicker and cheaper alternative to hiring voice actors. The voice cloning benefits are said to include (aside from the Grandma example), being able to revise an audiobook at a later time without having to find the same narrator who created the original, or someone whose voice matches closely enough to work. Interesting concept, but let’s dig deeper. So if you want to hear Grandma read to little Billy, this technology would make that possible. The idea of voice cloning is to be able to clone a voice that can then be applied to any text. They also have a patent pending on a voice cloning technology. ISpeech has been around since 2007 and provides a cloud-based speech technology that creates “human quality” text to speech (TTS). As a voiceover professional, a large part of my work is creating audiobooks and soundtracks for enhanced ebooks, so I wondered what iSpeech might be bringing to the table. Joel invited me to look into text-to-speech companies like about their ability to produce computer-generated audiobooks. Those of us in the self-publishing world face questions involving “tree books”, ebooks, audiobooks, apps, enhanced ebooks, and whatever is coming next. Yet we live in a fast-paced technological world that calls out to us to find ways to work faster, cheaper, and more technologically advanced. Here’s her report.Īs authors, we choose our words carefully and craft the way we put words together to convey as clearly as possible just exactly what we mean and what we want our readers to receive. Becky is a “book audiologist” who produces audio books and coaches actors, and who always impresses me with her short, memorable, and beautifully-sounding announcements at our meetings. I asked my colleague and fellow BAIPA board member Becky Parker Geist to look into this idea. Many authors would like to do audiobook versions of their books, but have been put off by the cost of the process. I’ve been hearing recently about companies that specialize in automatic translation of printed text into audio, for use in audio books and other purposes.
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