Is it worth the effort to produce audiobooks? - Page 3

Cinisajoy · 11-17-2017, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arjaybe

To further clarify why I don't provide Amazon file formats of my books on the Green Comet website: They're not open.

Just as I use Creative Commons to make my copyright more flexible, I believe in using free and open software, standards and formats wherever possible. All the software I use to create my stories, my website and the files I make available is Free Software. The formats the files come in - ODT, ePub and OGG - are free and open formats, with PDF being at least free to use. Amazon uses closed, proprietary formats to lock its users in and I'm not going to help them do that on my website. However, since so many people are locked in already, I do make it possible for them to go and get my books offsite. I even make it possible to do so without having to pay for it, hopefully subverting Amazon's control over them at least a little bit.

Maybe the result isn't as convenient as it could be, but sometimes freedom just isn't convenient.

I just want to say thank you for putting up the new link to make it easier for everyone to open your audio files.

Ps: mobi can be read on kindles. It isn't a closed format.

arjaybe · 11-17-2017, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I just want to say thank you for putting up the new link to make it easier for everyone to open your audio files.

Ps: mobi can be read on kindles. It isn't a closed format.

I didn't realize that. I just assumed because of its association with AZW and Kindle that it must also be closed. Well, if I can simply convert epub to mobi, then that's something to think about.

arjaybe · 11-17-2017, 01:17 PM

BTW, you're welcome.

Cinisajoy · 11-17-2017, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arjaybe

BTW, you're welcome.

So are you. My knowing formats says I spend way too much time here.

Steven Lake · 11-18-2017, 12:53 PM

I know I'm late stepping into this conversation, but I thought I'd throw my 2c in there. Is it worth converting your books into audiobook? Well, let me ask you this. Have you looked at book sales states in the past 2 years? We all know print books are dead, save for specialty printing (cookbooks is still a strong seller of dead tree books, along with certain shop manuals and the like) applications. However, did you know that the sales of digital ebooks is actually going down? Yeah, overall sales are actually dropping. Now, here's the interesting part. Audiobook sales have been growing at a rate of 38% on average for the past 5 years consecutively.

Does that mean ebooks are doomed? No. However, I think they will soon find themselves neck and neck with audiobooks. Myself, I've already gone to the expense of converting 3 of my books to professionally read audiobooks and they're selling surprisingly well. My larger titles that I can't afford to convert ($1000+ to have a large novel turned into an audiobook) I ran through a very good quality text to speech tool and made into a mechanical audiobook. Not as good as having a professional reader do it, but it gets the job done for a lot cheaper. Like free kinda cheaper.

But yeah, in the end it's worth it to do audiobooks. Now, one thing I will say, the quality of your audiobook will be just as much a deciding factor on whether people listen or not as will the quality of your writing and the quality of your book cover. So, either go professional, or don't go at all. Mechanical audiobooks will get you over the hump if you can't afford to get one professionally done. But, like a cheap book cover, they will hurt you. Myself, I go to ACX to have my stuff done and I've found several really good readers so far who have done a bangup job on my books. However, be aware that you won't get the professional quality readers until you hit the $250/hr price point. I lucked out and got two really good ones at the $80/hr price point, but only because the three works I put up on their site caught their attention. But most other really good narrators won't even talk to you for less than $200/hr. And when I say per hour, that's per finished hour, and not per hour they work on it. So if your book takes 8 hours to read at a reasonable pace, and you do $100/hr you'll end up paying $800 for the final product.

Anyhow, that's my 2c. So yeah, if you haven't jumped on the audiobook band wagon, then by all means strongly consider it. As I said, I have a mixture of styles from professionally read to machine generated. But which one is used per book is, at least in my case, determined more on what I can afford rather than what I think is best. I've also gone and tossed some of my choice to the readers. On the longer, more expensive works I've given them a machine read audiobook and said, "If you like this title, and you want it read, here's my patreon and go fund me pages. Toss me some peanuts and I'll get them professionally done." So far nobody has sent me a dime, so all they get is the mechanical audiobooks. But I figure that'll change in the future as I think I'm a bit ahead of the curve on the idea of group funded audiobooks. But we'll see. Anyhow, again, just my 2c.

arjaybe · 11-18-2017, 04:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

I know I'm late stepping into this conversation ... just my 2c.

A really interesting read, Steven. With the pros, what do you get other than the reading? Do they fill in the tags on the files, for instance? Are they straight readings, or more dramatic, with different voices, etc? Do the mechanical ones sound like Stephen Hawking?

I am encouraged to continue offering audiobooks.

Steven Lake · 11-26-2017, 06:37 AM

Sorry for the slow reply. I forgot this thread was here. haha. In answer to your question, it really depends on the reader. Some do just straight, flat readings, some dramatize them, and some kinda fall in between where they add character and personality to the reading, but don't go overboard with it. As for the tags, I'm not sure what you mean. In regards to the mechanical readings, they sound not unlike stephen hawking, although some digital readers can do a better job of reading the book than others. If you go up to my site and wander over to my youtube channel, I've posted Lion in the Wind, which was done with a mechanical reader, and then two others after it, Manna and Christian, that were professionally read, and each by different readers. So those should give you a good idea of what they will sound like.

Now, if you go through ACX for your professional readings, you do have a choice over who you get. Again, the more you offer the better the quality of reader you will have auditioning for you. I lucked out on my three books that I got good readers who were willing to work at my price point in all three cases. However, they were the diamond in the coal mine so to speak as the rest of the auditions were garbage. Now, you may end up being just as fortunate. However, you're more likely to find yourself needing to go up a bit in price before you start getting the really good readers. Mine was $80/hr. Some I know had to go all the way up into the $250/hr level to get a decent reader.

Now, here's the catch though. If you plan to sell your audiobooks, spend the money and get a good reader at ACX to do your book justice. If you plan to give it away for free, use a mechanical reader. I myself give all my books away for free, regardless. However, I did separate out 4 of my books for special attention. Hence why they got professional readings. The rest, nah, mechanical all the way. Although I did throw a bone out there to my readers by saying, "If you want these professionally read, toss me some money. If not, then well, all you're getting is the mechanicals." So far nobody has sent me a dime, so all they're getting at this moment is the mechanicals. :P

arjaybe · 11-26-2017, 12:47 PM

Thank you, Steven. I will go and sample your readings.

By tags, I mean the metadata on the audio files. Title, Album, Performer, etc.

edit: the mechanical one is better than Stephen Hawking, but still not great. Probably fair value given no return. (Not everyone has the time or inclination to commit the hours I do for no return, obviously.)

The human ones are better than the mechanical one. The voices sound better and their inflections are better. No better than me, though, which I find encouraging.

Thanks again.

gmw · 11-27-2017, 03:15 AM

I have not been tempted to narrate my own work, and I don't listen to audio books (one day I should give it a try), so I hadn't said anything on this thread. But I do use text-to-speech software as a form of editing, so I would add...

Good text-to-speech software allows you to select the voice - very few of which sound anything like Stephen Hawking's machine. I use some software called TextAloud, and they offer a wide selection of voices. For most of my editing work I use one of the two Australian voices that I purchased, one male, one female. (The American voices didn't do it for me, I spent all my time listening to the accents. Some of the UK voices would work for me, but I found the Australian voices had fewer distractions.)

I have found it surprising how well these voices work, reading the text with surprisingly accurate inflections taken just from the context and punctuation. With more work on the text to tweak things a little more, I think it would be possible to produce an acceptable final result ... but since I don't have experience with professionally created audio books I can't offer a real comparison. I'm not about to suggest these should be used instead of true professional production, but the idea that computer generated voices should sound like Stephen Hawking's machine seem to be long gone.

arjaybe · 11-27-2017, 12:17 PM

Thanks, gmw. I took the link and checked out TextAloud and, other than it being Windows only shareware with a short evaluation period and a premium-based price ratchet, it looks pretty good.-) I might look around for some Free Software in this area, to give me an idea of where the technology is these days.

It would be nice if you could specify the voice you want. Say, a gravelly-voiced middle-aged male from Melbourne for your male protagonist, etc. Or maybe sample your own voice and use that. Or ...

Maybe with the technology being used by VocalID we might be able to soon. They don't offer speech-to-text as such, except in that they offer the chance for speech-impaired people to have their own unique voice.

gmw · 11-27-2017, 09:33 PM

The TextAloud software itself is in need of a facelift (they say they are developing a v4, but don't seem to be in a hurry to get it out), but v3 works well (for me), and the cost (of the software itself) is low ... with, as you point out, the premium price ratchet to buy additional voices (which, in my opinion, you would want to do to get the best out of it).

It's worth pointing out that the additional - per voice - cost is (at least partly) because the premium voices come from other companies. I liked the Nuance voices best, but I see the cost has gone up considerably since I bought mine. For the software and one or two premium voices the price, I think, is pretty reasonable - but if you wanted to buy lots of voices then the price would climb fast.

I imagine some open-source or free variation of this capability may arrive eventually ... or maybe it already has, I haven't gone looking recently.

One curious possibility this sort of thing opens up would be the ability to create the relevant adjustments to your source text (refining emphasis, pronunciation and so on), and then let people select whichever voice(s) they prefer for their copy of the audio book.

arjaybe · 11-27-2017, 10:16 PM

I think we're going to see lots of innovation there soon.

kacir · 11-28-2017, 07:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arjaybe

... Well, if I can simply convert epub to mobi, then that's something to think about.

And you can do it using a free software - Calibre

arjaybe · 11-28-2017, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kacir

And you can do it using a free software - Calibre

Yes, that's what I assumed I'd use. I'm going to have to get off the pot and give it a try. I mean, how hard can it be? Got no Kindle, though. Won't be able to test it.

Xenodragon7 · 11-28-2017, 05:55 PM

Create your book as ebook, print book, audiobook and the last one is make your ebook as android app and ios app.

Audiobook production is expensive is usa, but you can use voice actor from asia like india and indonesia. And their cost is cheap and great quality.

11-26-2017, 12:47 PM	#38
arjaybe Wizard Posts: 1,000 Karma: 12012526 Join Date: Aug 2013 Location: Canada Device: Sony PRS-650	Thank you, Steven. I will go and sample your readings. By tags, I mean the metadata on the audio files. Title, Album, Performer, etc. edit: the mechanical one is better than Stephen Hawking, but still not great. Probably fair value given no return. (Not everyone has the time or inclination to commit the hours I do for no return, obviously.) The human ones are better than the mechanical one. The voices sound better and their inflections are better. No better than me, though, which I find encouraging. Thanks again. Last edited by arjaybe; 11-26-2017 at 12:59 PM.

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11-17-2017, 01:17 PM	#33
arjaybe Wizard Posts: 1,000 Karma: 12012526 Join Date: Aug 2013 Location: Canada Device: Sony PRS-650	BTW, you're welcome.

11-18-2017, 12:53 PM	#35
Steven Lake Sci-Fi Author Posts: 1,157 Karma: 14743509 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Michigan Device: PC (Calibre)	I know I'm late stepping into this conversation, but I thought I'd throw my 2c in there. Is it worth converting your books into audiobook? Well, let me ask you this. Have you looked at book sales states in the past 2 years? We all know print books are dead, save for specialty printing (cookbooks is still a strong seller of dead tree books, along with certain shop manuals and the like) applications. However, did you know that the sales of digital ebooks is actually going down? Yeah, overall sales are actually dropping. Now, here's the interesting part. Audiobook sales have been growing at a rate of 38% on average for the past 5 years consecutively. Does that mean ebooks are doomed? No. However, I think they will soon find themselves neck and neck with audiobooks. Myself, I've already gone to the expense of converting 3 of my books to professionally read audiobooks and they're selling surprisingly well. My larger titles that I can't afford to convert ($1000+ to have a large novel turned into an audiobook) I ran through a very good quality text to speech tool and made into a mechanical audiobook. Not as good as having a professional reader do it, but it gets the job done for a lot cheaper. Like free kinda cheaper. But yeah, in the end it's worth it to do audiobooks. Now, one thing I will say, the quality of your audiobook will be just as much a deciding factor on whether people listen or not as will the quality of your writing and the quality of your book cover. So, either go professional, or don't go at all. Mechanical audiobooks will get you over the hump if you can't afford to get one professionally done. But, like a cheap book cover, they will hurt you. Myself, I go to ACX to have my stuff done and I've found several really good readers so far who have done a bangup job on my books. However, be aware that you won't get the professional quality readers until you hit the $250/hr price point. I lucked out and got two really good ones at the $80/hr price point, but only because the three works I put up on their site caught their attention. But most other really good narrators won't even talk to you for less than $200/hr. And when I say per hour, that's per finished hour, and not per hour they work on it. So if your book takes 8 hours to read at a reasonable pace, and you do $100/hr you'll end up paying $800 for the final product. Anyhow, that's my 2c. So yeah, if you haven't jumped on the audiobook band wagon, then by all means strongly consider it. As I said, I have a mixture of styles from professionally read to machine generated. But which one is used per book is, at least in my case, determined more on what I can afford rather than what I think is best. I've also gone and tossed some of my choice to the readers. On the longer, more expensive works I've given them a machine read audiobook and said, "If you like this title, and you want it read, here's my patreon and go fund me pages. Toss me some peanuts and I'll get them professionally done." So far nobody has sent me a dime, so all they get is the mechanical audiobooks. But I figure that'll change in the future as I think I'm a bit ahead of the curve on the idea of group funded audiobooks. But we'll see. Anyhow, again, just my 2c.

11-26-2017, 06:37 AM	#37
Steven Lake Sci-Fi Author Posts: 1,157 Karma: 14743509 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Michigan Device: PC (Calibre)	Sorry for the slow reply. I forgot this thread was here. haha. In answer to your question, it really depends on the reader. Some do just straight, flat readings, some dramatize them, and some kinda fall in between where they add character and personality to the reading, but don't go overboard with it. As for the tags, I'm not sure what you mean. In regards to the mechanical readings, they sound not unlike stephen hawking, although some digital readers can do a better job of reading the book than others. If you go up to my site and wander over to my youtube channel, I've posted Lion in the Wind, which was done with a mechanical reader, and then two others after it, Manna and Christian, that were professionally read, and each by different readers. So those should give you a good idea of what they will sound like. Now, if you go through ACX for your professional readings, you do have a choice over who you get. Again, the more you offer the better the quality of reader you will have auditioning for you. I lucked out on my three books that I got good readers who were willing to work at my price point in all three cases. However, they were the diamond in the coal mine so to speak as the rest of the auditions were garbage. Now, you may end up being just as fortunate. However, you're more likely to find yourself needing to go up a bit in price before you start getting the really good readers. Mine was $80/hr. Some I know had to go all the way up into the $250/hr level to get a decent reader. Now, here's the catch though. If you plan to sell your audiobooks, spend the money and get a good reader at ACX to do your book justice. If you plan to give it away for free, use a mechanical reader. I myself give all my books away for free, regardless. However, I did separate out 4 of my books for special attention. Hence why they got professional readings. The rest, nah, mechanical all the way. Although I did throw a bone out there to my readers by saying, "If you want these professionally read, toss me some money. If not, then well, all you're getting is the mechanicals." So far nobody has sent me a dime, so all they're getting at this moment is the mechanicals. :P

11-27-2017, 03:15 AM	#39
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,809 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	I have not been tempted to narrate my own work, and I don't listen to audio books (one day I should give it a try), so I hadn't said anything on this thread. But I do use text-to-speech software as a form of editing, so I would add... Good text-to-speech software allows you to select the voice - very few of which sound anything like Stephen Hawking's machine. I use some software called TextAloud, and they offer a wide selection of voices. For most of my editing work I use one of the two Australian voices that I purchased, one male, one female. (The American voices didn't do it for me, I spent all my time listening to the accents. Some of the UK voices would work for me, but I found the Australian voices had fewer distractions.) I have found it surprising how well these voices work, reading the text with surprisingly accurate inflections taken just from the context and punctuation. With more work on the text to tweak things a little more, I think it would be possible to produce an acceptable final result ... but since I don't have experience with professionally created audio books I can't offer a real comparison. I'm not about to suggest these should be used instead of true professional production, but the idea that computer generated voices should sound like Stephen Hawking's machine seem to be long gone.

11-27-2017, 12:17 PM	#40
arjaybe Wizard Posts: 1,000 Karma: 12012526 Join Date: Aug 2013 Location: Canada Device: Sony PRS-650	Thanks, gmw. I took the link and checked out TextAloud and, other than it being Windows only shareware with a short evaluation period and a premium-based price ratchet, it looks pretty good.-) I might look around for some Free Software in this area, to give me an idea of where the technology is these days. It would be nice if you could specify the voice you want. Say, a gravelly-voiced middle-aged male from Melbourne for your male protagonist, etc. Or maybe sample your own voice and use that. Or ... Maybe with the technology being used by VocalID we might be able to soon. They don't offer speech-to-text as such, except in that they offer the chance for speech-impaired people to have their own unique voice.

11-27-2017, 09:33 PM	#41
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,809 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	The TextAloud software itself is in need of a facelift (they say they are developing a v4, but don't seem to be in a hurry to get it out), but v3 works well (for me), and the cost (of the software itself) is low ... with, as you point out, the premium price ratchet to buy additional voices (which, in my opinion, you would want to do to get the best out of it). It's worth pointing out that the additional - per voice - cost is (at least partly) because the premium voices come from other companies. I liked the Nuance voices best, but I see the cost has gone up considerably since I bought mine. For the software and one or two premium voices the price, I think, is pretty reasonable - but if you wanted to buy lots of voices then the price would climb fast. I imagine some open-source or free variation of this capability may arrive eventually ... or maybe it already has, I haven't gone looking recently. One curious possibility this sort of thing opens up would be the ability to create the relevant adjustments to your source text (refining emphasis, pronunciation and so on), and then let people select whichever voice(s) they prefer for their copy of the audio book.

11-27-2017, 10:16 PM	#42
arjaybe Wizard Posts: 1,000 Karma: 12012526 Join Date: Aug 2013 Location: Canada Device: Sony PRS-650	I think we're going to see lots of innovation there soon.

11-28-2017, 05:55 PM	#45
Xenodragon7 Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2017 Device: Android Tablet	Create your book as ebook, print book, audiobook and the last one is make your ebook as android app and ios app. Audiobook production is expensive is usa, but you can use voice actor from asia like india and indonesia. And their cost is cheap and great quality.

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