What TTS voices do you use for reading ebooks?

[Arthur1101]

I’ve been experimenting with text-to-speech apps for reading ebooks lately. I enjoy listening while commuting or doing chores, but I still find that many TTS voices sound a bit robotic.

Recently I tested a few tools that allow more natural voices, and one interesting feature I came across was voice cloning. It lets you create a custom voice that reads your ebooks, which makes the experience feel more personal.

Two of the apps I tried were Speechify and Readify, one is charged and the other is not. Both of them let you upload a short audio sample and generate a voice for reading books. It was surprisingly quick to set up. I’m still comparing it with other TTS apps though.

Curious what everyone here uses for listening to ebooks? Do you prefer built-in e-reader TTS, or separate apps with more natural voices?

[odamizu]

ElevenReader is pretty good: https://elevenreader.io. It was free when it first came out (soft launch), then once it gained traction, they added a paid tier and limited the free features. This caused quite an uproar because people were used to unlimited use for free.

I haven't tried Readify, but it looks pretty new. Given what ElevenReader did, I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't stay free forever. Just something to consider.

There are lots of horror stories on Reddit about Speechify not letting you cancel a subscription.

All that said, if there's a human-narrated audiobook, that is always my first choice. I only use TTS for books that have no human-narrated audiobook.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by odamizu

ElevenReader is pretty good: https://elevenreader.io. It was free when it first came out (soft launch), then once it gained traction, they added a paid tier and limited the free features. This caused quite an uproar because people were used to unlimited use for free.

I haven't tried Readify, but it looks pretty new. Given what ElevenReader did, I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't stay free forever. Just something to consider.

There are lots of horror stories on Reddit about Speechify not letting you cancel a subscription.

All that said, if there's a human-narrated audiobook, that is always my first choice. I only use TTS for books that have no human-narrated audiobook.

At present, Readify is so-so.

[Arthur1101]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

At present, Readify is so-so.

For a free app, it is good enough, at least for me. After all, it can support reading epub, txt, docx, pdf, mobi and azw3 files. And the TTS voice is very good and natural. This meets most of my needs.