Make Your Own Audiobooks
No, I'm not proposing that you record yourself reading your paper books. This is the future!
I've started making my own audiobooks with a text2speech program called TextAloud. I shelled out the money for the registered version and the upgraded voices. Frankly, the program is only worthwhile if you add the upgraded voices. They pronounce words much better, and have a higher bitrate. They recognize question marks, and add the intonations. When comparing the same passages read by the free voice, and the premium ones, there's no comparison. Still, the voices sound more or less computer generated, but not to the point of distraction. I found that the first book I listened to was a little distracting, but by the second one, the stilted speech didn't bother me.
Then I bought a cheap MP3 player from Wal Mart. Actually, it's a portable CD player, but it plays MP3s from CD-RW disks. That means I can re-use the same disk over and over. Doesn't sound like a big deal until you look at the file sizes of the audiobooks. Don't be surprized when your audiobook fills 30 audio CDs. So re-filling the same CD looks like a great idea to me, and MP3 format means it'll all fit on a single CD.
Then, of course, you need some text for the software to read. I've started with The Gutenberg Project, which can keep me reading for years. They have thousands of titles.
Gutenberg also has many titles in audio format, so you can get started listening without buying TextAloud. Some consist of computer-generated audiobooks, and other are human read. I spot checked the computer generated stuff, and found it to be of lesser quality than TextAloud. It's your call.
There are other audiobooks and texts free on the web, and if you know which title you're looking for, you can just download and listen.
Be aware that nearly all audiobooks you find will be in the public domain. In other words, they're probably old books, dating back a hundred years or more. Not all of them, but most. Some authors publish open-source works that you can download freely.
If you come across audio material in a format that your MP3 player won't play, fear not. There's a very nice program called Total Recorder that captures any sound that comes through your sound card, and converts it to MP3. Again, this is not free software, but well worth the money.
I will be posting links to free audiobook resources as I find them.
Happy reading!
I've started making my own audiobooks with a text2speech program called TextAloud. I shelled out the money for the registered version and the upgraded voices. Frankly, the program is only worthwhile if you add the upgraded voices. They pronounce words much better, and have a higher bitrate. They recognize question marks, and add the intonations. When comparing the same passages read by the free voice, and the premium ones, there's no comparison. Still, the voices sound more or less computer generated, but not to the point of distraction. I found that the first book I listened to was a little distracting, but by the second one, the stilted speech didn't bother me.
Then I bought a cheap MP3 player from Wal Mart. Actually, it's a portable CD player, but it plays MP3s from CD-RW disks. That means I can re-use the same disk over and over. Doesn't sound like a big deal until you look at the file sizes of the audiobooks. Don't be surprized when your audiobook fills 30 audio CDs. So re-filling the same CD looks like a great idea to me, and MP3 format means it'll all fit on a single CD.
Then, of course, you need some text for the software to read. I've started with The Gutenberg Project, which can keep me reading for years. They have thousands of titles.
Gutenberg also has many titles in audio format, so you can get started listening without buying TextAloud. Some consist of computer-generated audiobooks, and other are human read. I spot checked the computer generated stuff, and found it to be of lesser quality than TextAloud. It's your call.
There are other audiobooks and texts free on the web, and if you know which title you're looking for, you can just download and listen.
Be aware that nearly all audiobooks you find will be in the public domain. In other words, they're probably old books, dating back a hundred years or more. Not all of them, but most. Some authors publish open-source works that you can download freely.
If you come across audio material in a format that your MP3 player won't play, fear not. There's a very nice program called Total Recorder that captures any sound that comes through your sound card, and converts it to MP3. Again, this is not free software, but well worth the money.
I will be posting links to free audiobook resources as I find them.
Happy reading!
3 Comments:
Hi there.
I agree that this is a fantastic prospect. I'm looking for a good text-to-speech program right now myself. I found this website to be useful:
http://www.tmaa.com/tts/
It has sample clips using several different engines for the sake of comparison.
I'm curious about the quality of this text2speech you mentioned. Could you possible post a sample clip as an example, e.g. "The FT Index rose ten points today, a five percent gain. Analysts said that the rise was less than expected given that the Bank of England lowered interest rates during the session today." (This is some text used in one of the samples available on the above website).
Thanks very much,
Adam.
Hello -
I totally agree with you. I wanted to record some audiobooks by reading the texts myself and record them(German philosophy actually). Do you know anythinkg about how to make good recordings mp3 with not too much financial effort and make them also e.g. downloadable to your ipod? Julia (julia.samwer@gmx.de)
Thank you so much, hope you still come here.
Out of curiosity since this post is a year old, do you still feel the same way? I'm thinking of converting my book to audio and offering it as a free download.
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