“What is now proved was once only imagined.”
William Blake
Last week I wondered aloud whether I would use AI to produce my audiobooks. I mentioned that usually, when I get to the listing of pros and cons during the decision-making stage, I’ve already made up my mind, and all I’m really doing is convincing myself to move forward. Well, that’s exactly what happened on this topic. No sooner than I had posted the article than I started the process of creating my first AI audiobooks.
Of course, nothing is ever as easy as it looks. I thought all I had to do was go onto Google, select a voice, download a file, and after a few minor adjustments, presto – a finished audiobook. Well, it wasn’t even close to that easy.
- I first checked for my books The Palantir and The Pair Dadeni on Google Play, as I thought D2D (Draft 2 Digital) had uploaded them. Unfortunately, I learned that my ebooks weren’t there.
- So, I checked if there was a problem with D2D and learned that they upload their ebooks to 11 different book stores (which means you can find my books in Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, etc.) but not Google Play.
- Which forced me to learn the difference between Google Play, Google Play Books, and Google Docs. But I had to start from scratch as I’ve rarely used Google Play (I have an aversion to downloading apps onto my phone or computer because of security fears, and I’m a Luddite at heart).
- I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it didn’t take long to figure out that the next step was creating a Google Play authors account. Since I’ve had to do similar things for Amazon, IngramSpark, and D2D, it wasn’t that hard.
- But just when I thought I was home free, I learned I had to have my ebooks loaded onto Google Play Books first.
- So, I posted The Palantir and The Pair Dadeni ebooks. The process was easier than what I was used to, but there were two differences I had to learn:
o They allow more genres (a good thing) but to take advantage of this added flexibility meant I had to come up with additional categories.
o Their review takes a lot longer than Amazon, Ingram, & D2D.
- Then I had to learn how to convert my PDF files to epub files. After some research, I discovered I could use Google Docs to do it. Of course, that meant I had to learn how that program worked. Luckily it wasn’t too hard.
All that work led me back to where I thought I had to start – picking voices. There are quite a few options, but I quickly narrowed it down to Google’s American and British voices (15) while ruling out two other accents (Australian and Indian). From those 15, I’ve further narrowed it to 5, and that’s where I’m currently at – my ebooks are still in review on Google Play Books, and I’m still deciding what voice to use.
More to come.
The picture below is the audiobook cover for The Pair Dadeni.
Комментарии