Making an Audiobook, with Google Play Books

Since posting about Laurie Boris’ new audio books [via Audible], I’ve received quite a bit of interest from other Indie authors about how to make an audio book. I’ve never done it, so I was delighted when author Audrey Driscoll came to the rescue. I hope you find her article as interesting as I did. Over to you, Audrey!

A while ago I turned two of my books into AI-narrated audiobooks on Google Play Books. I did it mostly as an experiment. (Most of my writing-related activities started as experiments.) I also decided to offer the books as free downloads, a decision I believe to be correct, considering the ethical considerations of using AI. To be clear, I would never have gone to the trouble and expense of making audiobooks with live voice actors. It wasn’t a question of AI or human, but AI or nothing at all.

Based on this experience, here are some of my thoughts on audiobooks for the indie author:

What are your reasons for creating an audiobook version of a book you have published? To make (more) money? To find a new readership? Curiosity? Experimentation? Answers to these questions will determine how much time, money, and effort you are willing to give to the project.How are you going to create the audiobook? Buy the necessary equipment, set up a recording spot, read your book yourself or hire a reader, and learn how to work with sound files; or use something like Amazon’s Audible? Or deploy the AI-based utilities offered by Google Play or Apple? The AI voices are generated from zillions of scraped sound files, not from paid contributors, so that might be an ethical issue.Will your audiobook be free or priced, and if the latter, what price will you set?

Once you’ve decided to make an audiobook, there are a few other decisions to consider:

Will you have a single narrative voice or more than one? My books have first-person narrators, so one voice was the logical choice, but books in which different characters are featured in alternating chapters may need more than one. Google Play offers more than a dozen different voices, male or female, of different ages and with several accents.Is your audiobook going to be simply a reading of the text as published, or would you prefer to make the audiobook more like a dramatic performance? This would require multiple voices and possibly sound effects, music, and changes to the text (removing dialogue tags, for example). In my opinion, this is a more ambitious project than a mere audiobook. It would be an adaptation of the book, rather than a different format.

In Google Play Books (which is the only audiobook utility I’ve used), you can listen to your book with the text displayed on your screen. This permits you to change the text if necessary. Even though my intent was to produce a straight reading of the text, I did find it necessary to make some minor changes for clarity.

Whether working with a human or an AI reader, be prepared to deal with pronunciation, especially if your book contains unusual names or made-up words. AI voices, although surprisingly human-sounding, do have some oddities of intonation that can to some extent be improved by adding pauses or modifying speed. It took me a bit of time and effort to work out the most worthwhile tweaks.

Finally, I found that apart from the audiobook as a new “product,” it enabled me, the author, to re-experience my books in a new way. I would recommend that authors explore their books through audio simply for that reason. (Google Play Books requires you to have a live ebook version available on their site before you can create the audiobook, but this isn’t a major obstacle except for those whose books are in KDP Select, which requires exclusivity.) Making the audiobook versions available to others for a price or for free would be a separate decision.

And there you have it, an in depth overview of how to use Google Play Books to create your own audio book.

Thanks, Audrey, and cheers all!
Meeks