Such Mad Fun–An Audible Challenge
“Congratulations! You’re invited to participate in KDP’s beta for audiobooks.” The April 3 email offered me (apparently one of a select group of randomly chosen authors) the chance to produce an audiobook version of Such Mad Fun using virtual voice narration. Perhaps I didn’t focus enough on the word “beta.” What that meant is that Kindle Direct Publishing’s process of using virtual voice for eBooks was in its final stages of development and “may not function perfectly.” The offer was tempting. I had thought about an audiobook, but the cost seemed prohibitive. This was free. So I decided to try it out.
The first challenge was choosing a voice. This particular story needs a feminine narrator. Did I want one between 30 and 40 years old or between 40 and 50 years old? Should she speak in an American English, southern American English, British or perhaps an Australian English voice? (I have a British voice talking to me on Alexa and it’s very refreshing.) After testing out a few voices, I chose an American English 40 to 50 year-old — selection number eight.
The second challenge was correcting pronunciation that Ms. 8 did not get right. That took weeks though listening to the whole book takes just eight hours and 40 minutes. You can also add pauses and eliminate things that occur in print but sound strange in an audiobook like the word “sic” when something is misspelled in a quote. It’s not perfect, but most of the book is smooth listening. When reading a poem, or the caption of a picture that the listener cannot see it’s a little clunky. There may still be a few mispronunciations that have slipped through. And of course there are no appendices, bibliography etc. in the audio version.
This whole process got me thinking about all of the voices that are now on the devices in our lives and where they come from. Virtual voices are a specific application of AI-powered text-to-speech technology. What are we learning from the ubiquitous voices like those of Jessie on TikTok, Siri on your iPhone (both based on recordings by real people) or on Alexa where most users choose a female voice?
I highly recommend a provocative article in T, The New York Times Style Magazine (5/18/25) by Susan Dominus. The print title is “How Should a Woman Sound?” The online version asks “Has the Internet Changed How Women Sound?” The voices we hear on a daily basis on our devices may impact the way women are perceived. In many cases, that’s deliberate.
Susan Dominus refers to an early-20th-century guidebook for telephone operators who needed to keep their voices “soft, low, melodious,” and, above all, the operators were always to be nice and helpful.* Those guidelines have not completely changed as is evident when you use Siri and Alexa, “both forever placating, always even-keeled.” Jessie (TikTok) on the other hand is “loud and proud; she’s a pill, so wholly artificial she’s transcendent — entirely above seeking male approval.”
There is now an audible version of Such Mad Fun available on Amazon, Audible and Alexa for $4.99. If you do not subscribe to Audible there’s a chance Amazon might up the price, but so far that hasn’t happened. You can hear a free sample of the Such Mad Fun audible book on the Amazon sales page for the book. Ms. 8’s voice seemed the closest to Jane Hall’s voice. Not at all shrill, somewhat low and melodious. Not a bad listen if you would like to be immersed in the magazines and movies, women’s aspirations, and popular culture of the 1920s through the 1960s.
*One of Dominus’s sources was the PBS American Experience program on the History of the Telephone
