Knowledge

Apple Launches Audiobook AI Narration Services: As An Author, Should You Use It?

Apple quietly launched an audiobook AI narration service last December 2022. At the time of this writing, the service is free to use. Apple at the moment currently only accepts audiobook submissions for the “Contemporary Romance” fiction category, though it is also set to kick off with its non-fiction “Self Development” category.

Currently, in the contemporary romance audiobook AI category, Apple offers two AI voices. One is called “Madison” which is an AI specifically tailored by Apple for the fiction contemporary romance category. According to Apple, it has a “Soprano” voice.

The other AI voice is called “Jackson” which has also been designed by Apple for the fiction contemporary romance category. It has a “Baritone” voice. I guess “Jackson” would especially be helpful for romance authors who specialize in male romance story leads.

It is a well known fact that most romance book readers and writers are women. “Jackson” would balance the scales a bit towards male romance readers and writers.

At the moment, Apple is offering this service free to authors. It remains to be seen if this would become a paid service in the future.

While the news is something to be celebrated by authors, we should be aware about two notable things from Apple: 1) They launched the service quietly and without much fanfare and 2) Apple is currently offering the service for free.

Is Apple making a big push towards Amazon’s book business? Afterall, Amazon has a near stranglehold of the book market. It accounts for about 80% to 85% of book sales in the US alone which is the biggest market for books.

Everyone knows that the book business is very profitable. The sale of printed books, audiobooks and ebooks have been growing on a yearly basis and many book businesses want a cut of Amazon’s book business billions.

You might also add that romance books accounts for more than 50% of all book sales. Yes, this is how huge is the market for romance books. It’s no wonder that Apple chose the romance category when offering their audiobook AI narration service.

Another thing to consider is that audiobook is the fastest growing book format. Its sales growth surpasses those of both printed books and ebooks.

We might also add that more and more people are writing books including audiobooks. Maybe Apple sees a profitable business offering services to audiobook authors.

At present, the service is free. So, there won’t be any cost to you should you convert your contemporary romance book into an audiobook. If you must know, it costs thousands of dollars to convert a book into an audiobook. Apple might actually be saving you thousands of dollars.

If you don’t offer audiobooks yet. This might be a good opportunity for you to offer audiobooks to your readers. You might have readers who are just waiting for you to release audiobook versions of your book.

If you are thinking of making a backup recording of your book’s audio narration from Apple, think again. Apple specifically states in the terms of the agreement that Apple owns the copyright to the audiobook narration made via their services.

… Which makes me wonder if this is how audiobooks are counterfeited? I mean, text data can be copied and counterfeited but counterfeiters still need to follow a certain text data format in order to counterfeit it. With audiobooks, all they need is a sound recorder and they can instantly copy an audiobook! I suggest you think about this if ever you want to go into the audiobook business.

So far, no one has been able to know how Apple managed to build their AI which can supposedly mimic a real human book narrator. But according to the online comments posted by people who have used Apple’s service, its nothing more than a more advanced text to speech software.

Many of the comments centered on Apple’s AI having the same problem as currently available text to speech software: Its bland voice in reading text which could become monotonous to someone hearing it.

This is because, just like other text to speech software, Apple’s AI still cannot interpret the emotions being expressed in a text story. For example, a human narrator can sound angry, happy, sad and so on. But Apple’s AI and other text to speech software are still not capable of doing this human ability.

Other comments that I have read online is this: Apple’s AI read text mostly on a continuous basis just like any text to speech software. According to the commenters, this might work if the AI is reading news but this problem would easily show up in text stories where the story needs to pause like for deep thought or suspense text story highlights.

Having not personally tried Apple’s AI service, I could only enumerate some of the comments I found online regarding it. I suggest you give Apple’s AI service a try to see if it can help your audiobook business whether you already have one or want to have one.

While it’s very tempting to enter the audiobook market because according to numerous sources online it is growing at an eye watering CAGR of 26%-27% a year, take heed that because the industry is tremendously growing, you’re sure to face tough competition.

Meanwhile, the ebook industry is growing at a decent rate of between 4% to 5% every year. Not bad but not as spectacular as the audiobook industry’s market growth. This makes Apple’s free AI narration service very tempting indeed!

But it should be noted that printed book and ebook readers are more loyal to their book formats that audiobook enthusiasts. The mental stimulation that reading gives to the brain cannot be matched by audiobooks.

Many audiobooks also fail because people simply don’t like how the story was narrated or simply don’t like who is narrating the book: their reading style, their voice and so on.

Also, with audiobooks, you cannot flip between pages, paragraphs and texts as compared to printed books or ebooks. There are people who simply miss this feature in audiobooks.

This especially applies if you don’t have an audiobook business yet. Give Apple’s audiobook narration a try, it might bring your book business a boost or at least give your book business more exposure.

Worried that your customers won’t like the quality of your audiobook because it’s just narrated by an AI and not a real human? Take note that even human narrated audiobooks fail because customers simply don’t like how the audiobook was narrated or don’t like the human narrator.

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