Apple is seeking to partner with Indie writers and publishers to help them narrate their books using voices synthesized by AI. Authors were advised to reach out to Draft2Digital and Ingram CoreSource, two companies that produce and publish e-books on the Apple Books app, if they want to turn their work into audiobooks. They are only accepting submissions written in English for romance and fiction, other genres are not yet supported.
“Many authors – especially independent authors and those associated with small publishers – aren’t able to create audiobooks due to the cost and complexity of production. Apple Books digital narration makes the creation of audiobooks more accessible to all, helping you meet the growing demand by making more books available for listeners to enjoy.
“More and more book lovers are listening to audiobooks, yet only a fraction of books are converted to audio – leaving millions of titles unheard,” Apple said in a blog post.
Compared to the robotic, tinny sounds computers used to make when they mimicked humans, synthetic AI voices have vastly improved. They now sound pretty natural and are less monotone. The new feature will allow self-published writers to expand their audiences and gives them another source of revenue.
