Around the World in 80 Books discussion

This posting is to ask your opinion of AI narration of audio books.

Recently, Amazon invited co-author Richard Starks and me to use a beta version of its AI narration program to produce an audio edition of our novel, 'In A Town Called Paradox'. We took Amazon up on its offer (with some reservations), and in just 15 minutes we had an audio version of our novel posted on our Amazon page.

Here's the link to the free excerpt of the audio on the 'In A Town Called Paradox' Amazon page.
http://www.amzn.com/B08LG9XZL9

What do you think of it? The narration is not perfect, but do you think it's acceptable to readers? Perhaps you'd like to post your opinion here. Thank you.

Sigh. We knew it would come to this. First I need to honestly state that I am opposed on principle, because it takes jobs away from talented people. I rely on audios, and I found that a great narrator can do wonders for a book But I will provide my honest feedback.

I'll try it...

The first couple lines sounded better than I expected actually. It wasn't monotone, and the word inflections sounded about right for expository writing. It's incredibly slow though, with excessively long pauses. It can be sped up but that often makes it choppy. It would get boring if there was no more variety in the tone, inflections and pacing as the book went on. The dialogue will be a big test, with different voices expected for different characters. Do the character's personalities come through in the dialogue or the internal thoughts? As you listen to the whole thing, ask yourself if it expresses the emotions, tension, excitement, humor, and phrasing you would expect from the characters you created.

Audio books have come a long way in the last 30 years, and the narration has gotten better and better every year. Some are absolutely phenomenal, and make all the difference in the world. (I found a few narrators that soothe me when all others aggravate a headache.) I often search audible to find other books narrated by my favorites.

I don't know how much it costs to hire a professional narrator, so I suppose if this was your only choice I understand that having an audio available opens up your potential audience. Even though I rely on audios, I wouldn't choose an AI narrator at this time. My assumption would be that no one expects the book to do well, so they aren't willing to invest money in it. (I feel the same way when I see a book cover with the exact same photo shot I've seen on many other books in the genre.)

I wish you the best of success with your book.

I also knew this would come very soon, and it isn't something I look forward to since this will, as Nancy said, take away jobs. I thought the narration was decent in a technical sense, but by the end of the five minutes it seemed like a boring voice I wouldn't want to listen to for hours. The changes in inflection are slight, more slight to me than human speakers use which is one of the things that makes a narrator more interesting. I would like to know how different characters are voiced. Not all professional narrators do that well so it is something virtually all audio listeners I know pay attention to, and we all have our criteria on what is acceptable. I am also interested how the voice would read passages that need significant emotion such as a scene with great fear or anger. The sample is missing emotional elements so it's hard to judge how those would be. I would not be willing to listen to an AI narrator for an entire book at this point if I knew that's what it is.

NancyJ wrote: "Sigh. We knew it would come to this. First I need to honestly state that I am opposed on principle, because it takes jobs away from talented people. I rely on audios, and I found that a great narra..."

I agree with all of this.

Also, it might be interesting to ask a professional narrator to read a portion of your book (particularly a part that requires emotion) and compare the two. There is a depth of feeling that can be conveyed by a human reader that will be difficult to imitate with an AI (as I'm sure you are aware).

ETA - Another thought - Personally, I am willing to pay more for a book read by one of my favorite narrators. I think the AI option may appeal to those who value low price over quality - this is a market segment, I'm sure. It might be worth investigating what percent of the market is in this segment.

I think it will probably happen at least for some books that aren't expected to get a lot of audio sales in a given language. I think we're probably at least ten years away (until the AI reading is improved and refined more) from it being more than a small niche though.
It just isn't going to be as good for some time, but... if the publisher can't afford a professional reader for a book with limited sales it will make the book available to those who can't or don't want to read a paper or ebook. I'm ok with that.

I did listen to the virtual voice sample for your book and felt the narration was good. Not perfect, but very easy to listen to.

I've been listening to audiobooks regularly for 3-4 years now. In my opinion, most human narrators do great jobs, but I've also come across some who pretty much ruined my enjoyment of the books they read. Not all human narrators are good interpreters of the text they read.

This past month (Dec 2024), for the first time, I listened to several books using Audible's Virtual Voice narration, both male and female voices. I was pleasantly surprised. No, these narrations aren't quite as smooth or natural as many human readings, but truthfully, I felt they were at least as good as the average human narrator and much better than some. There was nothing robotic about the tones. They were maybe a little less dramatic during certain passages, but they didn't sound emotionless or monotoned either.

Funny thing, just before trying out these new AI narrators, I listened to a Sci-Fi audiobook which drove me crazy at times. The human narrator was trying to imitate the voice of an artificial construct. It was so robotic! I kept thinking, "In the future, AI voices would NOT sound this robotic. ... Then just after that, I listened to an audiobook which used Virtual Voice. It sounded pretty natural to me. The AI narrator in that book did a better job of sounding human than the human narrator in the other book did of sounding AI. I had to laugh!

It would defeat the purpose of me both being a librarian and a union steward for my department by normalizing AI in either my workplace or my labor negotiations, so I won't be engaging with AI period, whether audio or text.

Joy D wrote: "NancyJ wrote: "Sigh. We knew it would come to this. First I need to honestly state that I am opposed on principle, because it takes jobs away from talented people. I rely on audios, and I found tha..."
For my last audiobook, Finding Home (Hungary, 1945) I auditioned ten women from Central Europe for narrator. Each had something but none of them felt right. I then listened to several audiobooks by the same narrator, books that I really admired, Xe Sands. I contacted her and she read my manuscript, loved it so much she moved it ahead of several big five books she was ready to narrate. We then went back and forth on the proper pronunciations of Hungarian, Yiddish and Hebrew words in my book, as well as what I wanted out of each of the characters. The results were stunning. There is no way AI can or will interact with you on such a deeply emotional and personal level. I sing the body electric, but not the voice!

NancyJ wrote: "Sigh. We knew it would come to this. First I need to honestly state that I am opposed on principle, because it takes jobs away from talented people. I rely on audios, and I found that a great narra..."
For my last audiobook, Finding Home (Hungary, 1945) I auditioned ten women from Central Europe for narrator. Each had something but none of them felt right. I then listened to several audiobooks by the same narrator, books that I really admired, Xe Sands. I contacted her and she read my manuscript, loved it so much she moved it ahead of several big five books she was ready to narrate. We then went back and forth on the proper pronunciations of Hungarian, Yiddish and Hebrew words in my book, as well as what I wanted out of each of the characters. The results were stunning. There is no way AI can or will interact with you on such a deeply emotional and personal level. I sing the body electric, but not the voice!

Laurie wrote: "I also knew this would come very soon, and it isn't something I look forward to since this will, as Nancy said, take away jobs. I thought the narration was decent in a technical sense, but by the e..."
It lacks the human breath, sighs, emotion, clearing the throat-clering, and much more.

This sounded a lot better than I had been expecting. I don't share the luddite horror of Ai, perhaps because I don't read news that portrays it as technology gone too far. Against the backdrop of computers and phones that allow us access to just about anything, Youtube videos and internet help sites that enable us to bypass professionals in just about every walk of life, and all the many technologies around us that we don't even notice these days, to single out Ai for particular attention seems like too little too late.
Those who object to it should not be doing so on an internet forum such as this. You should be writing letters and posting them to offices where they are read, selected, and edited into printed publications, made and sold by real people. Make sure those letters are not sorted by machines, they must be sorted by post office workers. Don't use envelopes made by machines in China, make sure they are cut, folded, and pasted by hand by real people.
Really, where do you draw the line?
An author will have to invest a lot of money to produce an audio version of their book, thousands of pounds, dollars, euros, and many independent authors simply don't have that sort of money to spare. At present, having an audio book is exclusive to the wealthy, the privileged, or the already successful. Perhaps Ai offers a step up for those just starting out, and if they become successful, then they can have better versions recorded by real people, who expect to be paid for what they do, just like the rest of us. It also perhaps offers a wider range of books to those who prefer audio format, so they are not limited to only those books written and published by the wealthy.
Those are my thoughts anyway. In a world that is already unrecognisable from the world as it was fifty years ago, it seems odd to take exception to this one technology, while comfortably accepting so many others that have gone before. Trying to put just some of the toothpaste back in the tube seems as pointless as trying to put all of it back in.

Sorry. I disagree with Nigel. I have gotten two audiobooks recently for free. I deleted them. AI reading is the next step to AI creation of books. This is already being done with some technical journals. I will take my books human written and human read.