Regarding Audible

From Brandon Sanderson:

Hey, all. Brandon here, with what I consider to be some pretty exciting news. Many of you may remember when I wrote last year about my worries regarding audiobook royalties (particularly for independent authors).

. . . .

  • I seriously worried about the opacity of reporting to authors about audio sales. We didn’t know what a sale meant, how much of an Audible credit was given to authors when a book sold via one, and how royalties were being accounted.
  • I felt that the industry was taking advantage of authors because of their lack of powerful corporate interests to advocate for them. While video game creators and musicians get 70–80% (88%, in fact, on two major platforms) of a sale of their products in a digital platform, Audible was paying as low as 25%–with the high end being instead 40%.
  • I felt I could have gotten a better deal for myself, but the entire state of this industry was seriously concerning to me. So, I made the difficult decision NOT to release the four Secret Projects on Audible, costing me a large number of sales, to instead try to bolster healthy competition in the space, highlighting some of the smaller Audible competitors.

I hoped this wake-up call would prompt change. I didn’t refuse to put my books on Audible out of retribution or to declare war; I did it because I wanted to shine as powerful a light as I knew how on a system that highly favored the audio distributors over the authors. I was convinced that the people at Audible really did love books and writers, and that with the right stand taken, I could encourage them toward positive change.

I’m happy to say that this stand has borne some fruit. I’ve spent this last year in contact with Audible and other audio distributors, and have pushed carefully–but forcefully–for them to step up. A few weeks ago, three key officers high in Audible’s structure flew to Dragonsteel offices and presented for us a new royalty structure they intend to offer to independent writers and smaller publishers.

This new structure doesn’t give everything I’ve wanted, and there is still work to do, but it is encouraging. They showed me new minimum royalty rates for authors–and they are, as per my suggestions, improved over the previous ones. Moreover, this structure will move to a system like I have requested: a system that pays more predictably on each credit spent, and that is more transparent for authors. Audible will be paying royalties monthly, instead of quarterly, and will provide a spreadsheet that better shows how they split up the money received with their authors.

This part looked really good to me, as I understand their decisions. I tried poking holes in the system, looking for ways it could be exploited, and found each issue I raised had already been considered. This doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect, and people smarter than me might still find problems that I didn’t. However, I think everyone is going to agree the new system IS better. We will better be able to track, for example, how Audible is dividing money between books purchased with a credit and books listened to as part of their Audible Plus program.

. . . .

I’m not at liberty to explain in its entirety their new structure right now, as they’re still tweaking it, but they did say I could announce its existence–and that I could promise new, improved royalties are on the horizon.

Now, before we go too far, I do anticipate a few continuing issues with the final product. I want to manage expectations by talking about those below.

  • What I’ve seen doesn’t yet bring us to the 70% royalty I think is fair, and which other, similar industries get.
  • Audible continues to reserve the best royalties for those authors who are exclusive to their platform, which I consider bad for consumers, as it stifles competition. In the new structure, both exclusive and non-exclusive authors will see an increase, but the gap is staying about the same.
  • Authors continue to have very little (basically no) control over pricing. Whatever the “cover price” of books is largely doesn’t matter–books actually sell for the price of a credit in an Audible subscription. Authors can never raise prices alongside inflation. An Audible credit costs the same as it did almost two decades ago–with no incentive for Audible to raise it, lest it lose customers to other services willing to loss-lead to draw customers over.

These are things I’d love to see change. However, this deal IS a step forward, and IS an attempt to meet me partway. Indeed, even incremental changes can mean a lot. When I was new in this business, my agent spent months arguing for a two-percent change in one of my print royalties–because every little bit helps. These improvements are going to be larger than two-percent increases.

Link to the rest at Brandon Sanderson

As PG has mentioned before, he doesn’t think that many of Amazon’s best technical and business minds are to be found in KDP and Audible.

While indie authors help save Zon’s bacon way back when all the big New York publishers got together and decided to stop selling books to Amazon, that’s ancient history at this point, however.

Just like KDP, Amazon has kept the Audible managers in their own little world, separate from the giant parts of Zon that generate billions of dollars every couple of weeks.

So, Audible gets sloppy about indie authors and audiobooks. Zon is the biggest seller of audiobooks by light-years, but the dollar amount audiobook sales generate won’t move any big needles in Amazon’s megaworld.

Brandon sells a huge number of print books/ebooks/audiobooks for Zon. While Brandon moving everything from KDP/Audible won’t move Amazon’s big revenue needle, it will definitely impact KDP/Audible revenues and profits. PG suspects that if Brandon decides to go another way, the hit on KDP revenues would be substantial, maybe big enough so the bigger bosses in corporate who have the book businesses as a part of their larger responsibilities might ask embarrassing questions and maybe fire some KDP bigshots.

But this is pure speculation on PG’s part and he could be completely wrong.

AI is coming for your audiobooks. You’re right to be worried.

From The Washington Post:

Something creepy this way comes — and its name is digital narration. Having invaded practically every other sphere of our lives, artificial intelligence (AI) has come for literary listeners. You can now listen to audiobooks voiced by computer-generated versions of professional narrators’ voices. You’re right to feel repulsed.

“Mary,” for instance, a voice created by the engineers at Google, is a generic female; there’s also “Archie,” who sounds British, and “Santiago,” who speaks Spanish, and 40-plus other personas who want to read to you. Apple Books uses the voices of five anonymous professional narrators in what will no doubt be a growing stable: “Madison,” “Jackson” and “Warren,” covering fiction in various genres; and “Helena” and “Mitchell,” taking on nonfiction and self-development.

I have listened to thousands of hours of audiobooks (it’s my job), so perhaps it’s not a surprise that I sense the wrongness of AI voices. Capturing and conveying the meaning and sound of a book is a special skill that requires talent and soul. I can’t imagine “Archie,” for instance, understanding, much less expressing, the depth of character of say, David Copperfield. But here we are at a strange crossroads in the audiobooks world: Major publishers are investing heavily in celebrity narrators — Meryl Streep reading Ann Patchett’s “Tom Lake,” Claire Danes reading “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a full cast of Hollywood actors (Ben Stiller, Julianne Moore, Don Cheadle and more) on “Lincoln in the Bardo,” to name a few. Will we reach a point where we must choose between Meryl Streep and a bot?

The main issue is, naturally, money. The use of disembodied entities saves time and spares audiobook producers the problems of dealing with human beings — chief among them, their desire to be paid. This may explain why so many self-published books are narrated by “Madison” and her squad of readers. Audible insists that every audiobook it sells must have been narrated by a human. (Audible is a subsidiary of Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.) Major publishing houses say the same. But how long until they see the economic benefits of AI?

Jason Culp, an actor and award-winning narrator who has been recording audiobooks for more than a quarter of a century, knows how much goes into a production. A 10-hour audiobook, he says, takes a narrator something like four or five days, with a couple of additional hours for editing mop-up. For each finished hour of audio, narrators make about $225 — somewhat more for the big names — and editors, about $100. Beyond that, producers must pay a percentage to SAG-AFTRA, the narrators’ union. There are other production costs too, of course, but you can see how eliminating the human narrator appeals to the business mind.

Apple’s narrators are cloned from the voices of professionals who have licensed the rights to their voices. Their identities are secret, but speculation abounds. It’s a touchy subject, and you can see why. Whether to sell the rights to one’s voice is an agonizing decision for a professional narrator. The money offered amounts to something like what a midrange narrator makes in four years; on the other hand, agreeing to the deal seems to many to be a betrayal of the profession, one that would risk alienating one’s peers.

According to Culp, narrators are alarmed by the advent of AI narration “as, naturally, it might mean less work for living, breathing narrators in the future. We might not know the circumstances under which a narrator might take this step, but generally there is a lot of solidarity within the community about encouraging narrators not to do it. As well, our union is keeping a close eye on companies that might be using underhanded tactics to ‘obtain’ narrators’ voices in works that they have produced.”

Even though the notion makes my skin crawl, I listened to Madison’s narration of “The New Neighbor” by Kamaryn Kelsey, the author of almost 60 self-published books (Apple, 1½ hours). This is the first installment in a series of 19 detective stories starring female private investigator Pary Barry. The plot is entertaining enough, and Madison is a slick operator, in the sense that you can believe that she’s human — for about five minutes.

Link to the rest at The Washington Post

PG asks, “When you listen to an audiobook, are you focusing on the performance of the narrator or the book itself? Do you forget about the narrator’s voice after a few pages?”

While the human narrator is certainly capable creating a better or worse “performance,” the narrator’s first obligation is not to interfere with the listener’s enjoyment of the book.

PG wonders if someone’s appreciation of a particular human performer may be a little like wine-tasting. Some people have a palate that always discriminates between a good or bad wine, for others, unless they have a side-by-side comparison, are fine with the equivalent of a house wine.

PG suggests that a very large portion of the present and future listeners to audiobooks will be perfectly happy with the house wine.

(Note: Although PG has not tasted wine for several decades, he does recall the various business lunch/dinner performances of the sommelier carefully uncorking a bottle, presenting the cork for a sniff test by whichever businessperson was paying for the meal and drinks, pouring a bit into a wineglass for the host to swirl around, sniff, then swallow delicately, look into the air, then communicate approval. On more than one occasion, a host who was also a good friend would admit he had no idea what the difference in taste was between an expensive wine and the house wine. To indicate how long it’s been since PG has witnessed this ceremony, he doesn’t ever recall the presence of a business hostess. No, those were not the good old days for PG. He prefers the present.)

Findaway and Corporate Rights Grabs

From Kristine Kathryn Rusch:

I know many of you have asked me to write about Findaway’s giant rights grab this week. I just finished a short post on it. I’m no longer doing the regular business blog. Instead, I post about business things on my Patreon page. I made this post wide, so everyone can see it, but most posts will not be.

. . . .

A lot of you have written to me, asking me to write a bit about Findaway’s rights grab. I think those of you who wrote knew what I was going to say.

For those of you who aren’t aware of what’s going on with Findaway, I’m going to give you the quick & dirty and then a bit of context.

. . . .

Anyway…on Thursday, February 15, they posted a new Terms of Service that would go live on March 15. It said:

Accordingly, you hereby grant Spotify a non-exclusive, transferable,  sublicensable, royalty-free, fully paid, irrevocable, worldwide license  to reproduce, make available, perform and display, translate, modify,  create derivative works from (such as transcripts of User Content),  distribute, and otherwise use any such User Content through any medium,  whether alone or in combination with other Content or materials, in any  manner and by any means, method or technology, whether now known or  hereafter created, in connection with the Service, the promotion,  advertising or marketing of the Service, and the operation of Spotify’s  (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business, including for systems  and products management, improvement and development, testing, training,  modeling and implementation in connection with the Spotify Service.  Where applicable and to the extent permitted under applicable law, you  also agree to waive, and not to enforce, any “moral rights” or  equivalent rights, such as your right to object to derogatory treatment  of such User Content. Nothing in these Terms prohibits any use of User  Content by Spotify that may be taken without a license.

I was going to underline the egregious parts, but it’s all egregious.

It sparked an immediate and forceful backlash.

Today when I went to look at the TOS, it had changed. It now says: 

Accordingly, and without limiting any payment obligations under Section 5  herein, you hereby grant Spotify a non-exclusive, worldwide license to  reproduce, make available, perform, display, distribute, and otherwise  use your User Content on and in connection with the Spotify Service and  the Distribution Services (as defined in Section 5). This license  permits the use of the User Content by Spotify for systems and product  management and development, testing, training, modeling, and  implementation in connection with anti-piracy and anti-fraud measures  and the discoverability, promotion, marketing, curation, distribution,  and sale (or developing the user experience in connection therewith) of  the User Content and the Spotify Service. Spotify’s distribution  partners also have the right to distribute your User Content via the  Distribution Services, subject to your right to discontinue distribution  as described below in this Section 4 and/or to opt out from particular  Distribution Partners as described in Section 5. For the sake of  clarity, these Terms do not authorize Spotify to use User Content to  create a new book, ebook or audiobook, or to use User Content to create a  new, machine-generated voice without your permission.

Note that some of the terrible language is gone, such as waiving moral rights and the creating of derivative works. It still will let them use your product to train AI though and other stuff, but to my surprise and their credit, they did change their TOS.

Does that mean that after next week, you will find my work on Findaway? Um, no. You will not. As a friend of mine said, they’ve shown their true colors. Musicians have had trouble with Spotify for years and these are Spotify-inspired changes.

Spotify bought Findaway in 2022, paying about $123 million dollars. At the time, Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek, told investors that he was “confident that audiobooks will deliver the kind of earnings that  investors are looking for, with profit margins north of 40 percent.” 

Over the past 18 months or so, Spotify has tinkered with Findaway in a variety of ways, mostly to do with the way that they’re paying content providers. Then this new TOS rights grab, which is not unexpected. In fact, it’s right on time.

Remember, what Spotify wants to do with Findaway and Anchor and all of the other services it is buying is increase profit margins for investors. The company does not care about providing a good service for its content partners. Because this is a giant corporation which is publicly traded, it has corporate goals that have to do with investors, making big money, and profit margins. 

If Findaway does not earn the kind of money that Spotify hopes, then Findaway will be discontinued, broken off and sold, or dissolved.

In other words, don’t expect that lovely tiny company that started in indie audiobook distribution to ever return.

Link to the rest at Kristine Kathryn Rusch

PG has signed up for access to The Patreon Site Kris set up on January 1 of this year because he likes the style and insights he finds in her essays on a regular basis.

Kris has also structured her Patreon membership costs in a savvy manner. Memberships start at $1.00 per month. There are steps up from that fee, but she includes a lot of interesting resources in the basic tier.

PG has shied away from any number of Patreon offerings that start at $100 per year and go up from there. That price may seem reasonable to some, but, for PG, that large an ask requires a lot more work than he suspects more than a few expensive Patreonistas will be willing to devote to their sites.

Spotify rolls out audiobooks offer to US

From The Bookseller:

Spotify is rolling out its audiobooks offer to subscribers in the US after launching in the UK and Australia in October. 

From today (8th November) premium subscribers in the US will have access to 15 hours of audiobooks per month on the platform. Spotify says the platform now has 200,000 audiobooks including new releases such as Britney Spears’ The Woman in Me (Gallery). 

The rollout to the US is quicker than expected, with Spotify originally saying the offer would be available in the US “this winter”.  

As The Bookseller reported last month, all of the major book publishers have entered into deals with the Swedish tech giant, as well as a number of independent publishers. Book publishers have long expressed reservations about subscription deals for digital content, but Spotify has offered variations of the typical pooled income arrangement, with a more limited offer that publishers believe will assure agents and authors that their income streams will not be undermined. 

David Kaefer, vice-president of business affairs at Spotify, previously told The Bookseller that Spotify was working with publishers in slightly different ways, according to the structures that best suited them. “We’ve gone in with that mindset of ‘how can we get you comfortable with participating?’ The central thing that everyone has in mind is if you can grow the market, then we want to figure out how we can work together. How we work together might be a little bit different publisher to publisher.” 

He continued: “There is a pooling model for a segment of our partners and generally its partners who are slightly smaller scale. A part of that is the convenience and the understanding that it feels good to be part of a common set of terms … for a lot of people they were comfortable with that approach. Some people, particularly larger providers, wanted to do something different.” 

The Bookseller understands deals with larger publishers are more akin to a pay-out per title based on a listening threshold being reached.  

Speaking at Frankfurt Book Fair last month Nihar Malaviya, the newly confirmed global c.e.o. at Penguin Random House, played down concerns around its deal with Spotify, indicating that the arrangement it struck with the tech music giant over its audiobooks was “basically commensurate to what we’re getting from the marketplace overall”. 

He also stressed that it was the unlimited consumption model that still alarmed PRH. Malaviya said PRH has previously participated in different subscription schemes, and that the compensation model it had agreed with Spotify “made us comfortable with participating in this specific offering”.  

Malaviya said he could not go into the exact details due to confidentiality but surmised “we are interested in models where we are basically getting paid”. He went on to argue that Spotify has “hundreds of millions of paying subscribers around the entire world” and the new offer could “bring new people into the reading ecosystem”. 

Link to the rest at The Bookseller

PG says competition is good for Amazon and authors all across its book business.

How to Read (and Retain) Research Material in Less than Half of Your Usual Time

From Jane Friedman:

For the last two years, I’ve had unexpected success in experimenting with my “chipmunk research method.” I was inspired to try this technique after hearing an intriguing comment made by my friend Oriano Belusic, past president of the Canadian Federation of the Blind (CFB).

Blind since age seven, he has learned to read at high speeds. (I use the term “read” for audiobooks, as this is the word used by most blind people I know.) Oriano uses a screen reader, which he routinely sets to a speed of 2.5. A speed of 1 is normal audiobook speed for most of us.

When I first stood by his side while he read an email, I could not understand the fast and garbled speech. Yet, Oriano says he is on the slower end of the spectrum when it comes to screen reader speed. He said he knows blind people who, through repetition, practice, and experience can read at chipmunk-fast speeds of 3 or 4.

I was skeptical, but my friend insists anyone can train themselves to discern fast speech. He suggested our brains, with very little coaching, can do unexpected things outside of our usual understanding of “normal.”

I learned he was right.

As a recent MFA graduate (narrative nonfiction), every day I encounter more nonfiction books than I have time to read. So, I decided to try speeding up my research methods by reading the hardcopy version and the audiobook at the same time.

To avoid purchasing two copies of the book, I often borrow the hard copy from the library, and purchase the less expensive audiobook from Audible. Speeded-up listening is not the old speed-reading hype from years ago. That approach involved more scanning than reading and was never successful for me. This is different.

When I started reading a thick book that would normally have taken me two or three weeks to finish, I decided to play around with the audiobook speed. Over a couple of days, I notched it up to 1.2, and then 1.5, 1.8, before eventually pumping it up to 3 a few weeks later. As I read the print book, I keep pace listening to the audio version. The idea may sound improbable, but I felt like I did when I learned to skip French ropes when I was nine. One minute it looked impossible, and the next I was doing it.

The process involves using several senses as I visually read, listen to every word, and underline critical passages (if the hard copy is mine). Keeping up with the fast speed requires studious focus with a simple pause or rewind if I need to stop and reflect.  While I was at first doubtful about whether this would work, I have discovered I have uncommon retention of the material using this technique—and believe it or not, after using it for a couple of years I find it relaxing to be intently focused on the content.

I also love knowing that I can pick up any huge nonfiction tome and read it thoroughly in less than a week. This approach is probably better for reading nonfiction than fiction—unless you are reading fiction for research or are under a time crunch.

Below are a few examples of recent successes on my path. I read these titles in one-half to one-third of the completion time listed on the audiobook:

  • The Complete Essays of Montaigne (Stanford’s Frame translation, 1957) — 883 pages, listed on Audible at 50 hours, took me less than 20 hours to read.
  • Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc — 436 pages, listed at 20 hours, took me 9 hours.
  • A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders — listed at 15 hours, took me 5 hours.
  • Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake — listed at 10 hours, took me 4 hours.
  • The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant — listed at 9 hours, took me 6 hours. (I slowed down on this one to revel in the hauntingly beautiful nonfiction story. I did not want it to end.)

Over time, I have adjusted my research process to read at different speeds. How I feel on the day and the complexity of the text may determine the speed I choose. I am a little slower if the subject is less familiar to me, i.e. science.

Link to the rest at Jane Friedman

Kindle Direct Publishing Will Beta Test Virtual Voice–Narrated Audiobooks

From Publishers Weekly:

In a post today in the Kindle Direct Publishing community forum, the self-publishing giant announced that it has begun a beta test on technology allowing KDP authors to produce audiobook versions of their e-books using virtual voice narration. The ability to create an audiobook using synthetic speech technology is likely to result in a boom in the number of audiobooks produced by KDP authors. According to an Amazon spokesperson, currently only 4% of titles self-published through KDP have an audiobook available.

Under the new initiativeauthors can choose one of their eligible e-books already on the KDP platform, then sample voices, preview the work, and customize the audiobook. After publication, audiobooks will be live within 72 hours, and will distributed wherever Audible titles are sold. Prices can be set between $3.99 and $14.99 and authors will receive a 40% royalty. All audiobooks created by virtual voice, the post says, will be clearly labeled and, as with any audiobook, customers can listen to samples.

“We are excited to introduce a new option for customers and authors,” said Amazon spokesperson Lindsay Hamilton. “Virtual voice gives authors more choices to create audiobooks and will deliver greater selection to customers.”

The new virtual voice option complements Audible’s existing Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), which matches audio rightsholders (authors, agents, publishers) with audio producers (narrators and studio professionals). KDP said that it plans to grow the virtual voice beta test over time, and will share updates in the coming months.

Link to the rest at Publishers Weekly

PG says it was only a matter of time.

Lots of very nice people earn a living or supplement their income from other sources by working as readers of audiobooks. As with all human endeavors, some do a better job than others. Regular audiobook listeners will sometimes choose an audiobook because they have heard the voice artist before and like his/her voice and style.

That said, the voice artist is a means to an end – turning a written story/account into a spoken version of the original.

PG hasn’t listened to any of the KDP books created using virtual voice narration, but he’s likely to try one out fairly soon.

Assuming that the quality is reasonable, there are some benefits the indie author can reap from audiobooks.

There is no delay between the roll-out of the printed book and ebook and the release of the audiobook. Authors need not delay KDP print and digital to wait for the creation of the audiobook if they wish to announce audio and print/electronic at the same time.

To be certain that a human reading a book aloud has not made any embarrassing blunders in pronunciations of non-standard or foreign words, an audio proofreader may be hired to check the audiobook. Presumably, at least after working through early-product glitches, the virtual voices will produce highly-predictable results.

Finally, of course, there is the cost of an audiobook with a human narrator vs. the cost of an audiobook produced with digital narration. Absent some sort of promotional pricing, human-performed audiobooks typically cost more than the paperback versions and much more than the ebook versions.

As mentioned in previous posts, PG’s exposure to audiobooks is quite limited because, boorish Neanderthal that he is, he consumes ebooks at a much faster pace than he is able to injest any other format.

So, he would be interested in the opinions of serious ebook readers about virtual narrators vs. narrators who inhale from time to time.

UK: Society of Authors Questions Spotify’s Publisher Deals

From Publishing Perspectives:

In a statement provided to Publishing Perspectives for today’s report (October 11), the 12,400-member Society of Authors in London is expressing “deep concern” in learning from press reports last week that ‘all major book publishers’ have agreed new limited streaming deals with Spotify.’”

As our readership knows, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek led an invitational press conference on October 3, announcing the opening in Australia and the United Kingdom of its premium audiobook offer. The move is said by the company to make available at least 150,000 audiobooks as part of Spotify Premium subscriptions, subscribers receiving 15 hours of listening time monthly.

As Anne Steele pointed out in her article for the Wall Street Journal, Spotify says it has made agreements with the Big Five publishing houses and many independent publishers.

“As far as we are aware,” the society’s leadership writes, “no authors or agents have been approached for permission for such licenses, and authors have not been consulted on license or payment terms.”

“Publishing contracts differ but in our view, most licenses given to publishers for licensing of audio do not include streaming. In fact, it is likely that streaming was not a use that had been invented when many such contracts were entered into.”

. . . .

“We know the devastating effect that music streaming has had on artists’ incomes,” the Society’s statement reads, “and the impact of streaming and subscription video on demand platforms on screenwriter incomes and their working conditions. We have long been concerned about streaming models for books.

“The streaming of audiobooks competes directly with sales and is even more damaging than music streaming because books are typically only read once, while music is often streamed many times.”

. . . .

The organization references Sian Bayley’s October 3 announcement story at The Bookseller in making its point.

In that article, as the Society of Authors points out, Bayley wrote, “Book publishers have long expressed reservations about subscription deals for digital content, but Spotify has offered variations of the typical pooled income arrangement, with a more limited offer that publishers believe will assure agents and authors that their income streams will not be undermined.”

The Society of Authors statement goes on even to allude to what might be an appearance of collusion, writing, “Authors and agents have simply not been contacted about such offers, let alone reassured. The fact that all major publishers have entered such arrangements at the same time seems to raise questions that perhaps should be reported to the competition authorities.”

The Society of Authors then concludes with a concise list of what it sees as its requirements in this development. It writes, “We demand that all publishers:

  • “Inform their authors and agents with full transparency about the deals they have negotiated, to seek permission in full respect of their right not to give permission and to remove their books from the Spotify catalogue.
  • “Negotiate an appropriate share of the receipts on a clear and equitable payment model, which should equate to no less than the amount that would be received from a sale of the same audiobook.
  • “Ensure that with all licenses that Spotify applies frictions, as with e-lending, such as time limited loans and guarantees of payment, whatever proportion of the book is read.
  • “Ensure that licenses are time limited and should not allow sublicensing or use on other platforms.
  • “Indemnify authors if the unauthorized use conflicts with existing film or other such deals, or if it leads to claims of copyright infringement by rights holders of quotations or images included in that.
  • “Ensure that licenses include safeguards to prevent pirating of authors’ and narrators’ works and voices including for use in AI systems.”

The controversy here is based in serious considerations about how authors, their literary agents, publishers, and distributors handle the agreements behind the kind of offer Spotify and others may make to consumers for streaming access to copyrighted content.

Link to the rest at Publishing Perspectives

PG doesn’t know more about the details of the streaming agreements signed by publishers or how publishers think they are entitled to grant licenses to Spotify for streaming or how publishers intend to compensate authors and audiobook narrators for the rights they are purporting to grant to Spotify.

PG speculates that publishers have the idea that there is no real difference between the sale of audiobooks under existing publishing agreements with authors and narrators and what they’re planning to do with Spotify.

Will revenues received by the publisher from Spotify be broken down by author and book title? What happens when a Spotify user streams 20% of an audiobook? In a more conventional audiobook sales environment, when a reader acquires an audiobook, the reader pays a lump sum and the author’s royalties are calculated and paid as a percentage of that sum.

A typical publishing contract permits the author to conduct an audit of the publisher’s sales records for the books the publisher has under contract. Typically, the author is entitled to perform the audit in person or designate an individual, individuals or an accounting firm (usually through its auditing department) to perform the audit on behalf of the author.

PG has always believed that the audit rights in a publishing contract include not only the sales records of the publisher with respect to the author’s books but all of the contracts the publishers have made with book wholesalers, bookstores and bookstore chains, etc.

Audiobooks have their own licensing issues that are different from those for printed books and ebooks.

The right to create and sell an audiobook is a derivative right owned by the author of a book and can be licensed by the author separately from the license to “sell” an ebook or a printed book.

An audiobook requires a narrator. Absent a contract stating differently, the narrator has exclusive rights to the audio narration he/she has performed.

Someone needs to create a recording of the narrator. Whoever creates the recording – turning on an audio recorder or overseeing the recording process as it takes place to make certain the recording is audible and meets commercial standards for the audiobook industry. The creator of the recording is the owner of that recording, absent a written contract granting the author or publisher the ownership rights to the recording, including the right to create duplicate recordings that can be sold/licensed to audiobook purchasers.

If music or bits of music are added to the audio, the composer and performers of the music are the owners of their own creation and performance rights, etc. etc.

3 Publishing Trends You Must Know in 2024

From Entrepreneur:

What was the last book or novel you read? Was it full of action and adventure? A steamy, slow-burning romance? Maybe it was the tale of a successful business owner or entrepreneur. Or was it the tell-all from a famous entertainment icon?

More importantly, What format was that story in? The traditional way of reading a story these days has drifted from the standard paperback or hardcover physical book to that of eBooks, audiobooks and even videos.

Translation?

The way we read has changed. And that change is not in just how we access the reading material. I’m going to explain 3 of the most insane trends happening in the world of publishing that will change the way you read in 2024.

Trend #1 — The explosion of eBooks

In 2020, 191 million eBooks were purchasedThis shouldn’t be a surprise, considering that the world was in the midst of a global pandemic. But this statistic has actually been growing steadily since about 2019.

The popularity of Amazon’s Kindle helped to drive that, with 84% of people reading those purchased eBooks on the device. Additionally, 23% of the $26 billion publishing industry in 2020 came from eBook purchases.

While the pandemic helped boost eBooks even higher, the impact of digital reading will only grow into 2024. Why? There are several reasons:

  • Convenience – readers can start reading immediately after purchase, without the need to leave the office or home.
  • Accessibility – to add to convenience, accessibility is also what’s helped to make eBooks a popular choice. eBooks come in various formats – PDF, ePUB and MOBI – and many are designed to handle and use assistive technology for those with disabilities.
  • Portability – the portable nature of eBooks means you can take an entire library anywhere you go. The Kindle is a popular device. However, thanks to its mobile app, anyone with a smartphone can access their library on whatever device – Mac, PC, iPhone, or Android – they prefer.
  • Customization – perfect for students at all levels, eBooks can mark up passages for quick reference, notes, annotations and even website links.

Trend #2 – Can you hear me now?

The convenience and portability of eBooks make them the perfect companion while on vacation or for a relaxing evening. But what if you don’t have time to sit and relax with a good book? Our hectic daily lives, both in and outside of work, can often make enjoying leisurely activities difficult to come by. So, while you may want to read, you probably don’t have the time or energy to settle down with a good book.

Enter the audiobook.

Audiobooks might seem like a new invention thanks to the growth in technology, but they’ve had a long life, starting in 1932. Actually, the American Foundation for the Blind established a recording studio, creating recordings of books on vinyl records.

This continued into the early 1990s when the term ‘audiobook’ became a standard to explain these recordings — the year 1995 introduced the debut of the soon-to-be audiobook giant Audible. Started by Donald Katz and Tim Mottthe two took the initial idea of the audiobook and began to develop it for the growing internet.

Two years later, the company released a mobile player, allowing people to listen while on the go. It wasn’t as popular or cheap as the emerging iPod, but it was a glimpse at what could be. Two years after that, Amazon became the strategic partner for Audible and the rest, as they say, is history.

Since then, searches for ‘audible’ have risen over the last 15 years by 167%, with revenue growing 14.3% year over year. While holding most of the eBook market, Amazon also hosts about 200,000 audiobooks through Audible.

In combination, the explosion of both eBooks and audiobooks will ultimately continue – especially as more publishers develop their works to accommodate the technology.

Link to the rest at Entrepreneur

PG understands that most of the OP is old news to regular visitors to TPV, but it’s nice to know that the word may be getting around to a wider audience.

Audiobooks: Reading allowed – Commuter boredom turned billion-dollar industry

From Quartz:

Thomas Edison dreamed of audiobooks.

When Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, he tested his new device by reciting the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” That wasn’t highbrow literature, but Edison felt that the recorded form would lend itself well to full-length books, too—and that some books, perhaps, were meant to be heard rather than seen. “The advantages of such books over those printed are too readily seen to need mention,” Edison wrote in the literary journal North American Review. “Such books would be listened to where now none are read.”

The phonograph, and later the record player, was instrumental in spurring the music industry, but the audiobook business didn’t sprout up until a full century after Edison’s invention.

Now, they’re a billion-dollar industry, a normalized way for readers to consume books, and an unavoidable facet of literary life. In 2022, audiobooks brought in $1.8 billion in the US on the heels of a decade of double-digit revenue growth and corporate investment (not only by major publishers but also tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Spotify.)

So, what can stop audiobooks from becoming the future of reading? Nothing. Audiobooks are versatile, enriching, transformative and—at times—really fun. So leave any prejudice that it’s not real reading at home.

. . . .

A driving ambition

In 1975, Duvall Hecht was frustrated and bored by his long daily commutes between his home in Newport Beach, Calif., and his investment banking job in Los Angeles.

Hecht, a former Olympic gold medalist in rowing, found what we could call early audiobooks: recordings of books made for blind people. He popped the recordings into a reel-to-reel tape recorder placed on his passenger seat, but quickly exhausted his supply.

He figured he’d just record his own on cassette. He started with nonfiction—George Plimpton’s football tale Paper Lion, which became the first of a massive catalog produced by his new company, Books on Tape.

Books on Tape became a household name and a pioneer of the form. Hecht sold his company—and its catalog of 6,000 tapes—to publisher Random House for $20 million in 2001.

. . . .

One of the biggest annoyances for any audiobook reader is the constant insinuation—by, well, haters—that listening to audiobooks doesn’t “count” as reading.

In fact, we’ve been hardwired through the ages to read aloud—and to listen when others read aloud to us. In Saint Augustine’s Confessions (published around 400 CE), he remarked how strange it was that Saint Ambrose read silently to himself. So, what’s with the snobbishness around audiobooks? Is it something about the way we understand the words being conveyed? Unfortunately, there isn’t robust academic research into reader comprehension of audiobooks as compared to print books, though numerous studies show that audiobooks are a boon to new language learners, struggling visual readers, and younger readers.

. . . .

If you’re listening to an audiobook, there’s a decent chance it’s on Amazon’s platform Audible, which commands a 65% market share, according to one estimate. Apple and Google are players too, selling books as one-offs instead of Audible’s subscription model. But another subscription giant is getting into the arena—Spotify.

Spotify launched its audiobooks business in 2022, but clashed with Apple over the iPhone maker’s 30% fee for in-app purchases. For its next act, Spotify is going to let subscribers listen to 20 hours of audiobooks per month before rolling out any new subscriptions. (One fitting listen is musician Dave Grohl reading his memoir The Storyteller in just over 10 hours.) This will buy Spotify some time as it figures out the best way to get its subscribers hooked on audiobooks without losing a big bite of the proceeds to Apple.

If the business of audiobooks is a headache, or subscribing stresses your digital wallet, there’s a much cheaper way to listen: Check whether your local library uses Libby or another app—and get your audiobooks for free.

Link to the rest at Quartz

European Publishers See Audiobooks, AI as Inevitabilities

From Publisher’s Weekly:

The Readmagine publishing conference ran from June 7-9 in Madrid, featuring an A-list of publishing pros.

. . . .

The boom in audiobook sales, which continues to transform the landscape across Europe, was a point of conversation. Enrico Turrin, deputy director of the Federation of European Publishers, told the audience that when all the data from FEP’s members is in, audiobooks are likely to account for as much as 4-5% of sales. This shift follows that in the U.S., where Michele Cobb, executive director of the Audiobook Publishers Association, noted that the U.S. has seen 11 years of double-digit growth. “Now, 53% of the U.S. population has listened to an audiobook,” Cobb said.

Cobb noted that there was a potential shift in prevailing business models, moving from a credits-based system to the all-you-can-consume model. “There is growth in both areas,” she said. Discovery too is changing as new consumers are increasingly finding books on TikTok – “you might call it AudioTok,” Cobb said. People are building online communities around listening to audiobooks, but like with print, “the biggest challenge is marketing” and many publishers are “using influencers to do their marketing.”

Kurt Thielen, CEO at audiobook publisher Zebralution, said that he was seeing the market shift in Germany, where the company is based. “We’re seeing people do an audiobook with everything, from books to magazines to personal brand content. It’s a fundamental change in the marketing approach.” Thielen said that short, 30-minute episodic serialization is becoming more prevalent.

Growth for audiobooks has been strong across most demographics, but the born-digital Gen Z – those 18-28 years old—are showing a preference for audiobooks over digital reading, said Shauna Moran, trends manager for Global Web Index, an U.K. based consultancy. “68% of European Gen Zers say they prefer audio books to e-books,” and “28% regularly listen to podcasts.” Moran noted that the content Gen Z preferred was “engaging and goal oriented” – meaning self-help and publishers of DIY content might have an opportunity with short form audio. As far as discovery goes, there was no surprise when she referenced the power of TikTok to persuade readers. “People want to be told what to [read],” she said.

Matt Locke, director of Storythings, a media consultancy from the U.K., concurred. He went on to say that future innovation in publishing would require some tangential thinking, insofar as the past patterns of consumption are evolving into a situation where people want “everything, everywhere all at once,” which has helped fuel the shift from “visual to listening.”

When it comes to innovation from inside the established publishing industry, HarperCollins’s Restivo-Alessi, was part of a panel that tried to peer into the future. The panelists made several observations. They saw the possibility of famous authors, following in the footsteps of Swiss bestseller Joel Dicker and fantasy novelist Brandon Sanderson, going the self-publishing route; and authors merging genres, such as romance and fantasy becoming “romantacy,” which was already a big trend as of Frankfurt 2022.

Unsurprisingly, AI was a main point of discussion, with the panel referencing a variety of ways the industry has already been impacted, from the launch of Reedz, an AI-powered translation company based in Sweden; Bookwire’s incorporation of ChatGPT into its platform; and the launch of Sudowrite, AI-powered writing software. Restivo-Alessi quoted HC CEO Brian Murray’s speech at the London Book Fair earlier this year, noting that “AI is both an opportunity and a risk.” It offers publishers a chance to streamline some editorial and marketing tasks, such as the production of metadata and production of social media posts, but also threatens the integrity of “human-centric storytelling.”

Link to the rest at Publisher’s Weekly

As PG has said before, he sees AI voices replacing humans very quickly, but takes no pleasure in the disruption of the lives and businesses of human voice actors.

That said, AI for ebooks will provide a great many benefits to publishers and self-publishers. AI will do the job much faster, enabling indie authors to publish ebooks, hard copy and audiobooks at the same time or stage the entry of each of those versions of the book if that appears to be a better way of maximizing revenue and profits.

PG expects to see creators of AI voices wanting to monetize their investments in building and perfecting text to speech, but he predicts that there will be a whole lot of competitors in text to speech showing up in a hurry and, at least some systems designers, perhaps academics, who will make an text to speech AI widely available at no charge or much lower charges than commercial versions of that service.

One interesting issue PG predicts will surface relatively quickly with AI narrators vs. human narrators will be a squeezing out of humans in this process for both cost and time-to-market benefits.

Where to Start with Audiobook Publishing

From Publisher’s Weekly:

Over the past seven years, consumer interest in spoken-word content and audiobooks has risen dramatically. This increase has been well documented. In 2022, the “Edison Research Spoken Word” report found that the number of Americans who listened to spoken-word content daily had increased (26 million more in 2021 than in 2014, to be exact). Audiobooks played a major part in that growth, and audiobook publishers, including the audio divisions of the Big Five, have benefited greatly.

Simultaneously, over the past decade, self-published authors and indie publishers have increased their title output, yet many have found that audiobooks are not as easy to get to consumers as e-books and physical books. These content owners have to navigate a confusing ecosystem in order to get their audiobooks into the ears of listeners.

Authors and publishers must think carefully about who their partners should be to truly succeed in the audiobook market, especially given the healthy competition in the retail and library sectors. Apple, Chirp, and Spotify are just a few examples of outlets now competing with Audible, while Hoopla and OverDrive have led the growth in libraries.

When independent publishers and self-published authors enter the audiobook fray, they are often overwhelmed. Suddenly, they discover that they must become casting directors, proofers, marketers, metadata optimizers, and sales account managers for a format that is often completely new and unfamiliar to them. There are distribution platforms that give access to the audiobook market, but they’re no substitute for audiobook publishers’ years of experience.

What is the best approach for publishers and authors to take advantage of opportunities in the audio market? I strongly suggest that they establish partnerships with experienced audiobook publishers. I have been on both the retailer and publisher sides of the audiobook industry, and I have seen that established audiobook publishers know how to position, price, sell, and market titles.

Success is best achieved in audio via a partnership between an author or an indie house and an audiobook publisher, such as Dreamscape, that lets each side do what they do best. Where the author and print publisher have amazing content, the audiobook publisher has the connections and resources to amplify that content in audio. And where the author has a platform and reader base, the audiobook publisher can provide additional marketing tips to gain visibility not only with listeners but also with key distribution outlets. It’s a matter of finding the right audiobook publisher.

Link to the rest at Publisher’s Weekly

The Voices audiobook listening trends throws up interesting facts and figures

From Good EReader:

In an ever-evolving digital landscape dominated by short, snackable videos, there has been a notable surge in the popularity of long-form audio content as a counterbalance to the overwhelming volume of social media content. Recent research conducted by Sonic Insights, a leading analytics firm specializing in the audio industry, reveals that 61% of surveyed Americans have indulged in the pleasure of audiobooks within the past year.

Impressively, as a Voices survey revealed, a significant majority of American audiobook enthusiasts (83%) devote between 1 to 10 hours per week to their beloved audio literary experiences. Projections from SoundScape Analytics, a renowned market research firm specializing in publishing, indicate that the audiobook industry will continue to flourish and is expected to reach a staggering worth of approximately $35.05 billion by 2030.

Keen on understanding the listening habits and preferences of American audiobook aficionados, VoxWave Insights conducted an extensive survey, gathering insights into the trends that are likely to shape the future of this burgeoning industry. Their recently published 2023 Trends Report sheds light on the growing prominence of “audio routines” as an integral part of people’s daily lives. Unlike traditional content consumption, audio-based experiences offer a liberating hands-free, and eyes-free engagement, allowing individuals to entertain themselves or absorb knowledge beyond the confines of screens or printed books.

Audiobooks have consistently been expanding their foothold in the audio landscape, witnessing a remarkable 106% increase in the overall listening time since 2017. When participants were asked to rank various audio experiences including music, podcasts, AM or FM radio, and news, it was intriguing to note that audiobooks claimed the second spot in terms of overall preference, ranking higher than podcasts and trailing only behind music.

The survey findings revealed that half of the audiobook enthusiasts (50%) dedicate 1-4 hours per week to their cherished audio literature, while an enthusiastic one-third (33%) devote 5-10 hours weekly to their immersive audiobook experiences. When respondents were asked about the situations in which they were most likely to hit the play button on an audiobook, commuting or traveling emerged as the popular choice, with 63% indicating that they prefer to listen to audiobooks while on the move.

Unsurprisingly, avid audiobook listeners exhibit a profound affinity for audio content in general. According to the Audio Publishers Association, those who engage with audiobooks on a daily basis spend at least an additional 2 hours each day consuming other forms of audio content compared to the general population.

Convenience and portability emerged as the primary reasons for audiobook enthusiasts to opt for this format. Two-thirds of respondents cited the convenience of multitasking while enjoying audiobooks, allowing them to experience literature while having their hands free to tackle other tasks. Furthermore, just under one-third (31%) appreciated the audio format for its ability to help them stay focused on the content.

Apart from convenience, the audiobook format also serves as an inclusive medium for accessing literature. It provides an avenue for a diverse range of individuals, including those with physical, mental, or neurological limitations that hinder traditional reading, to engage with books. This includes individuals with visual impairments, those who struggle with extended periods of sitting or holding a book, or individuals with attention span difficulties. Audiobooks serve as a valuable resource, enabling them to immerse themselves in books despite the challenges associated with conventional reading methods.

. . . .

However, the reception of AI-narrated books among listeners remains somewhat uncertain. More than half of the surveyed audiobook enthusiasts (55%) have yet to experience an AI-narrated book, while 21% expressed uncertainty about whether they had encountered one. Only 24% of listeners were confident that they had previously listened to an audiobook narrated by AI.

Link to the rest at Good EReader

How To Become An Audiobook Narrator: 5 Vital Skills

From The Write Life:

Becoming an audiobook narrator can open an array of opportunities and take you places you haven’t considered possible. For example, imagine narrating for one of your favorite authors or being paid to read books aloud!

If you dream of working as an audiobook narrator you’ve come to the right place. In this article we’ll cover the equipment you need to do the job and review five key skills to develop as you begin your journey. Lastly, you’ll find options for finding your first audiobook narrator job. Let’s get going!

. . . .

Audiobook Narrator: 5 Skills Needed

Now that you know some of the equipment you will need, it’s time to discuss the soft skills that help set you apart from other audiobook narrators. 

Public Speaking

Public speaking is often viewed as a “public” career—after all, it is in the name. However, public speaking is an immeasurably helpful training ground for the private career of audiobook narration. 

The more opportunity you have to speak in public, the better you will be able to articulate your words under pressure. 

Voice, Tone, Inflection

Just as the speaking voice, chosen tone, and the various inflections you choose impact how others perceive you in conversation, the same is true for audiobook narration. 

Imagine reading a thriller in a happy, comedic tone. Your voice would not reflect the content you are reading. Mastering these three aspects is crucial to lasting success as an audiobook narrator. 

Acting Classes 

With the idea of inflection in mind, think back to the last time you heard someone read aloud. Did they impersonate the characters they read with their tone? If they were reading a narrative, did they speak softly in appropriate parts and raise their voice in others? 

As much as acting is about gestures and facial expression, much of the subtext in our favorite movies comes from tone. Consider the following dialogue: 

“I would love to take you on a date tomorrow evening.”
“Would you?”
“Well yes, of course.” 

These three lines could be read as a joke, sarcasm, or genuine. Audiobook narration is acting without facial expression. 

Self-Awareness

I took a speech class in college and the feedback I received most was to slow down my speeches. I talked too fast and although people enjoyed my content, they struggled to understand me because of my pacing. 

Self-awareness is a valuable asset, particularly for audiobook narrators. If you are aware you are speaking too fast, too slow, or not adding enough inflection then you can make the necessary changes. 

Research Skills 

Have you ever been reading and stumbled across an unfamiliar word? This is an audiobook narrator’s nightmare. Honing your research skills can help you proactively avoid these issues. When choosing to become an audiobook narrator, invest in educating yourself on a myriad of topics, particularly concerning the genre you would like to record. 

Even if you plan to be an audiobook narrator for sports memoirs, familiarizing yourself with a variety of topics will help your recording process run smoothly. You never know what illustrations or examples a writer may use!

Link to the rest at The Wright Life

Just What Makes An Audiobook “Original”?

From Publishing Trends:

Though still a fraction of the overall book market, audiobooks continue their double-digit annual growth: the global audiobooks market is expected to reach $35.04 billion by 2030, and U.S. audiobook sales topped ebook sales for the second year in a row. At last count, more than seventy-five thousand titles have been published, a number that will dramatically increase as AI narration brings cost and production time down.

Most audiobooks are narrated renditions of already-published print or ebooks, but the category’s success has led to increased experimentation, with “audiobook originals” or “audio first” productions gaining traction — and fans.

But defining what makes an audiobook an “original” is not easy. Audible co-opted the term early on to describe any title that was its “exclusive,” regardless of whether it had a print life as well. When we talked to a range of producers, publishers and industry vets about this, it became clear that, as Joy Smith, Head of Audio at Rebel Girls admitted, this is a “hazy” term.

Audible notwithstanding, most agree that audiobook originals are released exclusively in audio format, without a corresponding print or ebook version. There seem to be some broad rules; these audiobook originals are (often):

  • An author’s first foray into another genre or medium
  • Written specifically for audio format OR reimagined as an audiobook
  • Frequently (but not always) shorter in length (3-5 hours) than typical audiobooks
  • “Immersive” — produced with music and sound effects, multiple voices, better production quality, etc.
  • A way to connect to fans who may not have listened to audiobooks, e.g. podcast enthusiasts, book and ebook readers, fans of the author’s music, acting, comedy, etc.
  • A way to get to market quickly (a production timeline of four vs. twelve-plus months)

Smith says that originals “written with audio-first in mind are a different craft.” Whether that’s a podcast that is edited for an audiobook audience, or written specifically as an audiobook, it’s a different beast from a text-first project.  (Rebel Girls’ own podcast program is “Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls.”)

She believes that, as with print books, “if you have a good story, that’s what brings the audience” —though, she adds, nothing happens without discoverability. Many we spoke to admit that Audible is the main conduit for audiobook sales, approaching 90% of market share, though some listeners go to AppleKobo, or (through libraries) Overdrive.

Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House are among those publishers that are devoting more resources to creating audiobooks that originate outside of the traditional text-based book-ebook-audiobook formula. S&S’s Lara Blackman is focusing on these originals: “This is a good way to introduce podcast listeners to audiobooks, or when introducing authors and franchises to a new audience.” For example, Star Trek: No Man’s Land was a tie-in with the tv show. And S&S just published William Kent Krueger’The Levee, a novella, as an original audiobook. Kruger explains on his author page that “storytelling is an oral tradition…When writing a story, I read that story out loud, both as I’m composing it and when it’s completed. To me, a good story ought to flow easily off the tongue. And when I listen to the words, the sentences, the paragraphs, I hear not only the clunk that ought not to be there (so that I can edit it out) but also the beauty in the cadences I’ve created, the truth of the scenes I’ve imagined, the reality of the characters I’ve created with nothing but words.” That’s a ringing endorsement of audio (and his work).

No one is quite sure when publishers started creating “originals,” but Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, released in 2015 and featuring an original musical score and large cast (including Michael Sheen as Lucifer), is one of the best known in this category. Other examples of recent well-known recordings include PRH Audio’s publication of Erik Larson’s No One Goes Alone, his first-ever work of fiction; Audible’s production of Dolly Parton’s memoir-set-to-songs, Dolly Parton, Songteller; and S&S’s original “Audio Drama,” Star Trek: Picard.

Link to the rest at Publishing Trends

Audiobooks Are Thriving, but Could AI Take Over?

From CNet:

Stomachs gurgle. That’s normal. Sometimes, if there’s a mic nearby, those burbles and gurgles get picked up.

AI audiobook narrators don’t have to worry about strange gastrointestinal noises, but Leah Allers and engineer Craig Hinkle aren’t bots. They’re human beings, recording for Nashville Audio Productions in mid-January, fretting about gurgles, discussing where to put the emphasis on the word “increase” and tending to the detailed work of giving a “real” voice to a book about how couples communicate. 

NAP’s studio is at the Rukkus Room in Nashville, Tennessee, the same place Taylor Swift recorded her seven-time platinum, self-titled debut album. The smell of coffee permeates the waiting room. Hinkle is tuned in to every word coming out of Allers’ mouth, glancing from an iPad with the book’s text to a large monitor sitting on the soundboard in the studio.

“I want to get some more emotions in these questions,” Allers tells Hinkle before restarting a section of a chapter. 

Audiobooks are booming. The market is expected to hit $33.5 billion by 2030, up from about $4.2 billion in 2021, according to Acumen Research and Consulting. Whether this is an offshoot of the rise in popularity of podcasts, a matter of listening convenience or a byproduct of the pandemic, it hasn’t escaped the attention of tech companies and the inevitable creep of artificial intelligence. 

. . . .

Tech companies including Apple and Google have been working on AI audiobook narration for a while now. In 2022, Google rolled out its services to publishers in six countries, including the US and Canada. Google’s AI narrators have names like Archie, who sounds British, and Santiago, who speaks Spanish. In early January, Apple introduced a stable of AI voices with names like Madison and Jackson, that authors and indie publishers selling their books on Apple Books can tap to read genres from nonfiction to romance. 

The increasing presence of AI in audiobook narration has human narrators like Tanya Eby in various stages of stress. 

“I don’t know if, in five years, this will be my full-time gig anymore,” said Eby, a Grand Rapids, Michigan-based narrator who’s recorded more than 1,000 books in the last 21 years.

Narrators like Eby say their humanity is exactly what helps them do their jobs. Particularly with fiction, narrators make decisions about everything from a character’s voice to how to communicate nuance and emotion in a way that mirrors the story. 

“If a character is sobbing after the death of their father, I have to convey those tears and gasps in her speech,” said Kathleen Li, an Austin, Texas-based narrator.

Narrators describe the intimacy of being a voice in a listener’s ear, and wonder if even the most lifelike AI will fall into the uncanny valley. The danger, they worry, is disrupting the experience.

AI voices can range from stilted to quite convincing. But even the most fluid can set off those uncanny valley tripwires with a delivery or pacing that sounds off. 

Link to the rest at CNet and thanks to F. for the tip.

PG claims no expertise in audiobooks although he has listened to several, generally on long trips in the car with Mrs. PG.

That said, his understanding is that an audiobook narrator doesn’t interpret the book – give a performance like a voice actor does – but rather provides a pleasant narrative that doesn’t intrude into the story being experienced by the reader/listener.

From Gravy for the Brain:

What Is Voice Over?

Voice over also known as voice acting, is part art, part perspiration and a whole lot of practice. In this post, we are going to give you an insight into the amazing, exciting and fun world of voice acting and becoming a voice-over artist.

When we think about what is voice acting, we often hit the first problem. People don’t realise how often they hear voice acting in their everyday lives.

Voice acting is extremely varied so, let’s, first of all, establish: “what is voice over?”

It is commonly believed that the first voiceover was created by Walt Disney for Mickey Mouse in “Steamboat Willie.” Although this was in 1928, in reality, the first voice-over was performed in 1900! This historical first belongs to Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian inventor. He was thrilled with Alexander Graham Bell’s new device, the telephone, and set out to create a way to remotely communicate without wires. The beginning of “Wireless!”.

In 1900, working for the United States Weather Bureau, Fessenden recorded the very first voice over:  reporting the weather.

It is generally accepted that he was the first voice on the radio. In Boston, in 1906, during the Christmas season, he recorded an entire program of music, Bible texts, and Christmas messages to ships out at sea.

What is voice over acting then?

Well, as communications developed, voice acting became more common in radio, animated cartoons, etc. The actors behind those voices were rarely known by the public with perhaps the exception of the eponymous Mel Blanc, a radio personality and comedian. He became known as “The Man of 1000 Voices” for his versatility and is the voice on many cartoons that were made and distributed by Warner Brothers.

One of the most influential and prolific voice-over artists of all time is not commonly known by the public, but very well known in the industry. This is Don LaFontaine, who began voice acting in 1962, recording VO for a movie trailer.

He became the voice of movie trailers and the sound of the cinema for a generation of moviegoers, setting the gold standard for how they were written and voiced.

While voice-over acting has grown into being a recognised career path, it still remains unseen and largely unknown by most people. Most voice-over work is still done by classically trained actors who often use voice acting to fill gaps in-between jobs. However, voice acting is increasingly getting noticed and gaining recognition as true performance art and profession in its own right.

Famous actors have gained huge amounts of publicity from box-office animation successes such as those produced by Pixar and Disney. Actors like Liam Nielsen have essentially played leading roles in films through their voice, he was the Lion in Narnia series. People now expect well-known actors to be in animated films. Of course, there are other benefits. Studios can use the name of the stars that appear in the animated films to globally promote these films.

. . . .

Voice Over Announcers can be heard introducing segments of live television or radio broadcasts such as; award shows, talk shows, continuity, promo and sporting events.
Voice Over Narrators often specialise in audiobooks, documentaries, explainer videos, educational videos, business videos, medical videos and act as audio tour guides.
Voice Actors are heard performing in animated movies, TV cartoons, radio dramas, ADR, video games, puppet shows and in foreign language dubbing.
Voiceover Artists are versatile performers, able to weave interchangeably between any of the above as well as direct telephone prompts (IVR), they can be heard welcoming visitors to a website, or guiding road trips as the voice of a GPS.

Voice Talent refers to all of the above. The term was coined as an easy way to reference all types of voice-over performers and is often used by agencies or companies that hire voice overs.

. . . .

Some well-known voiceovers by type of work:

  • movies – Star Wars: Darth Vader – James Earl Jones
  • Animated Movies – Toy Story: Woody – Tom Hanks
  • Animated TV – The Simpsons – Hank Azaria
  • X-Factor UK and 2012 Olympic Games – Peter Dickson
  • Commercials (UK) – The Meerkat Comparethemarket – Simon Greenall
  • Promos TV (USA) – Joe Cipriano
  • Reality TV (UK) – Marcus Bentley – Big Brother

Link to the rest at Gravy for the Brain

So, here’s a question from PG: Would James Earl Jones make a good audiobook narrator?

The Research (Part Two) AI Audio

From Kristine Kathryn Rusch:

I just spent a half fun few hours and a half pain in the patootie few hours. As I mentioned in the previous post, I’ve been working on AI audio. I decided I’d make a decision on the preliminary service this week.

I figured I’d do a lot of audio versions of the test blog, each from a different site. But the terms of service on some sites scared me off. On others, it was the pricing. Not the introductory pricing, but the pricing that WMG needed.

The Enterprise Tier of many of those services, which is the tier WMG would need, are often eye-crossingly expensive. Many of them include services that we don’t need…at least at the moment.

A number of the services sounded great, until I looked at how many hours of audio I would get for the price. A few of the services, in beta, were really expensive. I’d rather pay a voice actor than pay for these services.

So I ended up trying only one service, Murf. It has a good TOS (at the moment, anyway). It gave me ten free completed minutes of audio. I only used 1:17 minutes.

The free service did not let me clone my voice (not that I would have at this juncture), although I could have tried a simulation. Instead, I had the choice of two middle-aged female voices or half a dozen female young adult voices. I could also have at least two middle-aged male voices, and a bunch of middle aged young adult voices.

I chose the least objectionable middle-aged female voice, and played.

I had to work with pronunciation on some expected things, like my last name, and some unexpected things, like PayPal. The voice, at a neutral speed, sounded robotic, so I sped her up.

As I noted in the text, I had to change a number of things for clarity. I will have to do some of the audio blogs differently than I do the text blogs, which really isn’t a problem.

All in all, it took me 30 minutes to learn the system and create the 1:17 minutes of audio. I could have done the same on one of my audio programs, using my own voice, in half that time.

But I don’t expect the audio version of the blog to take longer than 30 minutes to set up. Most of that 30 minutes was me learning the program. Not a big deal, actually, and it wasn’t that hard.

I was surprised, actually. I thought it would be more difficult. Instead, I had fun.

. . . .

In my AI Audio research, I found a lot of really good programs. Almost all of them wanted me to email them or contact them by phone to do voice cloning. Which means that voice cloning is expensive.

At the moment, I’m not into expensive. I’m going to pay a little for some of these services because I want to do the blog and a few other things, but I am not going to pay a lot.

I’m going to wait on voice cloning.

I liked what I saw from Murf.ai, and I had fun playing with their system. It didn’t take long, as I mentioned above, and the sound was good enough. (I didn’t spend extra time tweaking it, since I wasn’t sure if I was going to use the program.)

Link to the rest at Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Kris’s experience with AI narration (it’s worth reading the entire OP if you’re thinking about it) is similar to PG’s. Kris was more systematic in her exploration than PG was, but her conclusions were the same as PG’s – professional book narrators (and, to a lesser extent right now, voice actors) have a lot to be worried about with AI.

If you would like to get an audiobook completed quickly, AI is the clear winner. Absent some foreign language or very obscure words in the manuscript, AI of commercial quality should do a perfect first take almost every time. You don’t need to pay for a recording engineer or studio rental, either.

If AI works for audiobooks, PG would expect the cost of audiobooks to plunge. Effectively, an audiobook is a bunch of electrons, just like an ebook, and the storage and distribution of electrons over the internet is very inexpensive these days.

Here’s a link to Kris Rusch’s books. If you like the thoughts Kris shares, you can show your appreciation by checking out her books.

Pivot to … Something? The Blurry Future of Podcasting

From The Hollywood Reporter:

As top podcast executives and creators gathered at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn for the Hot Pod Summit on Feb. 23, a question seemed to underlie each conversation: As the industry seeks an injection of new energy amid an advertising market correction and creators experiment with formats like video, what really is a podcast these days — and how will people make money?

In various conversations with studio executives and creators, a common refrain were the difficulties of turning a profit on podcasting alone. Even Spotify, which recently revised its podcast leadership (again) and had layoffs and show cancelations in its podcast division, is reevaluating its spending after pouring more than $1 billion into licensing deals and acquisitions in the past few years.

As such, repackaging audio content and seeking out derivatives like film and TV adaptations could be the key to actually making good money in podcasting, especially now that the megadeals of recent years are getting rarer and podcasters are feeling the pressure to seek out more ad dollars from bigger buyers to keep the lights on long term. And all of this isn’t even to acknowledge the creative ambitions around podcasting, where creators want to produce expensive, buzzy narrative projects that can have a tangible impact on policy or public conversation but may have a harder time receiving funding and support compared to the more assured successes of cheaper, always-on chat shows.

But the move toward new formats was hard to ignore, especially as Spotify’s main presence at a summit for podcast executives was about, well, audiobooks. Featuring Nir Zicherman, the co-founder of the podcast hosting service Anchor who now leads up Spotify’s audiobooks business, author Gretchen Rubin and Penguin Random House Audio content executive Dan Zitt, the discussion didn’t avoid the blurring lines between podcasts and audiobooks and the multiple business models that could exist within that mix.

“Everybody’s scared to call a podcast an audiobook and an audiobook a podcast. But if you really squint, it’s harder to differentiate — and that is only accelerating over the course of the next few years,” Zicherman said at the summit, noting that Spotify was seeking to target the “casual listener” with its audiobooks offering.

. . . .

Zitt was even less precious about a delineation between the two. “Why does there have to be a line drawn at all? This is all audio entertainment to some extent. If there are different models for distributing it, which there are, why not just find the best models to distribute it where people get fairly paid?” Zitt said. “I mean, there are podcasts that are basically now taking all 15 episodes, combining them into one, and selling them in the audiobook space, so it’s not really like these things are working independently now.”

But the audiobooks debate paled in comparison to the trend du jour: how video can be incorporated into audio creators’ workflow and boost business for executives. “Last year when we were all in this room, we could not stop talking about Spotify,” The Verge editor Nilay Patel said in a talk with iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group CEO Conal Byrne. “This year, all in this room, we’re all talking about YouTube and video.” 

Despite podcasting being known as an audio medium, there’s been growing interest around the role of video podcasting — a format most notably seeing interest from players like Spotify, where top creators including Alex Cooper (Call Her Daddy) and Emma Chamberlain (Anything Goes) now regularly release video podcasts as part of their exclusive partnerships with the company. For Cooper, her video podcasts focus on her weekly guests who sit down to tape an interview at her West Hollywood studio, though the creator released a documentary-style video on abortion last October; Chamberlain, who only recently joined Spotify, has so far released two static videos of her recording her podcast in front of the mic.

Link to the rest at The Hollywood Reporter

2030 audio market projection hits $50 billion

From The New Publishing Standard:

In a presentation for the US Audio Publishers Association in September 2021 TNPS suggested a more likely valuation of $37 billion, while acknowledging that could be conservative.

Then came the Spotify and Storytel US acquisition news and TNPS made clear our $37 billion forecast for 2030 was looking “tame”.

The latest forecast, from Denmark-based podcasting platform Podimo, projects a 2030 audio market valuation of $50 billion, and here at TNPS we’re not seeing that is unrealistic in the light of recent developments.

It was back in July 2019 that TNPS reported, to the amusement of many in publishing, that Mofibo founder Morten Strunge had raised $6.7 million in seed funding for a beyond-crazy idea that money could be made out of podcasts, which everyone back then regarded as the poor man’s audiobook, only good for giving away free to try upsell the real thing.

. . . .

The genius of Podimo lies not just in giving consumers quality content, but in rewarding creators through its “user-centric” revenue-sharing model.

In a press release Strunge explains:

Our model provides premium content and a seamless user experience through AI-driven personalized recommendations and video trailers. As a full-service content production house, we can enrich existing IP in new and exciting ways, as well as produce our own IP, challenging what listeners can expect from short and long-form audio now, and in the future.

While Strunge doesn’t offer any detail on his projection, he asserts the podcast and audio market will,

grow beyond 50 billion USD over the next 5-6 years.

Strunge went on:

…With more and more audiences discovering compelling, short-form, spoken word audio every day. It’s a tremendous opportunity, and with our strategic focus on content in local markets’ native languages, we feel well-positioned to grab a substantial part of this market.

With a solid foundation, we can accelerate our investments into premium original and exclusive content from today’s most exciting and important voices, bringing in more users and bigger payouts to creators, while applying our learnings to new market expansion.

Link to the rest at The New Publishing Standard

A Matter of Volume

From The Bookseller:

I used to imagine an Apple event where its c.e.o. Tim Cook would unveil a standalone audiobook app with exclusive audio-only titles available on subscription. He would then invite J K Rowling and Stephen Fry on stage to announce a new audio-first Harry Potter series. Sadly Apple TV+ and Steven Spielberg got in first.

My personal disappointment at Apple’s lack of ambition for audio should not detract from the fact that the storytelling bit of the market for listening remains in rude health. Nielsen’s latest Understanding the Audiobook Consumer shows a seventh year of double-digit growth, with sales about to crest £200m. In the US, figures from the Audio Publishers Association for 2020 show a ninth year of double-digit increase. Audible turned over £187m from its UK business in 2020, representing growth of 30%.

Outside our own range in the UK, the growth in listening—be it from traditional audiobooks, podcasts or music—continues. Spotify’s revenue has more than doubled since 2016 (it surpassed Penguin Random House in 2017,) and today has announced a deal to buy Findaway, the US audiobook business; in December Amazon bought podcast platform Wondery for a reported $200m; while Storytel, Sweden’s answer to Audible, grew its half-year sales to £90m (and this week bought AudioBooks.com), with Bonnier-owned rival Bookbeat hot on its heels.

From a once smallish cottage industry that serviced libraries, those with reading difficulties and (with intermittent support from the high street) CD buyers, audiobooks are now central to a global storytelling industry whose potential risks stretching way beyond the publishing sector’s ability to service it. Storytel is the harbinger of things to come: in the summer it announced a deal with the Conan Doyle Estate for a new scripted audio series of Sherlock tales to be written by a team of writers under Anthony Horowitz. Tangentially, Apple has also got in on the act: watch its series “Calls” via Apple TV+ and tell me if that isn’t one of the most exciting audiobooks released this year?

The wider vision for audio is stymied by a number of things. It remains expensive to produce, and actors are a scarce resource (electronic voice is not yet the alternative it may one day be). Audible remains far too dominant, with Google, Apple and AudioBooks.com bit-part players. Audible aside, those with the biggest audience of listeners operate streaming models that the big UK and US publishers eschew. I’ve never taken the view that books should become a subscription service just because film and music have, but for those innovating in this space, it is their financial underpinning and how they recruit new customers.

Link to the rest at The Bookseller

AI audiobooks take a big step towards the audio New Normal

From The New Publishing Standard:

Pretty much since smartphones became mainstream, audio content in the form of podcasts and audiobooks have been gathering momentum as a significant format sector in the global publishing industry.

Even with the à la carte and monthly credit subscription models audio has taken off big time with consumers, while in the markets where publishers are amenable to unlimited subscription audiobooks have quickly become a format to rival – and in the case of Sweden even to exceed – the popularity of print.

But the brake on audio – and especially on longform audiobooks – has always been the production costs of studios, sound engineers and narrators that can add thousands of dollars to the cost of a book as a sound product, deterring many publishers and making some titles financially unviable.

Lurking in the background as the audio industry discovered and embraced digital, was AI – artificial intelligence – with the futuristic promise and premise that one day an entire book could be narrated by a robot and no-one would know any better.

Well, we’re not there yet, but anyone who follows developments in this arena will know quality is accelerating, driven by the proven global demand for digital audio based on text-to-speech (TTS).

As an author I love the idea that one day I might, at the click of a mouse, convert my novels to saleable-quality audiobooks, and as an industry commentator writing TNPS I fantasise about the day I might hit the mouse and my TNPS posts be converted into podcasts.

In the real world it seemed like the latter might happen soonest, as TTS (text to speech) seems to be developing fastest in the non-fiction arena, where delivery relies less on emotion and more purveying information.

But the reality is when I try the latest sample AI offerings I hit one major obstacle – TNPS posts are so full of “foreign” names (as in not in the AI English names database) that the text converted to sound is quite unacceptable. Another couple of years and it might be a different story.

But for fiction, where conveying emotion and tone has been the problem, progress has been palpable, this week resulting in news that one AI-audio operator, UK-based DeepZen, has partnered with US distributor Ingram to offer its AI-audio services to a no doubt cautiously optimistic publishing industry.

Per the DeepZen press release,

The service uses innovative technology that replicates the human voice to create a listening experience that is virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. Developed specifically for audiobooks and long form content, it incorporates artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and next generation algorithms.

DeepZen’s AI voices are licensed from voice actors and narrators, capturing all of the elements of the human voice, such as pacing and intonation, and a wide range of emotions that produce more realistic speech patterns. They are benchmarked against human narration, and are a world away from the robotic, monotone, voice assistants with which we are all familiar.

But that still begs the question, are they a world away enough to be acceptable to paying consumers?

The 49 second sample DeepZen offers via the press release really isn’t enough to make that call, but check it out here and see – or rather hear – for yourself.

Link to the rest at The New Publishing Standard

Here’s a link to DeepZen where you can hear some AI voices

Writing for audio made me a better writer, period

From Amazon Author Insights:

When Audible came to me looking for an original audio-first novella, they showed up at just the right time. I had an idea for a story I’d been rolling around in my head for a while, and it was just about to drop: something about a world in which people who were murdered came back immediately (and were pretty annoyed at what had happened to them). I pitched the story that would become The Dispatcher (they said yes), and off I went to write.

So far, so good. Except that I usually write stories for print first, and this one was going straight to audio.

Does that make a difference?

Well, the basic storytelling is the same. You have a protagonist (in this case a fellow named Anthony Valdez) with an interesting job (he’s a dispatcher, whose job description is “licensed therapeutic murderer”), who finds himself in the middle of a plot crisis (a friend of his has disappeared, and Anthony must help find him), and there’s a ticking clock (if the missing friend’s not found soon, things are going to get grim). Set up the pins, knock them down, and add a few twists and turns—everyone’s happy.

This classic storytelling mode works whether the medium is print, audio, or screen. It’s nice and hardy. Reliable, even.

But there are things unique to the audio medium that you have to pay attention to while writing. Like the fact that the audience’s first experience with the story will be through their ears. Which means you need to write the story to be spoken. Which means you have to try to put yourself in the shoes of a narrator: Is what I’m writing going to be something the narrator is actually going to be able to read effectively?

If the narrator is having fun, there’s a good chance the listener is going to have fun too.

Now, a moment of appreciation here for audiobook narrators. These people are pros. No matter what you throw at them, there’s a very high chance they’ll make it work. They’re actors; they’re used to having words put into their mouths and then speaking them out to thrilling effect. They can take a jumble of exposition and give it drama, which is a hell of a thing. In my career, I’ve been blessed with excellent narrators—William Dufris, Tavia Gilbert, Wil Wheaton, and for The Dispatcher, the awesome Zachary Quinto—and I know at times they’ve made my prose sound better than it might otherwise.

Even so, I try not to make their lives any harder than they have to be. So I write with speaking in mind: Naturalistic dialogue. Exposition that is conversational. A rise and fall in story and scene so they can vary their delivery so readers won’t get bored. And here and there, a bravura scene that they can really have fun acting. If the narrator is having fun, there’s a good chance the listener is going to have fun too. And it’s good for the story, anyway. So make the narrator’s job easier, and make the narrator happy.

Another audio-first consideration: getting rid of writerly things that have the potential to throw the listener out of the story and the flow of narration—things like dialogue tags. In print, having “he said” and “she said” at the end of dialogue makes good sense—it helps direct traffic and pacing. Dialogue tags can get repetitive, but most readers eventually gloss over them—they know the tags are there, but their brains start processing them more like punctuation than like words. They see the tags, but they don’t sound them out in their heads.

But in audio, every “he said” and “she said” is spoken out loud by the narrator. I was never more aware of how much I used dialogue tags than I was while listening to one of my audiobooks. It became so obvious to me, in fact, that after I started regularly selling my books to audio, I started reducing dialogue tags even in work that was going into print first. And for The Dispatcher, I tried to keep them to an absolute minimum.

This had the effect, I think, of making my writing better overall. Dialogue tags are useful, but they can also be a crutch. I had to find other ways of making it clear who was talking—and a lot of that came down to making sure the voices of all characters were well defined even before a narrator gave them separate voices. Writing for audio improved my writing, period.

Link to the rest at Amazon Author Insights