The popularity of audiobooks is no joke. This new book format successfully draws people’s attention. Major audiobook publishers said that in 2019 the audiobook production increased by around 18%, or over 60.000 books have been released. What a promising future!
After knowing that fact, did Sahabat Widya become interested in producing audiobooks? If you do, before you start roaming around the marketplaces looking for the expensive gear, you need to know basic information about audiobooks.
Ok then, how about Widya start by explaining what audiobooks mean and when the audiobooks trend started. Let’s go back to the early 20th century to get the answer.
What Is Audiobook?
Audiobooks or you can call them ‘the talking book’ are recordings of a book that you can listen to rather than reading it. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the term audiobook was first known in 1942.
But actually, the first audiobook appeared in 1932. The American Foundation for the Blind recorded an audiobook on a vinyl cassette. There are more vinyl recordings of a book in the following year, mostly to assist the blind.
When did audiobooks become popular generally and not only for the blind? We can say that audiobooks gained their popularity during the pandemic period. At that time, many people tried various activities, from gardening to listening to audiobooks.
Why do People Love audiobooks?
Why do people love audiobooks? Why don’t they read a book instead? There is a particular reason why people love audiobooks more. You can’t possibly do other things besides reading when you read a book, right? But it’s a different case when it comes to audiobooks.
People can still listen to audiobooks anytime and anywhere they want while doing other activities like cooking, doing chores, exercising, shopping, house cleaning, or on the way to the office. No wonder people love audiobooks. Are you one of them too?
How To Make A High-Quality Audiobook?
The main focus of producing audiobooks lies in the narrator. It is important to pay attention to how the narrator narrates the book. Therefore, publishers will usually hire a professional voice-over talent to read the book aloud to make a high-quality audiobook.
On the contrary, hiring a professional voice-over talent is sometimes challenging. Not only on the budget side but also choosing a talent whose voice character suited the book. No need to worry, because nowadays you can also use technology like text-to-speech to do the job.
What makes a good audiobook, and how do you make them? Try these 5 Easy Steps To Make Audiobooks Using Text-to-Speech. Superb!
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Brainstorming and Research
If you want to make the best audiobook, you should know your target market. And after that, the next step you should take is to do brainstorming and researching. From there, you will get many ideas about what will be the best form to deliver the audiobook or what kind of book will suit your target market the most.
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Choose a book
The best genres that you can choose might include fantasy books like Harry Potter by J.K Rowling, romance books like Dilan 1990 by Pidi Baiq, and mystery books such as The Davinci Code by Dan Brown.
Or maybe you can choose some self-help books, spiritual books, history books, or biography books.
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Narrator option
For the narrator, you can hire professional voice-over talent, use your own voice, or use text-to-speech. Using text-to-speech as your narrator is not bad because you can effortlessly convert any written text to audio format. You can also choose the language, tone, and voice character you want to select.
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Choose an Audio Format
You have to decide which audio format you want to use. There are multiple audio formats, such as MP3 files, WAV files, or M4B files. What’s the difference? MP3 files are the most common audio format for all sounds. WAV files are often used by an audio engineer during file mastering. M4B files are similar to MP3 but smaller than WAV files.
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Record the audiobook
If you record audiobooks without using text-to-speech technology, you will need equipment such as a microphone, headphones, recorder, and mixer to get high-quality audio.
But if you use text-to-speech, you won’t need any of that. You can just type your text from the book you’ve chosen, click convert, wait for a moment, and voila! There you go. The audio version of your book is finished.
Easily record your audiobook at home using Text To Speech Widya Wicara. TTS Widya Wicara supports both English and Bahasa Indonesia. It allows you to make audiobook Bahasa Indonesia easily.
Text-to-speech powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) like Text To Speech Widya Wicara can produce a high-quality, natural-sounding voice. Find out more information on our website www.widyawicara.com.