Apple says it is committed to book narrators, expands AI reading anyway
Apple has detailed how its AI-powered digital narration for books will expand, but says it is "committed to celebrating" human-read audiobooks too.
In early January 2023, Apple Books very quietly release myriad audiobooks with full narration -- and not one single narrator. Instead of actors reading the books, the audio was created entirely through AI.
Now in a new support document intended to help authors use this new capability of Apple Books, Apple stresses that it's not intended to get rid of actors. Instead, it's in order to increase the number of audiobooks available.
"More and more book lovers are listening to audiobooks, yet only a fraction of books are converted to audio -- leaving millions of titles unheard," says Apple. "Many authors -- especially independent authors and those associated with small publishers -- aren't able to create audiobooks due to the cost and complexity of production."
"Apple Books digital narration makes the creation of audiobooks more accessible to all," it continues, "helping you meet the growing demand by making more books available for listeners to enjoy."
"Digitally narrated titles are a valuable complement to professionally narrated audiobooks, and will help bring audio to as many books and as many people as possible," notes Apple. "Apple Books remains committed to celebrating and showcasing the magic of human narration and will continue to grow the human-narrated audiobook catalog."
This is just the beginning
Apple's support document goes on to say that there are currently two AI-generated voices. An adult woman's voice is called Madison, while the adult man's is Jackson, and both are speaking US English.
They are both "created and optimized for specific genres," too, and initially that means that the effort is starting with fiction and romance. Via two specific publishing partners -- Draft2Digital and Ingram CoreSource, Apple is now accepting ebooks for the AI-read program in only these genres, but says this is just the beginning.
"Our nonfiction and self-development narration program is kicking off and will be available more widely in the future," it says.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Based on that experience, I'd imagine a general distaste for audiobook voicing quality is holding back the market.
There's nothing "holding back" the audiobook market, as these growth numbers far outstrip growth in traditional publishing and ebooks. I have nothing personally against Apple (or anyone) using AI-based narrators, but as is typical of Apple and its maudlin, truth-stretching, self-celebratory press release language, their motivations for pursuing AI-based readings is avoiding SAG-AFTRA union rates for narrators. It's expensive to commission a reading for a book where the author and/or publisher has chosen not to pursue an audiobook as a first-party effort, and Apple's share of the ebook and audiobook markets is miniscule and falling (I work in book publishing). It's a purely practical/financial move for them to sidestep the traditional process in order to offer a "competitive" catalog against much, much larger competitors (e.g. Audible).
How can Apple compete with that or muscle in when no doubt Audible has most rights? While I agree it isn’t good for narrators, the use of AI might be a solution to reintroduce competition in the audiobook market (even the ebook market), and could even increase revenue for authors, and seems to be targeting them with this AI technology. Supply and demand and their relationship to price and all that.
It’s inevitable that most of the audible books will be read by a machine, and in a similar fashion most people working at home will eventually be replaced by cheaper workers from overseas using zoom tech to save money. (careful what you wish for).
The only audible book I have is the (‘the Killing Star”), I find them to be duds (I have sampled a few), however many people like them a lot or they wouldn’t be selling. Reading a book and imagining it in your mind’s eye is more enjoyable for me. Which is why I keep all of the old traditional paper books I have, and buy a few digital non-audible books from time to time.
Here’s a business plan worth thinking about: at published rates, it would cost less than $600 a year to use those voices to generate audiobooks - less than the human cost of one or two at best. How about making dozens or hundreds with AI instead? They’re cheap enough to make it viable to have an audio version of every book, even if it only sells one copy.
But that’s where we are. If we don’t want the tech to develop, we should stop buying and using it. This seems like the wrong forum to suggest that!
I'd see a book of possible interest and look for a review of the narrator and seeing things he or she would get a try. And I'd be disappointed. So I'm back to actually reading books. That means I don't have the convenience of "reading" a book while driving, or cleaning around the house, or while out on walks. It's just not work the constant disappointment of somebody saying the narrator is great only to ponder WTF was somebody thinking.
I highly doubt AI will give me a pleasant "reading" experience. The best I'd expect is more consistency of a mediocre experience. Maybe it'll turn out to actually be good.