Make your own Audiobook!

Elsewhere on this blog, I noted the business idea of offering customers the service of converting a book they own into audio. I actually tested this out on the New York version of
www.craigslist.org
to see what response there was. Here was the ad I placed:


.............................................................

Perfect gift: convert that Special Someone’s favorite book into audio



Enjoy ‘reading’ your favorite novel again by listening to it on your iPod. We will convert your book of choice into audiobook format for your personal aural pleasure and enjoyment. Relax, close your eyes and unwind ...



...while you listen to your personally recorded book. Tune out as you listen to your favorite author while traveling by subway or car. For the more voracious reader, this is also the perfect way to catch up on that backlog of books you just haven’t had time to read yet. Makes a wonderful gift!

Book length and prices:

1 – 100 pages = $5
101 – 200 pages = $10
201 – 300 pages = $15
301 – 400 pages = $20
401 – 500 pages = $25
501 pages and above = $30

Additional cost: $3.85 packaging + shipping.

How it works? We mail you a protective bag, you use it to mail us your book, we make the recording and mail you back both your book and your new CD containing the recorded MP3s. (You may also download your MP3 files from our website where we will store them)

Email us the following details...

Your name:
Your address:
Your telephone number:
Book title:
Number of pages:

...and we will be in contact almost immediately with details on how to proceed.

.............................................................

The result? A grand total of ...guess how many enquiries.......go on, guess beofre you scroll down!!.......










....have you guessed a number?..........













.....are you ready?..........














....was it ten enquiries?..........








or five?










or fifty three??
















No it was.......







(wait for it)

















....absolutely none.

Which kind of amazed me. I mean I didn't think it was SUCH a terrible idea! Other research on the internet revealed that perhaps others were thinking in the same way.

OK, here's what others had to say on this topic:

"I have been lurking in this forum for a long time and really appreciate the professional advise given out.

well i have this idea for an application, however i am not sure whether there is any market for it. The application i have in mind is to allow you to specify files or web pages to convert the contents to speech (via speech API) and into a mp3 file. so the mp3 file can be synchronised to portable mp3 players for you to enjoy on the road.

would anyone want such a product? Toh Yen Cheng
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Ask these guys if they make any money of their text to mp3 application: http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud
or these guys: http://www.tomdownload.com/audio_mp3/music_creation/visual_text_speech_mp3.htm Patric J
Thursday, April 06, 2006
If it converted the text to clear, understandable speach then it could be a valuable application. I have a lot of notes in Word or text files and it would be really handy to be able to convert them to mp3's so I could review them via audio while I am driving. I would buy it given a reasonable price. ps
Thursday, April 06, 2006
I would say no, there isn't really a market.

Firstly, there are far too many tools that do this both well and free. You'll struggle to compete in this marketplace.

The other problem is that, unless you're thinking of doing some really heavy duty R&D, then computer generated speech is almost universally annoying. It doesn't flow like human speech, and listening to it for any length of time really jars. For vital information, people are willing to listen, but no one will listen for entertainment. Graham Thorpe
Thursday, April 06, 2006
When I first downloaded some podcasts, I found it more difficult and slower to listen to them (passively), than reading their transcripts (actively) and skimming over parts if necessary.

Other people might have other differences.

So in a nutshell, for me, a speech-to-text application would be better. What you are proposing is a text-to-speech application (it's not that they don't exist yet, but don't let that stop you), and there may well be a market for that, too. Philipp Schumann
Thursday, April 06, 2006
thanks graham and ps. will take into consideration both of your view point. seems like the natural speech output will be the feature that kills or make the product fly.

the heavy duty RND is another concern indeed. all in all thanks. Toh Yen Cheng
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Try using Acrobat Reader to read aloud a few documents. If you (and perhaps a few friends/relatives) can stand listening to more than a paragraph, then perhaps there is a market. My thesis advisor wanted to listen to my thesis introduction before a meeting and tried using Acrobat to read it aloud. Suffice to say he didn't get past the first page.

Personally, I find it too monotonous, and with too many mistakes ("co-presence" became "company presence") to be easy to listen too. A good idea in theory, but I don't think the technology is there yet. Jamie Lawrence
Thursday, April 06, 2006
As many people have pointed out, in practical use it doesn't work as good as it sounds in theory. However, you asked if there is a market and I believe there could be. For one thing there are thousands of blind people who every day use screen readers. Those same people may very well want to hear things while disconnected from their computer. Also I think you can sell it to the impulse buyers who believe it will help them more then it can. And some people may be able to tolerate text readers more then ones on this board. Phil
Thursday, April 06, 2006
I've already written such an app (for personal use -- haven't released it) where it's like a combination of Web Whacker and a text-to-speech app and a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book... I use it every day on my (long) commute with my mp3 player -- it's terrific.

However, it DOES drive everyone else nuts who hears it! The robot voice can easily grate on your nerves if you're not used to it... anon
Thursday, April 06, 2006
The theory behind it sounds interesting, and I would love to see the source code (actually, what I would really love to see is the hacks you would have implemented to get around non-standard or 'unexpected' pages HTML/CSS/whatever), but I don't think I would have any interest in this as a consumer.

How about centering the approach of this as something targetting people who are deaf or otherwise incapable of 'standard' browsing. Andrey Butov
Thursday, April 06, 2006
"How about centering the approach of this as something targetting people who are deaf or otherwise incapable of 'standard' browsing."

The deaf market would probably not be the best target audience for audio software ;) Smart A$$
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Is there a market for this program? I don't like that question.

The new question should be:

If you create a program like this, will it generate interest within some group's worldview?

The answer then is always "Yes", because there are a billion worldviews out there. If someone says "no", they have a very narrow worldview - which is unfortuneate. The odds that you won't sell even one are pretty unlikely.

I think what people are really asking when they ask "does this program have a market?" is, "if I create this program will thousands of people show up instantly and start buying the program so that I can live off of it forever?"

Well, any business requires elbow grease and time. Don't bank on being the overnight millionaire.

So to say that it won't work because there is competition, free or not, is just bad advice. I can go on for quite a while why competition means nothing when it comes to your individual sales.

It's safe to assume there is always a "market". But how much work will you do to sell a significant number of copies to that market?

If something out there is free, and a corporation wants it, they will opt for the "for sale" version of the program quite often. Creating a supported, paid version of a free application can actually be a good idea.

Anyway, yes, text to audio can sell, and converting it to MP3 would be nice. Can you get to the core of this though? Converting text to audio. Then, if that's an API or service of some kind, can it be applied to any style of software application or any developer's need?

For example, I need a system where a client can type in a description to a web page, that text is converted to audio, and can instantly be played on their site that I host. Or, some of my ebook vendors would like a quick and dirty way to convert their books to audio and put on CD so they can sell an audio version that buyers can listen to in their cars. Ben Mc
Thursday, April 06, 2006
It sounds like Talkr http://talkr.com/ does pretty much what you are thinking about doing. I interviewd Chris Brooks, the creator of Talkr (http://perlcast.com/2005/08/21/interview-with-chris-brooks/). From what I understand, this type of business is working okay for him. Josh McAdams
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Thanks ben for the thoughts. difference or 'getting' it or not does shows through. josh thanks for the link. talkr's result for voice is really great. Toh Yen Cheng
Thursday, April 06, 2006
There's a winamp plug-in that did this a few years ago with the Windows speech API. It sucked from the natural voice perspective but was a big hit due to it's (accidental) comedic timing; the pause and emphasis made any text document incredibly hilarious.

The problem with the OP's idea is that text has an internal voice that humans quickly decipher and adopt while reading; a machine code never do this. Take Mark Twain: you start to read his works with the voice of the characters - a computer would sound like gobbley-gook. Mark D.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Is there a market? If you manage to transfer text into a pleasant voice that you can't differentiate from a trained speaker, a voice that is absolute real and live, you will be a billionaire. There're endless applications. Ben
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Hi all,
just an update. I've checked out the AT&T TTS engine. sounds definitely great. www.wizzardsoftware.com .

i would see the cost of the licence as an barrier to entry. would i be right on this? but there will be the fear of having the most important component of my application being made by another company.

i guess the only thing that i could make my application stand out from the rest would be the GUI and hopefully ease of use. that is if i decide to pursue this any further.

thanks everyone. Toh Yen Cheng
Sunday, April 09, 2006
What about leaving the task of converting the text into speech to human beings? Conceivably, you could pay someone peanuts to read it out loud and save it as a digital file. Also, another benefit of this is that a human eye can scan the page and find the important content....Amazon's mturk service comes to mind... Andrew Cheung
Monday, April 10, 2006
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What do you think? Is it a turkey of an idea? Add a comment or email me at mouseloveselephant at yahoo dot com