Have you considered turning your text to audio? It could increase your audience and grow your platform. It’s especially useful if you create long-form content, like blogs or articles, or for your website and newsletters.
This blog quickly describes why writers and businesses should consider taking advantage of this relatively cheap software.
Text-to-speech is spreading beyond books
The use of text-to-speech (TTS) technology and neural voices to read articles are gaining popularity. It’s not just for books, nor about visual impairment or people who have difficulties reading. Audio is becoming ever-important as a way to help people consume information conveniently and is appreciated by both young and older audiences.
Google API offers languages in different Englishes and several other languages BeyondWords is another top favourite among journalists and writers and offers 700+ voices and 64 languages (including varieties of English too). There are many, many other players in this market, and a Google search will bring up loads of options.
Voice clones
Amazingly (and creepily), voice clones sound so convincingly human and are getting less annoying to listen to. Voice cloning even allows the use of your voice in another language. If you want to use your voice to deliver your newsletter as audio in Spanish or Arabic, it’s possible. Check out the difference between a human voice and a custom voice clone here – it’s fascinating: https://cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/custom-voice/docs.
Advantages are hefty
This has exciting implications for all of us, as consumers of information as well as for entrepreneurs and people involved in social impact work. If you are trying to reach audiences across continents or a variety of communities in your home country who speak languages other than your language e.g. English, this technology might be something you want to utilise or start experimenting with.
In terms of pricing, costs are very reasonable, ranging from free to upwards. BeyondWords (https://beyondwords.io/pricing/). The rate of return is considered very high because the time and cost to apply and integrate the software are so low, but the reach and potential are so high. For example, audio can be turned into podcasts and playlists, meaning one blog can be converted into social media posts and podcast posts with relative ease.
Drawbacks
A drawback seems to be that the text-to-speech software plugins (the big ones I looked into) only seem to be available for WordPress users. and some web builders. But I think it’s just a matter of time before every web platform/website builder offers this as a feature. The same problem applies to newsletters (though there are workarounds).
Another problem could be that writing may be hindered to accommodate audio. For instance, I have added the BeyondWords plugin for this blog. I have also listed my sources for this blog using a typical reference style (suggested by CMOS). It would be boring for the listener to hear the references listed. However, I do not know how to actually help the listener avoid having to listen to the references. I’ll keep an eye on further issues.
Conclusion
I have just signed up for BeyondWords to experiment. I’ll be using it for my blogs and newsletters and see what happens. If things go well, I may also try to turn the audio into podcasts and playlists. That’s a very attractive option to me and will be attractive to a few clients I work with. If you listened to this blog as an audio, I’d love to get your feedback :).
Sources
Tvrdon, David, ‘How to easily turn all your articles into audio articles’, 8th July 2022. Accessed on 23 July 2022, https://thefix.media/2022/7/8/how-to-easily-turn-all-your-articles-into-audio-articles).
‘Win the battle for audience attention with an audio newsletter’, updated on 15 July 2022. Accessed on 23 July 2022, https://beyondwords.io/knowledge-base/audio-newsletter-guide/
Jaworski, Rob, ‘How Text-to-Speech Can Boost Your Brand’s Messaging’, 28 April 2021. Accessed on 23 July 2022, https://www.business2community.com/branding/how-text-to-speech-can-boost-your-brands-messaging-02402608
‘How Does Text-to-Speech Converter Technology Benefit Businesses and Customers?’, 30 June 2022. Accessed on 23 July 2022, https://worldfinancialreview.com/how-does-text-to-speech-converter-technology-benefit-businesses-and-customers/