Auto-narrated audiobooks
Creating a high-quality audiobook is simple and affordable with Google Play Books
Expanding the global audiobook catalog
Best-in-class voice quality powered by Google
Archie
Mary
Marcus
Santiago
Anya
Padma
What our publishers are saying
The technology has surpassed my expectations. . . I think all nonfiction and academic publishers should investigate auto-narration as a service to their authors and to listeners worldwide.
Richard Charkin
Mensch Publishing
Google is the most attractive text-to-speech partner for three reasons: The conversion interface is user-friendly and allows us to easily correct titles; the Google channels are already trusted by our users; and we receive the transparent reporting on usage that we need to make decisions.
Charles Watkinson
University of Michigan Press
More benefits of auto-narrated audiobooks
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Wide audiobook distribution
Publish your audiobook to Google Play Books’ global audience. Download your audiobook file to distribute on additional platforms.
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Narrator diversity
Select from 50+ narrator options, including a variety of language, accent, and gender combinations.
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Advanced editing technology
Fine-tune the narration with the audio file editor. Choose from multiple word pronunciations or suggest your own.
Getting started
Auto-narrated Audiobook FAQ
Instead of being read by a person in a recording studio, auto-narrated audiobooks are read using Google technology. This high-quality narration offers a variety of gender and accent combinations. Publishers can convert their existing ebooks in under 2 hours, at a fraction of the cost of conventionally produced audiobooks.
Publishers must provide an English, Spanish, German, French, Hindi or Brazilian Portuguese EPUB ebook file and must offer that ebook on Google Play.
For a limited time, there's no charge to create, publish, and download these audiobooks.
Yes, publishers can sell auto-narrated audiobooks on any retail platform that allows them. After publishing the auto-narrated audiobook on Google Play Books, the publisher will be able to download the audio files. However, if the auto-narrated audiobook is for sale elsewhere, it must also be for sale on Google Play Books.
Non-fiction titles, particularly self-help, business, history, biography, health, and religion, are great candidates for auto-narration. Currently, auto-narration performs best on titles with limited dialogue and emotional content. Cookbooks, textbooks, and other titles that rely heavily on images, tables, or data graphics are also not ideal targets.
The tools for creating auto-narrated audiobooks are intuitive and easy to use. The platform does not require specialized knowledge of audio production or editing. Users with experience editing text documents will be able to create an auto-narrated audiobook. You can also view a step-by-step guide to creating these audiobooks.
Publishers will select and create these auto-narrated audiobooks. Once publishers assert that they own the audio rights to the title in the selected language and countries, Google will help these publishers process the files to create the auto-narrated audiobooks.