Spoken Beta V0.7: Full Audiobooks And Custom-Designed Character Voices

Our previous release, V0.6, brought full audiobook support via manual chapter or installment additions. With V0.7, we’ve reimagined how Spoken can support authors on their journey to create, publish, and share audio of their writing with two incredible (and historic) features along with a host of other meaningful enhancements.

For the first time in human history, you can now upload, analyze, narrate, and self-publish an entire novel-length audiobook in a single sitting. Second, if you can't find the perfect voice in our growing library of voices, you can generate a custom voice designed exclusively for you based on your character as you wrote them! 

Here’s a bit more about how it works. 

At a high level, Spoken conducts an unprecedented novel-wide analysis to classify and summarize the entire novel, setting the stage for the other v0.7 transformation: voice selection.

If you choose to go with a single narrator, we will now suggest voices that are best for your genre. However, If you choose Multi-character / Multi-voice (MCMV), we’ll analyze the description and context, in your work, for every single character, then create a mathematical representation of their perfect voice. 

This enables two things. First, we’ll be able to surface the existing voices from our library that best match your character. If you can't find the perfect voice, however, you can now generate a custom voice, designed exclusively for that character, and usable only by you, their author.

All of that said… Let’s dive in to everything juicy about V0.7.

Here is the main spread of powerful enhancements Spoken brings with V0.7

• Support for entire manuscripts with <InstallmentMarker> tags

• Enhancements to the Project Manager in Spoken Studio

• Voice Selection Upgrade: Character-Based Voice recommendation

• Voice Selection Upgrade: Custom Voice Generation based on character

• Create custom author introductions at the beginning of each new project

• Private reviews capability from the Spoken review team.

• Tightened Profile page UI 

• Link to our "Bio" site in settings for easy access to Spoken socials

• Improved Search function

• Certain issues with frozen narrations have been significantly improved

• Improvements to Staff Picks

FULL NOVEL MANUSCRIPT UPLOAD

There is no longer a maximum of 12,000 words per upload. Users can now upload a full manuscript of up to 500,000 words.

There is one thing an author needs to do to prepare their novel for upload: 

Add Installment Markers <InstallmentMarker> to your work to designate the beginning of each of their installments or chapters. A few examples might look like: 

<InstallmentMarker> Chapter 1

or

<InstallmentMarker> Part 3

or

<InstallmentMarker> Chapter 35: The Final Countdown

We are working to better automate the detection of installment markers, but in order to get chapter separation exactly right, we require the addition of installment markers. Spoken Studio will guide you.

Progress indication notifications for full manuscript uploads: 

Narrating an entire manuscript takes time, so we’ve ensured that you’ll receive notification updates for each completed step along the way during the creation process. You’ll receive these in-app. When a given processing step is complete you’ll receive both an in-app, and email notification inviting you to move forward in your process.

PROJECT MANAGER

Spoken Studio is now more intuitive than ever. Each step in the process is now designed to engage the writer in a more authentic self publishing experience. 

We’ve concentrated all file upload, analysis and installment/chapter management in the Project Manager. Similar to a table of contents, the project manager will display the project’s classification, summary, channel tags, comparable works, safety analysis, and its installments. 

Adding, deleting, and managing your installments is handled within the project manager.

VOICE SELECTION, LIBRARY VECTOR MATCH

With an expanded library of almost 200 voice actor voices, our vector match service will take an in-depth description of your character, and create a mathematical model called a vector in order to surface the voices that best match your narrator (if single narrator) or each speaking character (in the case of MCMV).

VOICE SELECTION, CUSTOM VOICES

The description of each character's voice may also be used to generate a voice prompt which can generate custom voices for your character, three at a time. You can fine-tune your prompt to generate the perfect custom voice, which, once chosen, will be exclusively yours, and as unique and dynamic as your stories.

AUTHOR INTRODUCTION

"This. Is. Audible."  Meh. Imagine the diametric opposite of that as the introduction of your work on Spoken. Imagine your title and your author name narrated by your selected narrator’s voice. Now, imagine being able to have your own personal introduction, in your voice. Or, include BOTH the title introduction by your narrator AND your personal introduction. That's exactly what you have available on Spoken.

PRIVATE REVIEWS

Spoken is dedicated to curating the best possible listening experience for our users, and we know that AI audio narration can be tough to perfect. We’ve introduced private reviews so our content team can reach out to writers privately with recommendations, such as narration recommendations or error corrections, that might help strengthen an already amazing creation.