Audiobook Marketing: Using Amazon’s Virtual Voice Service

by Penny Sansevieri | Jul 23, 2024 | Amazon Updates & Marketing Tips

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Last December, Amazon announced a groundbreaking audiobook production and marketing initiative that sent ripples through the indie author community: Virtual Voice. This innovative service aims to democratize audiobook production by offering AI-generated narration for free. This move holds immense potential for indie authors, reshaping the audiobook landscape and opening new doors to storytelling.

Virtual Voice represents Amazon’s latest endeavor to empower indie authors in the competitive world of publishing by giving them easier access to the audiobook space and of course audiobook marketing. The service promises to create audiobooks swiftly and affordably, eliminating the traditional barriers of cost and time associated with audiobook production. By leveraging AI technology, authors can now transform their written works into immersive audio experiences in a matter of days, rather than months. But is it all good?

The Amazon Virtual Voice Process

The process is straightforward: authors sign up for Virtual Voice, select from a variety of voices, and give Amazon the green light. Within 72 hours, the audiobook is ready for distribution. This streamlined approach not only accelerates production but also significantly reduces costs, making audiobook creation accessible to a broader range of authors.

Here’s a glimpse into the back panel of the “studio” where you can select the voice and also do some edits:

The Downside of an AI Narrated Book

Despite the ease and affordability of Virtual Voice, there are nuances to consider.

While the AI-generated narration showcases impressive quality, authors may need to invest time in refining the audio to align with their brand and style. The backend dashboard offers customization options, allowing authors to adjust pacing, pronunciation, and other elements to enhance the listening experience. But be mindful of that fact that this takes a lot of time and Amazon’s editing options are not extensive. Right now, the most helpful tools are adding pauses and/or clarification on pronunciation. Here’s a screenshot of what the back end of the editing studio books like:

Virtual Voice holds transformative potential for authors across genres, particularly in fiction genres like romance, literary fiction, and mystery. These genres, known for their voracious readership, are likely to embrace the accessibility and affordability of AI-generated audiobooks. However, authors must be mindful of the unique challenges posed by certain genres, such as sci-fi which is known for its complex world-building and character names. This may require additional editing and customization and the Amazon process isn’t geared to that quite yet.

However, it’s important to note that if punctuation is done well, the audio product pacing should be fairly good – because the system inserts long or short pauses for commas or periods. But if the book is poorly edited – your narration will absolutely reflect this and it’s a lot of work to go through the entire book and add long and short pauses.

The other piece that’s worth mentioning is that if you have a non-fiction book, it could be rough to get this to narrate properly if your book has a lot of screenshots, citations and other things that might be tough to translate into audio, like tables and “call out” boxes with additional content.

Virtual Voice has the potential to disrupt the audiobook market – in both good and bad ways. Because audiobooks have grown so much in the last several years, they’ve also become more sophisticated, too. Like voices with specific accents or an audio narrator who can master various character nuances, which the AI technology cannot. And while dual narration (multiple audio actors narrating parts of book) is expensive, it still challenges the system for those who love audio books and want to experience something more immersive.

It’s a highly competitive industry, to say the least. And with Amazon’s vast reach and resources, Virtual Voice could really change audiobook consumption.

The other element is how it tethers to KDP Select authors, because right now you can add your audiobook into Audible’s library as a member only benefit (free option), this member benefit essentially offers free access to Audible members and drives discoverability for indie authors.

Which leads to my next point: I think part of why Amazon is offering this is to beef up their Audible membership programs with more member-exclusive free books. Because while Amazon dominates the book space, there is some competition in the audio book space – think serialized podcasts – and that competition keeps growing.

Yes, Amazon’s Virtual Voice service represents a game-changer for indie authors, but keep in mind that as of this writing, there are only a handful of voices to choose from. So at some point, you’re going to have a slew of audio books with the same narration. Is that bad? Well, as someone who is an avid audio book listener, I can tell you that the narration is critically important. That said, the narration that Amazon offers through their AI is surprisingly good – but again, limiting in terms of being adaptable to accents or pronunciations of complex or entirely made-up words and names.

So while the service is not without its challenges, its potential to level the playing field and expand author visibility is undeniable. So no matter what, start working on your audiobook marketing plan – because it should be your next big focus.

As indie authors explore this new frontier, the future of storytelling is poised for innovation and accessibility.