Apple Books announces digital storytelling, will allow independent authors and small publishers to create audiobooks

Apple Books, the company’s app that lets users read e-books on their devices, announced support for an AI-enabled feature to turn titles into audiobooks. The “digital storytelling” feature will make audiobook production more accessible by reducing costs for publishers and authors, according to Apple. The company will use AI-enabled text-to-speech to read books and convert them to audio. The feature is currently available for romance and fiction books in English and will be rolling out to non-fiction genres in the future.

The Cupertino company shared details of the new digital storytelling technology on its support page, saying it will make “audiobook creation more accessible to everyone”, reducing the “cost and complexity” of production. for authors and publishers. The tech giant says the feature is currently available for romance and fiction books, and the company is currently accepting eBook submissions in those genres.

The digital narration feature will be available in two digital voices, Madison and Jackson. These voices will cover the genres of romance and fiction, including literary, historical and women’s fiction. Apple says the feature does not currently support mysteries and thrillers, sci-fi and fantasy.

The company says it will also bring in two other voice assistants, Helena and Mitchell, for the non-fiction books. Notably, the service is only available in English at the moment.

Users can also search for AI narration in the Books app and will get a list of romance novels with “Reported by Apple Books”. It also displays the specific name of the artificial narrator used, i.e. Madison or Jackson, which reads: “This is an Apple Books audiobook narrated by a digital voice based on a human narrator.” Additionally, the list also includes free and paid audiobooks and artificial voices.

Apple says it has partnered with Draft2Digital and Ingram CoreSource for the production and distribution of converted audiobooks. However, he said publishers and authors will retain the rights to the audiobooks and can publish other versions of the audiobook if they choose. The App Store will enforce wholesale price limits, and distribution of these audiobooks will occur through Apple Books and to public or university libraries, according to the company.

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