Amazon vs Google – AI audiobook narrators

By James M. Jackson

I released Niki Undercover, the first of a new series, using Amazon-only distribution even though my Seamus McCree series has wide distribution. I’d prefer to distribute wide, but to do that well, I would need to spend more time than I had available to market to all channels. Initially distributing only through Amazon allows me to focus my marketing time and, by committing for at least ninety days to stay solely within the Amazon distribution system by joining KDP Select, it compensates me for Kindle Unlimited readers who read the book as part of their subscription without additional cost.

None of my books sell well enough to justify my spending money to pay a human narrator to create audiobooks. Maybe that will be different for the Niki Undercover Thriller series. For now, my choice is to create an AI-narrated audiobook or none. In the past, I used GooglePlay to create audiobooks. KDP (Amazon’s publishing arm for self-publishing) recently expanded availability of its beta version of AI-narrated books. Niki Undercover met their requirements, so I gave it a go.

Having completed that project (the audiobook is available on Amazon), I want to share my thoughts on how Amazon’s AI product and Google’s compare.

Structure and Basic Philosophy

Both providers are in beta, meaning they can and will change their offerings. Google is available worldwide; Amazon only in select countries and for select books.

Both providers start with an eBook and automatically convert it into an audiobook.

Amazon wants the audiobook to comport exactly with the eBook to facilitate those who purchase both and want to switch from one format to another. It converts only the sections it considers the story (ignoring all the other parts of the provided eBook). It does not allow you to add, subtract, or modify text—doing so makes it difficult to sync the eBook and audiobook.

Google converts the entire eBook, including title page, copyright, author’s note, and other works. Google allows you to add or subtract material to create your audiobook as you choose. It also allows you to modify the words of the eBook if you think that improves the listening experience. For example, without using dialog tags, paragraphing alone may allow an eBook reader to know which character speaks each line. The audiobook loses those visual clues. Google allows you to add tags to make dialog attribution clear. Amazon does not allow any changes to the text.

The ability to modify the text gives Google a huge advantage, but one Amazon can only match if it gives up the notion of 100% syncing between the two versions of the book.

Voices

Amazon provides 80 narrator voices covering masculine and feminine traits, age groups 30-40 and 40-50, and American, British, Australian, and Southern U.S. accents.

Google has 50 narrator voices. For English, they have 13 American, 3 Australian, 4 British, and 5 Indian voices. The 25 foreign language voices cover Spanish (Spain and Mexico), French, German, Portuguese, and Hindi. They also provide masculine and feminine voices, but have three age ranges: 18-30, 31-45, 46-60.

Advantage to Amazon unless you don’t want English.

Changing Voices

Amazon allows you to select a different voice for each chapter. Google allows you to change the narrator for the entire chapter, a scene, a paragraph, or even an individual word.

Advantage Google.

Pronunciation

Say this in your head: After I read a piece of fiction, I will have read that piece of fiction. When you read that convoluted sentence, you pronounced the first read as “reed” and the second read as “red.” AI narrators are not that sophisticated . . . yet. And with place names, you never know what you might get. Both Amazon and Google have a mechanism to tell the AI narrator how to pronounce a word.

Amazon lets you choose a word and spell it differently in order to get the narrator to pronounce it correctly. So, if Amazon pronounced both reads as “reed,” I can change the second one by changing its pronounced spelling to “red.” That’s easy, but when I had an organization known by its initials AHI, its attempt was something like “ah-hee.” I’d pronounce each of the letters: A H I. When I tried that, it came out “ah-hi.” My final solution was “eh H eye.” I ran across a couple of words I could not figure out how to trick the narrator into pronouncing them correctly. For those, I got close enough and abandoned the fight.

Once you have corrected a pronunciation, it asks if you always want to use the new version. That’s great for people or place names, but not good for read vs. read.

This ability to change pronunciation solved another problem. I used military time in my chapter subheadings. It pronounced something like Day 6, 2130 EDT as Day six, two thousand, one hundred thirty Ee Dee Tee. I could change 2130 to “twenty-one thirty hours” and EDT to “Eastern Daylight Time.”

Google has a similar ability to change word pronunciation. Rather than using just letters, they introduce their own version of phonetic spelling. Usually, I could type in another word that incorporated the phonetic syllable I wanted to reproduce and splice something that worked. Then, in an improvement, Google added the ability to speak the word as you want it said. It usually reproduced my vocalizations correctly. Sometimes my accent and the AI narrator’s did NOT work, and I was left to figure out the phonetic equivalent or try enunciating more clearly.

Google allows you to apply the new pronunciation universally.

Advantage: Mixed. My impression was Amazon’s AI had fewer words I needed to fix. And Amazon’s English letters were easier to figure out than Google’s phonetic approach. That said, the overall advantage still goes to Google because it allows the voice-recording approach.

Pauses and Dramatic Interpretation

Both AI narrators attempt to interpret the text and read punctuation clues to add pauses. Periods work well, commas are a mixed bag, and question marks and exclamation points can lead to wonky and inconsistent inflections. You can’t fix those, but you can do something about pauses.

Amazon allows you to shorten or lengthen pauses by 25% or 50%. Google does not allow you to shorten pauses (I didn’t find any instances where I wanted to with Amazon). For additional pauses, it offers choices in tenths of seconds from .5 seconds to 2.0.

My sense was Amazon’s narrator interpreted text better than Google. However, I have not listened to Google’s narration in the last year, and it may have improved.

Advantage: Amazon—maybe.

Cover Art

Amazon takes your eBook cover and converts it to a rounded square cover for Audible, by placing the eBook cover in the square and filling in the sides with a contrasting color. No changes allowed. (See left for Niki Undercover example.) If you look for the audiobook through the standard Amazon store, you get the same cover as the eBook. Google asks you to upload a square cover, which you can design.

Advantage: Draw – Amazon makes it easy, Google gives choice.

Where else you can publish the audiobook

Google allows you to take the files they create and publish them anywhere.

Although I’ve read people saying you can publish the Amazon AI-narrated audiobook on places that distribute to libraries, I cannot find that in the Terms of Service. On a help topic it says, “Customers can find and listen to audiobooks with virtual voice wherever Audible audiobooks are available today. This includes the opportunity to reach millions of listeners on Amazon, Audible, Alexa, and through Amazon Music Unlimited.”

Advantage: Google

Pricing and Royalties

In typical Amazon fashion, they require you to price your AI-narrated audiobook between $3.99 and $14.99. They pay 40% royalties. Google allows you complete pricing freedom on GooglePlay, provided you do not offer it at a lower cost elsewhere. They pay 52% royalties.

Advantage: Google

Overall Assessment

Google provides significantly more flexibility than Amazon except for the number of available English-speaking voices. I would choose Google unless (as is my current situation) I wanted to stay within the Amazon environment.

I look forward to your questions and comments.

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James M. Jackson writes justice-driven thrillers with brains and bite, including the Niki Undercover Thriller series and the Seamus McCree series. To learn more information about Jim and his books, check out his website, https://jamesmjackson.com. You can sign up for his newsletter (and get to read two free short stories, one featuring Niki and Seamus and the other taking place at Seamus’s camp in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula).