Major publishers are wary of the audiobook format and not every e-book out there makes the transition into being fully narrated and available to purchase. Today, we look at a few methods you can employ on your Android, Blackberry or iPhone that will allow you to turn any e-book into audiobook.
If you have an Android or Blackberry phone the first thing you need to do is download FB Reader and the Fbreader Text to Speech plugin. The next step is to download Ivona Kendra for a natural sounding US voice or Ivona Amy for the UK.
After everything is installed, open your favorite e-book in Fbreader, open settings -> speak+. This will open and start the TTS, but we still need to select the Ivona as the engine. This can be done by clicking ´Change language or Voice´ and then select ´IVONA, GBR, Amy´ as preferred voice.
If you have an iPhone and the latest version of iOS, there is a text to speech system built into it. Go to settings / general / accessibility / speech and turn on Speak Screen. This method will allow you to use any e-reading app you want, such as Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Barnes and Noble Nook, iBooks and hundreds of others. All you have to do is swipe downwards from the top of the screen to initiate the playbook controls and your e-book will be narrated by Siri.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
