Amazon.com Inc.’s Audible will begin inviting a select group of US-based audiobook narrators to train artificial intelligence on their voices, the clones of which can then be used to make audiobook recordings. The effort, which kicks off this week, is designed to add more audiobooks to the service, quickly and cheaply - and to welcome traditional narrators into the evolving world of audiobook automation which, to date, many have regarded warily.

Last year, Amazon began offering US-based, self-published authors who make their books available on the Kindle Store the option of having their works narrated by a generic "virtual voice.” The initiative has been popular. As of May, more than 40,000 books in Audible were marked as having made use of the technology.

Under the new arrangement, rather than limiting the audio work entirely to company-owned synthetic voices, Audible will be encouraging professional narrators to get in on the action.

"This beta offering will empower participants to expand their production capabilities for high-quality audiobooks, generate new business by taking on more projects simultaneously and increase their earning potential,” the company said in a blog post published today.

Narrators who opt in will be able to construct their voice replicas for free. Afterward, they will be compensated for any audiobooks created using their AI voice. Payments will be made on a title-by-title basis through a royalty-sharing model.

Audible is seeking ways to bring more exclusive content to its service. A year after introducing the virtual voice tools, 96% of self-published, written titles on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing service still do not have audiobook companions, the company told Bloomberg News. A greater diversity of voices could improve those figures.

Once a narrator approves their AI voice being used for a specific work, they will be able to edit pronunciation and pacing using in-house production tools. Audible will not use the replicas unless the narrator explicitly provides permission.

"Narrators continue to maintain control of the projects they want to audition for, using voice replica or live performance, and will remain central to the production process,” the company said in the blog post.

 - Bloomberg