Create an Audiobook with ElevenLabs: Free vs Studio (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Today you're going to learn how to create an audiobook with 11Labs. We're going to cover the entire process and two different workflows from converting and publishing your audiobook for free to having full creative control over every aspect of the audio. Let's begin. Over 4 million new ebooks are published every single year worldwide, with the vast majority being self-published titles from independent authors. And when it comes to audiobooks, there are only 70,000 to 100,000 produced annually. So less than 3% of books become audiobooks. That's millions of stories without immersive audio versions. And the craziest part is that audiobooks are the fastest growing area in publishing, seeing 25 to 30% annual growth. So the opportunity here is huge, but the traditional audiobook production costs have shut out 99% of indie authors, until now. Today, 11Labs is making audiobook production accessible to every author and publisher, regardless of budget or technical expertise. So here's exactly how to turn your book into an audiobook with 11Labs. There are two different paths you can take to turn your ebook into an audiobook. The first way is using 11Reader. 11Reader publishing is the fastest way to create and distribute immersive audio for your book, and it's entirely free. The second way is using the 11Labs Audiobook Studio, and this approach gives you full creative control over the production of your audiobook. And I'm going to be covering both. And no matter what option you choose, to get started, you can click the first link in the description down below. And once you're inside of 11Labs, the first step is to go ahead and click on Audiobooks. Now for those that want the one-click-and-you're-done process, here you can simply click on Publish to 11Reader. And from this point, you want to upload your ebook file, whether it's an EPUB, PDF, text, or any of the following. Simply click, select your file. So here I'm just selecting the greatgatsby.epub file. Click Open. And now we can go ahead and click Create and Preview Book. Here, 11Labs then uploads your book and gets it ready to preview. And while you wait, you can download the 11Reader app on your phone, so you'll be able to see how readers will experience your audiobook. Once your book is uploaded, to publish it for free, we want to go ahead and click straight on the Publish button in the top right. From here, we can then go ahead and select 11Reader. Once we've done that, we want to click on Dynamic Narration. This doesn't require any credits and listeners can change the narrator's voice to their preference with inside the 11Reader app. Before your book gets published, you need to add all of your book details, such as the book title, the cover, the author name. And once you fill that all of the information, you can go ahead and click Continue. You can then finalize the details regarding payouts and your book will be distributed and published to the 11Reader app. And let me show you what that looks like. And so once you've published your audiobook, you can go and search for it within the 11Reader app. And in the 11Reader app, at the top, we can go and hit the search icon. And then I'm simply going to search for Great Gatsby. And here you can search for the name of your book. And as you can see now, we've got The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. And so I tap on this and I can simply click Play, start listening to the audiobook.

[00:02:42] Speaker 2: In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over...

[00:02:47] Speaker 1: And now this currently is being read back in one voice. And using the 11Reader Dynamic Narration, we can essentially go and change the voice that reads us the book. And so I tap on the Voices icon in the bottom left, the little colourful orb. And as you can see, we're currently using Zara's voice, right? But let's say we wanted to switch to Charlie, we could do that. Love all, trust a few, do... Or we could even use my voice clone, which I made inside of Eleven Labs, to listen back to the book. Just as a ship sails on the sea... And so if we tap on the Explore page, we can actually go and explore a bunch more voices so we can find the perfect voice to read us back the book. So your listeners will be able to use the voice that they prefer to listen to your audiobook. So for an example, if I wanted to listen to Lily...

[00:03:27] Speaker 3: I have never been hurt.

[00:03:29] Speaker 1: I could select Lily. And now if we listen back to the audiobook...

[00:03:32] Speaker 3: In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice...

[00:03:36] Speaker 1: And that's how Dynamic Narration works when you publish your audiobook to the 11Reader app. And so that's how to create and publish your audiobook entirely for free. But if you want to customise everything and have full creative control, you can. To do this, we want to simply click on Create Audiobook this time instead. But this time you'll notice that we have the option to choose a voice. And so here you can select the voice that will narrate your audiobook. And below that, you'll also notice that we can auto-assign voices. This means that 11Labs will automatically detect characters in your book and assign different voices to them. And this process can actually take a little bit longer though because it has to scan your entire content and grab all of the context to assign the correct voices. And before you begin creating the audiobook, you can actually go to the voice library. And this is where you can browse and search for voices that you want to use within your audiobook. And so if you have specific characters that might have specific voice characteristics, you can go ahead and search through the voice library. For example, if we were looking for an old man, we could type in old man. We could get a bunch of different voices that have the characteristics of an old man. And you can also notice that we've got a bunch of different accents. And so you could be creating an audiobook where your person is French and we might want to add a French accent or the actual audiobook could be in French itself. And so you want to have French narration. You can then go and click on the plus icon to add any voice to your voice or if you can't find the exact voice you're looking for, you can click on create a voice and then you can use voice design to simply prompt the voice that you want. So you can create an entirely new voice that's unique to your character based on the description that you provide to 11Labs. But if we go back to creating our audiobook, we can click on default voice and then select any of the voices that I've added to my voice library. So for example, we could preview Harry.

[00:05:13] Speaker 4: Friends show their love in times of trouble. Or we could use something like Callum. Life without love is like...

[00:05:18] Speaker 1: And so I simply choose the voice that I want as the default narrator for my book. And then below that, if I have multiple characters within my book, I want to toggle on auto-assign voices. And so here before you click create audiobook, you want to confirm whether your book is single narration or multi-narration. And once you've done all of this, you can go ahead and click on create audiobook. And now you are in the audiobook editor. When creating an audiobook and making edits to it, it is a credit-based system. And so a typical book costs anywhere between $100 to $200 depending on the length. And now we recommend starting with the 11Labs Pro plan for full-length books. And the great thing about using 11Labs to create your audiobook is you have distribution flexibility because you can download your files, publish to 11Reader, Spotify or anywhere else. And you have full control to publish wide, meaning that you're not locked in with a single publisher and you can monetize your audiobook on multiple platforms. Let's go ahead and select it. And now we can click create audiobook. 11Labs is then going to scan your entire ebook file and give unique voices to each individual character. And then we're taken straight into the audiobook editor. The very first thing you'll notice is that we have the title and the author on the front page from our ebook. And this is because we are in the very first chapter. And so to change and see the rest of the content, we can go to chapters on the left. And now, as you can see, we can cycle through each of our chapters. So we can go to chapter four, just like so. And now we have all of the content for chapter four. Then we can go to chapter one. And as you can see, we've got the start of our book and the beginning of chapter one. And you'll notice we have different colors for different parts of the text. And that is when 11Labs has automatically detected a different character and therefore assigns a different voice. And to listen to our audiobook, we can go and place the cursor wherever we like. And then we can simply click play.

[00:07:00] Speaker 4: In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

[00:07:06] Speaker 1: And as you can see, we've now got the voice that we chose as the main narrator, which was Callum. But below that, we have a different voice because here it's the father speaking. So let's preview this.

[00:07:17] Speaker 5: Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had. He didn't say anymore, but we've always...

[00:07:28] Speaker 1: And so as you can see, 11Labs is automatically switching between different voices for different characters. And throughout the entire audiobook, the same characters will have the same voice. But what if we wanted to change that voice? Well, to do that, we can go and click on voices in the left toolbar. And here, as you can see, we've got the different voices used in our project. And so let's say we didn't like the voice that was used here for the father. We could go and click on it. And as you can see, it's now highlighted in the voices that are used for our project. And so we're currently using the voice Brian, but I want to change this. And so I'll click on the voice settings. And here we can go and click on this button, which will replace this voice across all of the segments where the father is speaking within the book. So I can click replace voice across project. And now, as you can see, we can see the amount of different sections where this voice is used and where the voice will be replaced. And so it's being replaced in chapter one, chapter six, and chapter nine. And so here, I simply go and choose the voice that I want to swap it to. So here we could go and use something like Bill. Or maybe Clyde. Select it, and then click replace and clear impacted audio. And now if we listen back to the same section, let's take a listen.

[00:08:41] Speaker 4: Just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.

[00:08:45] Speaker 1: As you can see, we now have a different voice for that section. And now every time we play a section back, it's automatically generated by Eleven Labs.

[00:08:53] Speaker 4: In my younger and more vulnerable years.

[00:08:55] Speaker 1: But if we didn't like the way that generation sounds, we could go ahead and tweak it any way we like, or we could simply just highlight that paragraph and click regenerate. And now, as you can see, we have a different delivery for the same paragraph. And if we like this line and we want to make no further changes to it, we can go ahead and click lock paragraph. So we prevent any further changes happening to this paragraph. And so when it comes to creating and checking your audio book, you want to make sure that you lock every single paragraph that you are happy with. So we could then go on to the next line. We could also preview this one. And once we're happy, we also lock the paragraph. And now for each paragraph, you get two free regenerations. So you don't have to spend new credits. And what I recommend doing for longer paragraphs is actually splitting them into smaller sections. So you can go through and preview one chunk at a time and lock smaller sections at a time. So we could go and listen to this.

[00:09:42] Speaker 4: He didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually...

[00:09:45] Speaker 1: And so if I was happy with that, once again, I go ahead and click the lock button. But what if I want to make any changes to the text? Well, very easy to do so because you can go and edit the text just like you would edit text anywhere else. And now, obviously, if you've uploaded from an ebook, PDF, or an EPUB file, you most likely don't actually want to make any changes to the content itself. But what you can do is make some small tweaking changes to help Eleven Labs give you a better delivery. But let's say I wasn't happy with the generations I was getting, either because the delivery was off or the pronunciation of a word or name isn't what I'm hoping for. First of all, here at the top, we can go and open the pronunciations editor. And here we can then go and create or upload our own pronunciation dictionary. These allow you to specify the pronunciation of certain words, such as characters or brand names, or even to specify how acronyms should be read. And you can do this using either the phonetic alphabet or word substitutions. And so for an example, if for whatever reason, I didn't like the way abnormal was being pronounced, I could hover over it. I could click open pronunciations editor. And now, as you can see, I'm creating a rule. We've got abnormal and then Elias. And here in the output, I want to put in the way I think that it should be pronounced. And I can even preview it right here. Alec. And so I could save that. And now, as you can see, abnormal has been added to the dictionary. So I'm creating my own custom dictionary. And so what you want to do at the beginning of your project is add in the pronunciations for all the characters that have unique names or words that you may have invented for your story. And so now you'll notice that if I go and regenerate this section, because yes, every time you make a change to the dictionary, you need to regenerate the passages that include that specific word. We can regenerate it.

[00:11:21] Speaker 4: The Alec mind is quick to detect and detect.

[00:11:24] Speaker 1: And as you can see, abnormal is now being read out as Alec. And obviously I don't want this, but it was just to show you a quick example of how it works. And we'll link to more documentation about phonetic libraries and the pronunciations editor down below in the description. But what if I was happy with the pronunciations, but not the way the line was being delivered? Well, I could actually go in and edit any of the punctuation I like. So for example, I might want to add a few extra commas here and there, or I might want to split a few sentences up so I get a better delivery. But what we can also do is add in a break. So for example, in this paragraph right here, if we wanted to emphasize the fact that he didn't say anymore, after that, we could go in, place the cursor, and then simply click insert break. And now we've added in a break, and here we can determine the amount of seconds that we want it to pause. And so sometimes adding a simple one second pause for dramatic effect can have a really big impact on the delivery of your audio book. We could even go in here and add in a two second break. I click apply, and now we have a two second break. So now if we were to play this back, if I click play, he didn't say anymore.

[00:12:25] Speaker 4: But we've always been unusually commu...

[00:12:28] Speaker 1: As you can see, we now have a two second break in the delivery of our audio book. And if you want to take it a step even further, you can use a prompt like this one that will help you perfect the delivery for audio books with 11Labs. And so you could take one of the paragraphs from your 11Labs project, run it through an LLM with this prompt, you paste your section in at the bottom right here, send this through, and then you'll get back your same paragraph with the exact same wording optimized for a better delivery with an AI voice. And once again, when you're happy with a section, remember to lock the paragraph. And now you know how to edit the voices, the delivery, and the pronunciation, you can go ahead and make your audio book much more immersive by adding music and sound effects. As you can see on the left here, we've got music and we've got sound effects. Imagine I wanted to add some ominous background music to start off the chapter and set the scene, right? We can make it much more immersive. I could click on music and here we can then go and describe the song that we want to use and 11Labs will generate a brand new unique song that you can use in your audio book. And so for example, I could simply type out ominous background music. Here I only want to generate one variation and let's say I want this to be two minutes long to start off the chapter and I want it to be an instrumental. I can then adjust all of these settings and simply click generate. And now as you can see, 11Labs has generated a new unique track called Shadows Breath that we can use in our project and we can even preview it just like so. As you can see, very subtle, very ominous, but I think this is perfect to start off the chapter. And so what I can do, if I go and zoom in on the timeline at the beginning, I can place my playhead right at the beginning because yes, the 11Labs audio book editor is a timeline. I can simply drag this up like so. I can place my playhead where I want to add the track and then I go to the actual song in the 11Music generator and then I click the plus icon to add it to the timeline. And now as you can see, the music's been imported. And so if I start playing it.

[00:14:26] Speaker 4: My father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantage.

[00:14:41] Speaker 1: And now the book feels much more impactful and immersive. And I can go and adjust the volume of the background track by clicking on it and then going to edit. And here, as you can see, I've got this audio slider and for background music, I recommend keeping it between three to 20%. And so here, I'm simply going to make it because this is background music. We don't want it to be too distracting from the main content of your book, which is the voices. And the fun thing with 11Labs is we can even do the same thing with sound effects. Just like music, we can click on sound effects and simply describe the sound effect that we'd like to hear. So let's say I wanted some footsteps just before the father character starts speaking. Here, I could type in footsteps. We could have it last, let's just say two seconds and I'm simply going to click generate. And now, as you can see, I've got some footstep sound effects. And so let's say I want to use these ones just before the father starts speaking. Well, what I'm going to do is actually add in a two second break. I'm going to apply it and then I'm going to place my playhead at the beginning of the two second break and then add the sound effects. So now I have the sound effects audio that starts playing during the break. So I make sure that it's not at the same time as words are being spoken. But obviously, this is an artistic choice and you can choose to add sound effects and music however you want within your audio book. But now the passage would sound something a little like this.

[00:16:02] Speaker 4: That I've been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, he told me just.

[00:16:11] Speaker 1: As you can see, now it sounds like the dad is walking onto the scene and then start speaking, which I think is a really cool way to make your audio book much more immersive. And before you start editing your audio book and publishing it, I just want to give you a few different tips. First of all, you want to make sure that you use a pronunciation dictionary early when creating your audio book. If you lock a paragraph, but you change the words in the dictionary later, you have to unlock it to regenerate. So if you have unique character names and locations, create your pronunciation dictionary first. The next thing is you also want to handle years and numbers carefully because AI voices may read years and numbers in inconsistent or unintended ways. For example, 1999 might be read as 1999 in one line, but then it might be read as 1999 in another, therefore making it inconsistent. And so if you do want clarity and consistency in your numbers, you can write years as numerals where standard pronunciation is expected. You can also add an emphasis on them by writing them out in words, or you could actually go and add them into the pronunciation dictionary for tricky non-standard numeric phrases. For example, if you're trying to write out the full pi number in a very specific way, you want to add that to the dictionary. And next, when it comes to creating your audio book, especially when you're adding the music and sound effects, I recommend using headphones. Using headphones and not laptop speakers gives you the best experience to make sure that you're creating an audio book experience the way you want it to be heard and that you've got your levels and your volume just right. And then lastly, don't hesitate to use pauses, right? Using the 11Labs insert break button when you want to add pauses and breaks for dramatic effect is the easiest way to create predictable gaps and a better delivery within your audio book. And once you're done and you've made all the changes to your audio book, you can go ahead and click on publish in the top right. And here you can publish straight to platforms like 11Reader with the original audio. So this is the way that you've created it within the audio book studio. You can also publish to platforms straight as Spotify and also in audio. And you can even choose to export your project as different audio format files so you can choose to publish your audio book wide. And I do want to mention you can also publish individual chapters at a time if you are working on individual chapters every single time. And all of the changes you make to your project are automatically saved on your bookshelf. So here, if we click on this menu, we can go back to audio books. And here, as you can see, on the bookshelf, we have our book, The Great Gatsby that we just started creating. And next to it, we can see the payouts, analytics and resources for all of the audio books we create. And if you want to get started, you can click the first link in the description down below. And if you have any questions, drop them in the comments. And if you enjoyed this video, please hit that like button and subscribe. Thanks for watching.