Digital narration technology just keeps getting better.


You are Invited to try out
Apple Digital Narration!

For the past few years, Draft2Digital has been working with Apple Books on their new digital narration technology to help bring books to audio that might not have been financially viable before. This program creates compelling audiobooks from the ebooks you already have, with no effort on your part, and is currently free of charge.

Unfortunately, bundles and boxed sets will be rejected as they do not work well with this offering.

Apple is also limiting the digital narration currently to titles that do not already have a human narrated version.

The great news is that you are not restricted in any way from producing other versions of your audiobook, so you could potentially use the proceeds from sales of this version to help finance a human narrated version and you are free to use other digital narration offerings at other retailers.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Genres accepted at this time:

  • Mystery

  • Thriller

  • Science Fiction

  • Fantasy

  • Contemporary romance

  • Women's fiction

You may choose from a soprano or baritone narrator voice in an American accent, or the new soprano British accent.


To hear samples of the narrators and learn more, visit Apple's digital narration page:

https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-digital-narration-audiobooks

 

The process of digital narration takes about a month wherein Apple will assess the books, digitally narrate, and run book files through quality control. If the audiobook passes QC, it will go on sale on Apple Books. Their quality certification process involves a team of experts listening to samples throughout the books, so you don’t have to do all that proofing yourself.

SOME ITEMS TO BE AWARE OF

  • Currently you cannot change narrator voices for a book once you have already enrolled that book in this program.
  • Ebooks that have sold their audio rights are not eligible.
  • You will not have an opportunity to hear these titles before they go live.
  • Apple is working on making this a set-it-and-forget-it style of offering. 
    • After listening to dozens of these titles Draft2Digital is confident they are doing a great job on this, and they have been constantly improving. 
    • The readers who have purchased digitally narrated books have been rating these close to human narration offerings, and they seem to really love the lower prices that are viable with digital narration. 
    • We strongly believe there is room in the market for lower cost digitally narrated audiobooks alongside human narrated version, much in the same way the market supports paperback and hardback works. There are buyers looking for the best deal and there are others looking for the best version of a work.
  • Apple is working on a better way for authors to experience their digitally narrated works without having to purchase it from their store, but until they develop this process, D2D has brought on a contractor to let you listen to excerpts from your book once we have the audio files.
  • You will not be able to download these audio files or use them elsewhere. This version of the audiobook is exclusively for sale on Apple Books, but D2D will be able to make these available for sale to library systems. (Coming Soon)
  • Due to the amount of effort in the quality control process, Apple requires these digitally narrated books to be live for 6 months once they are for sale. After that point these can be delisted at any time.

HOW TO GET STARTED

Example user interface of how to start an audiobook on Draft2Digital

To get started with audiobook creation, from your Draft2Digital dashboard, you’ll click ADD NEW BOOK (even if you have the digital ebook live through Draft2Digital, this is where you’ll go to start your digitally narrated audiobook project).

Select the red START AUDIOBOOK option.

The next step you will see is the Start New Audiobook page.

Example user interface of how to Start a New Audiobook on Draft2Digital

For books live through Draft2Digital, you’ll see a drop-down menu of eligible titles.

Select the eligible book you’d like to turn into a digitally narrated audiobook. (If you don't see your title in the eligible audio books field, click “Why can’t I find my book?” for further assistance.)

Click START AUDIOBOOK to continue to the next step. 

Follow the prompts to upload an audiobook cover image, or Apple will create one based on your ebook cover image design. For best results, upload a square image that is 3000 pixels by 3000 pixels, in JPG or PNG file format.

You will then select your “reader voice.” Currently, you can select from a soprano feminine voice or a baritone masculine voice. This selection cannot be changed after publishing.

Example user interface of how to choose a Digital Narration Voice on Draft2Digital

You will add or edit your audiobook description. Descriptions should be no less than 50 characters and no more than 4,000 characters.

A copyright notice is required and automatically filled in for you, however this field is editable. We require the copyright notice to start with a four-digit year and include the publisher’s name.

Finally, select from the list of available genres and choose the one that best describes your book.

Example user interface of Genre options on Draft2Digital

Your final step for audiobook creation is to confirm your rights, acknowledge that edits cannot be made to submitted projects, confirm your understanding of timelines and expectation for release, and consent to be included in Apple’s digitally narrated audiobook program.

Example user interface of check boxes at the end of the digital narration process on Draft2Digital

Please let us know if you have any questions!

Happy Publishing!

The D2D Team

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