Create your own FREE MP3 Audio Book - create high quality natural voice audio book quickly & easily

* Are you one of the people who spend a lot of time in your car?

* Would you rather listen to an ebook or a document on your mp3 player instead of reading it on your computer?

* Are you a student or someone who write a lot and would like to listen to your writing instead as a proof reading method?

* Do you want to create your own free mp3 audio book instead of purchasing a ton of expensive audio books?

If any of the above fits you, this lens is for you.

I would like to show you how I create my own free mp3 audio book using a text to speech download software, so you can do the same :-)

I spent about 2 to 3 hours in my car every day. It is a lot of driving! Music is great, but I also like to listen to books, especially the books that I have on my hard drives and I don't have time to read them on my computer (you can find many free classic books from project Gutenberg).

I started to find text to speech software that let me create mp3 audio book from my ebook collection. I went to my local computer stores and can't find any ebook creating software, so I started to find text to speech download software online.

Most of the software that I found are very similar and pretty easy to use, but the voices are very robotic.... even those that they claim to sounds "natural." (ok... I might be picky, but I am going to listen to this several hours a day, I should be picky ;-)

The quality of the voice and the ease of use of the software are the most important things to me when I am selecting a text to speech download software to make my own free mp3 audio book. After some searching and comparing, I found a great text to speech download software called TextAloud.

TextAloud (US$29.95) is very easy to use, and they have a large number of voices to choose from. When I want to convert a file to mp3 file, I simply open the pdf or doc file from TextAloud, do whatever adjustments I need to do (see the tips section below), then click on the "Speak to File" button, select where I want to save the mp3 audio file, and it starts to convert the file to into mp3 automatically. So easy!!

Here is a screenshot of the software.


I have converted a famous book named "The Art of Money Getting" by PT Barnum into a mp3 file Audio Book using TextAloud. You can download it by clicking on the link (right click and select "save target as").

I use the "Acapela" brand "Heather" voice. You will get a better idea how the ebook would sound like with a longer audio file than just the short sample on the TextAloud website. This is a great book as well, enjoy!

Click Here for more information about TextAloud Text to Speech Download Softare.

You can download a free trial of TextAloud text to speech download software here.

The best part of TextAloud is the high quality natural voices. I tried the popular AT&T natural voices... they are pretty good, but still sound a little robotic to me. Although it is slightly more expensive, I asked for refund of the AT&T voice and purchased the Acapela brand "Heather" voice from their website.

Their customer service is great and never gave me a hard time about the refund. They have a wide selection of voices. For American US voice, Acepela brand "Heather" voice is the best in my opinion. However, while I was reading the TextAloud forum (yes, they have a pretty active forum for users), everyone has their own opinion about which voice is the best. If you want to give this text to speech download software a try, be sure to check out all the voices as well.

This text to speech download software also have the following features:

- it converts txt, rtf, html, pdf and doc files to mp3 with a click on a button
- it adds a plugin to your Internet Explorer and Firefox browser, so you can listen to web pages
- you can have TextAloud read the email out loud for you
- the advanced pronunciation tools allow you to change the pronunciation if it doesn't sound right to you
- it allows you to convert a batch of the files at the same time
- you can change the speed, pitch, and voice of the voice easily
- and many more!!

Click Here for more information about TextAloud Text to Speech Download Softare.

You can download a free trial of TextAloud text to speech download software here.

No software is perfect... so I want to tell people who plan to purchase TextAloud Text to speech download software several tips:

- no matter how good the text to speech download software is, TextAloud lacks the brain that we human being have. So, if you have a document with "-" or "/" signs, it will read the name of the symbol. For instance, if your document contains the text "between 15 - 20," it will read "between 15 dash 20." If the text is "$20/day," it will read "20 dollars slash day," etc. If you have a document contains a whole line of dashes to break up the text in the document, the software will keep saying "dash dash..." for a long time. So, be sure to take out all the dash symbols before you convert the text to mp3 files.

- the above scenario also applies to long web address. So you should delete the url or shorten it before you convert the text to mp3 files.

- TextAloud cannot open "secured" pdf file. If the author of pdf document lock the file to prevent people from copying it, TextAloud will not be able to open the file.

- If the documents that you want to convert includes header and footer, such as page number and copyright notice at the footer of each page, TextAloud will include them as part of the text when you open it. You will find the footer text throughout document. Therefore, be sure to delete them before you convert your text to mp3 files as well.

- Listening to the short sample of the voice on their website can give you a pretty good idea of what the voice would sound like, but actually owning the voice and use it to convert your document to mp3 file will be the "real test." Therefore, be sure to use TextAloud and test out the voice after you purchase it. If you are not happy with the voice, ask for a refund and get the a new one within the 30 days refund period. (see above to download an entire ebook that I created using TextAloud software).

- You will experience your computer slowing down while TextAloud is converting file to mp3. You might want to click the button and walk away for several minutes while it is converting. I still surf the web, but I feel the computer is actually being a little slow while TextAloud is in action.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the software and use it almost daily to make my own free mp3 audio book. This text to speech download software saves me a lot of money of purchasing audio books and let me "read" my ebooks while I am driving. Many people also use it to proof read the documents that they write. It is highly recommended.

Click Here for more information about TextAloud Text to Speech Download Softare.

You can download a free trial of TextAloud text to speech download software here.