Exciting Update for epub_to_audiobook v0.4.0: Introducing OpenAI TTS! reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- philopry 路 2023-11-10 13:17 Hey all, Just wanted to drop in and share the latest update on my project - \[\ `epub\_to\_audiobook\`\]([https://github.com/p0n1/epub\_to\_audiobook] (https://github.com/p0n1/epub_to_audiobook)) has just tagged v0.4.0, and it's got some neat tweaks for those of us into audiobooks and self-hosting solutions. The headline feature? OpenAI's TTS is now supported. If natural- sounding voices are your jam, it's worth giving this a shot. You can check out the release \[here\]([https://github.com/p0n1/epub\_to\_audi obook/releases/tag/v0.4.0](https://github.com/p0n1/epub_to_audiobook/r eleases/tag/v0.4.0)). The OpenAI integration brings an array of voice options that are quite impressive. To get a feel, there's a sample available \[here\]([https://audio.com/paudi/audio/openai-0008-chapter-vii- agricultural-experience-i-had-now-been- in](https://audio.com/paudi/audio/openai-0008-chapter-vii- agricultural-experience-i-had-now-been-in)) - the naturalness might surprise you. For those concerned about costs, yes, OpenAI TTS is not free like some Azure quotas, but it's competitively priced. A 500,000-character average book would run about $7.50, not too shabby considering the quality. I think it maybe the cheapest and best on the market. Always a good idea to check the \[API pricing\]([https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8555505-tts- api](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8555505-tts-api)) beforehand. I have kept backward compatibility for Azure TTS users, so there's no disruption if you're in that camp. Plus, the codebase refactor promises easier addition of TTS providers in the future. If you're curious about how the project has evolved, here are the previous discussions on r/selfhosted: \- \[Initial tool introduction\]([https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/ comments/14lex4l/a\_simple\_but\_effective\_tool\_to\_convert\_epub\_t o/](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/14lex4l/a_simple_but_ effective_tool_to_convert_epub_to/)) \- \[v0.2.0 feature update\]([https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comm ents/16nplaq/update\_on\_epub\_to\_audiobook\_v020\_new\_features\_and /](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/16nplaq/update_on_epub _to_audiobook_v020_new_features_and/)) Would love to hear any feedback from those who decide to try it out. The community's insights are always invaluable for projects like this. 馃憠 [https://github.com/p0n1/epub\_to\_audiobook](https://github.com/p0n 1/epub_to_audiobook) Cheers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SardonicLesbian27 路 2023-11-10 15:39 Oh damn, that's almost indistinguishable from natural human narration ---------------------------------------------------------------------- faxtotem 路 2023-11-10 20:26 Is there a library anywhere of books that have been converted? Would be nice to share the cost of the TTS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- barnesk9 路 2023-11-10 21:27 This is a great use of AI. I'm really interested in trying this out ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thefoxman88 路 2023-11-10 23:44 Depends if you feel comfortable sharing a TTS version of copyrighted content. If you like to travel the high seas, maybe create a torrent and share with theaudiobookbay ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Fran89 路 2023-11-11 02:43 Awesome!, I'll try using it with localai's tts endpoint then. It should be openai compatible to some extent. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- philopry 路 2023-11-11 05:54 Looking forward for your results. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- philopry 路 2023-11-11 06:00 Hi faxtotem, I鈥檓 glad you鈥檙e interested in sharing resources! It鈥檚 important to remember that sharing TTS-converted books can be complex due to copyright laws. Instead of creating a shared library, I would recommend directing users to purchase the books legally and then use the tool to convert them for personal use. This ensures that authors and publishers are fairly compensated for their work, and we all stay on the right side of the law. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- philopry 路 2023-11-11 06:01 Thanks for your interest. Any feedback would be appreciated. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- philopry 路 2023-11-11 06:03 Yeah. Sometimes the AI voice even makes mistakes and makes them look more like real humans. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu 路 2023-11-11 09:05 You are aware that OpenAI TTS is also called "Whisper", has been released as OpenSource and runs decently fast on your own computer? There are even single click drop in replacements for the OpenAI Whisper API. https://hub.docker.com/r/onerahmet/openai-whisper-asr-webservice Maybe support those additionally or instead of the paid API? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- philopry 路 2023-11-11 10:52 Yes, Whisper is great but actually for speech to text? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu 路 2023-11-11 10:53 ah you youre right i was mixing that up with tortoise tts and [bark.io](https://bark.io) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sharockys 路 2023-11-12 13:04 Amazing! I will remake the conversion with it! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- greenglazed 路 2023-11-12 14:48 Thanks for this. I just used it to make an audio version of one of my Dad's favorite travel books, which isn't available as an audiobook, so he can listen to it. It sounds pretty good using OpenAI - definitely listenable! The cost was about $6. Dad is unable to read these days, so this is actually pretty huge. Thanks for your work and sharing the project. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- philopry 路 2023-11-12 23:36 Glad it helped! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- herozorro 路 2023-11-22 03:31 since its open source, can it not be free? or does it require a lot of compute and cant be done locally? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- philopry 路 2023-11-23 16:19 Did you mean OpenAI TTS service? It's not open sourced and not free. I think high quality TTS will indeed require some compute resources. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CarRepresentative843 路 2023-11-26 00:02 Does this work with this tool? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- donberto 路 2023-12-18 22:08 Thank you so much for this. I think this is an incredible tool for language learners. I have a lot of books in Chinese that I'd like to listen to but no audiobooks exist for. The OpenAI TTS is also a game changer for me in learning Ancient Greek. Other TTS programs freak out when they see the Ancient Greek accents and breathing marks, but OpenAI reads them with the correct accent placements. It was even able to read the text with a "Classical" Attic pronunciation after I replaced letters that have different sounds in modern Greek with the phonetic way they would be pronounced in a more classical pronunciation. Have you noticed that you are being charged at all for the Azure TTS? I don't see any activity on my Azure account except for a few API "List Keys" operations. I have probably used up 800k characters in the last few months but haven't been charged and don't see any TTS activity. However, when I go to the Azure Voice Studio, it doesn't let me produce any outputs because it says I've reached my maximum. But using your code I can still produce more TTS. OpenAI has been charging me like normal, and I see all my activity listed correctly on their site. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- philopry 路 2023-12-19 15:36 Glad it worked for you! Curious about your experience as language learners. Thanks for the detailed sharing. My Azure account also didn鈥檛 charge me. I have been using for months with several books converted each month. The Azure dashboard is difficult to use for me. I remember I can see how many characters processed by TTS in the Azure dashboard, which is far beyond the free quota. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Snifnaz 路 2023-12-24 10:49 As someone who doesn鈥檛 know anything about coding, it would be great to have this as a simple app that I could just download, input the api key and epub file and run.