Short stories
A finished piece of 3,000 to 8,000 words makes a story to audiobook project of 20 to 50 minutes that you can send to newsletter readers or post on your site.
Paste text, get an audiobook
Text to Audiobook from Anything You Can Paste
No EPUB or manuscript needed. Paste a scene, a short story or a run of chapters into the text to audiobook converter, and it separates narration from dialogue, casts a voice for each character and gives you MP3 or M4B files to keep. A .txt file works too.
AI audiobook samples
View allHow to turn pasted text into an audiobook
The paste box above is the whole tool. Nothing is sent anywhere until you choose to generate audio.
- 1
Paste or open a TXT file
Use the paste tab for anything from a single scene to several chapters, or switch to upload and pick a .txt file from your computer.
- 2
Check the split and the cast
Lines such as “Chapter 2” or a Markdown heading start new chapters. Each speaker found in the dialogue is listed with a voice you can change.
- 3
Generate and save
Generate the first chapter and listen. When it sounds right, finish the rest and download MP3 files, a ZIP or one M4B.
Formatting tips for a clean text to audiobook result
Casting reads the shape of your text. A few habits make the difference between a confused cast and a clean one.
Do this
- Put dialogue in double quotation marks, with one speaker per paragraph
- Add a tag near each new speaker (“said Iris”, “Tom asked”) so the right voice picks up the line
- Leave a blank line between paragraphs; single line breaks inside a paragraph are joined up
- Give each chapter its own heading line if you paste more than one
- Write numbers and symbols the way they should sound (“twenty past nine”, not “9:20”)
Avoid this
- Pasting a link to a page: URL import is not available yet, so paste the words themselves
- Text copied with menus, comments or share buttons still attached
- Someone else’s published work that you plan to share without holding the rights
Type sound tags straight into your text
Tags such as [laugh], [sigh] and [whisper] can sit inside the text you paste, so a text to audiobook read laughs or sighs exactly where you want. Play the demo to hear where each one lands.
Nate
excited delivery
[say excitedly, like sharing big news with a friend]
Guess what? We actually did it. [laugh] The whole thing launches tomorrow morning!
Luna
whisper delivery
[in a hushed, breathy whisper, like sharing a secret in the dark]
Come closer. [breathe] I'll tell you where the old lighthouse keeper hid the key.
Rupert
anchor delivery
[say like a confident, authoritative news anchor, crisp and measured, stressing the key words]
Markets opened higher this morning, as investors welcomed news of a long-awaited trade agreement.
Nadia
ad delivery
[say warmly and cheerfully like an upbeat radio ad, smiling through every word]
Fresh bread, real coffee, and a table by the window. Your morning starts at Rosie's Corner Bakery.
Text to audiobook converter or a plain text to speech reader?
Both turn words into sound. The difference shows up as soon as two characters start talking.
| AI Audiobooks | Plain text to speech | |
|---|---|---|
| Voices | A narrator plus a voice for each character | One voice for everything |
| Dialogue | Quotes passed to the speaker named in the tag | Read in the same voice as the prose |
| Chapters | Split from headings in the text | One long stream |
| Delivery | [Directions] and sound tags per line | Speed and pitch settings |
| Fixing a slip | Regenerate only that line | Start the read again |
| What you keep | MP3 per chapter, a ZIP or an M4B | Often nothing, or one long file |
Want several voices for a script rather than a story? See multi voice text to speech.
What people turn from text into an audiobook
Short pieces suit the paste box best, because you can hear the result a few minutes after you start.
Scenes you are revising
Hearing a scene read back by a cast exposes stiff dialogue and repeated words faster than another silent read.
Serial episodes
Paste each new chapter as it is written and keep the same cast. The web novel to audiobook page covers long serials.
Stories for children
A warm narrator and playful voices for a story you wrote, ready for the car or bedtime. More on AI bedtime stories.
Length, languages and cost of a story to audiobook project
How long it will sound. Narration runs at about 155 words per minute, so a 1,000 word scene plays for roughly six and a half minutes and a 5,000 word story for just over half an hour. The words to minutes calculator gives an exact figure for any count.
What it costs. Credits are charged per 1,000 characters. A 5,000 word story is about 28,500 characters, or roughly 260 credits with Standard voices, around two thirds of a Starter month. Lite voices cost less for drafts, and Expressive voices cost more for the most emotional reads.
Other languages. The voice library covers 13 languages, from Spanish and German to Japanese and Hindi, with English the most polished. Character detection reads English dialogue tags best, so in other languages check the speaker of each line before you generate.
Long text files. For a whole novel saved as a .txt file, with chapter MP3s as the goal, read TXT to MP3, which covers encodings, line breaks and plain text classics. Everything else on this page applies to both.
Where your text goes. Projects are saved in your own browser under My Audiobooks, and the AI audiobook generator only sends the lines you generate to the speech model. Nothing you paste is used to train AI models.
Text to audiobook FAQ
Do I need a file, or can I just paste my text?
Pasting is enough. Open the paste tab, drop in your text and the text to audiobook converter builds chapters and a cast from it straight away. If you prefer files, a .txt upload works the same way, and EPUB, DOCX, PDF and Markdown files are accepted too.
How does it know which character is speaking?
It reads the dialogue tags around each quote, such as “said Iris” or “Tom asked”, and script lines that open with a name, such as “IRIS: Not tonight.” In a back and forth between two people, untagged lines alternate between them. Speakers with a single line join the “Other voices” role, and you can reassign any line in the studio.
What happens if my text has no chapter headings?
Short text becomes a single chapter. Long text without headings is cut into parts of about 4,000 words at paragraph breaks, so nothing is lost. To control the split, add a line such as “Chapter 3” or a Markdown heading where each chapter begins.
Can I paste a link to a web page instead?
Not yet. URL import is on the list but not available, so copy the words from the page and paste them in. Strip out menus, comment threads and share buttons first, and only paste work you wrote or have permission to use.
What does it cost to narrate a short story?
A story of 5,000 words uses roughly 260 credits with Standard voices. Sign up with Google and you get 100 gift credits (valid for 7 days, about 12 minutes on Standard; usage varies by text and voice tier) for a short sample with no card needed, so a short piece can often be tried at no cost. Importing and casting are always free.
Can I convert text to audiobook in other languages?
Yes. Voices cover 13 languages, including Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic, with English the most polished. Speaker detection works best with English dialogue tags, so check the cast before generating non-English text and reassign any line that went to the wrong role.
Paste a scene and hear the cast
Try text to audiobook with your own words: paste a chapter and generate it with the free credits that come with a Google sign-up.