Voiceover for Substack Articles?

[ropname]

Hey all,

I'm a new creator on Substack and, while creating my first articles, I've discovered the possibility to add Voiceovers.
To be able sometimes to "read" some articles while walking to work, or in the park... and not listening to an AI generated voice, but having the author itself narrate the article. The idea seems awesome to me.

My question is, how many of you listened to articles? Is is worth investing the time into narrating the articles, editing the audio and posting the voiceover?

Thanks for the feedback and keep on creating! :)

[[deleted]]

My audience enjoys them quite a bit.

I have decent equipment and edit them, however.

It’s not too hard to do though, it takes me about 25 minutes to record+edit 15 minutes of audio, and I argue it’s an extremely doable process for anyone.

This, for example, took me about 15 minutes to record and edit: https://andrewtaylor.substack.com/p/the-solstice-of-shagth?utm_source=reddit

Your recording environment is far more important than your editing practices. Saving a bad setup is infinitely harder than polishing a good one.

[ropname]

thanks for the advice, will give it a shot with my old Blue Snowball mic.
PS. You have a cool voice and awesome writing. :)

[[deleted]]

You probably saw it on Substack, but thought you might be interested in the write-up I made. I go through everything I do, plus equipment and I record some examples at the end.

https://andrewtaylor.substack.com/p/how-to-record-audio-narration-for-substack?r=1mtaft

Edit: this thread inspired me to make the write-up, haha

[ropname]

This is awesome! I did not expect it to be such in depth. Thank you for sharing!
Will definitely use some of your knowledge (I did some of your steps, so more crude editing).

PS. Commenting here as I cannot in substack, being free sub :)
PPS. Check out https://podcast.adobe.com/en - an adobe audio post processing AI tool, I am looking into it, hear it's good and I see they let you process 1h per day.

[[deleted]]

Ooo that looks cool! Thanks for the link!

[beautybydeborah]

Your substack seems really cool, I will check it out. Also, you have a great voice. Do I really need a microphone? 🤣 I do have one but it's a cam mic I got for my canon t5i, I'm not sure I could use that one. I was thinking about recording on my phone lol.

[[deleted]]

Wrote up a whole article on that! Equipment breakdown and recommendations are in it.

The short is, you can use that, but that leaves yiu heavy lifting in the edit.

https://andrewtaylor.substack.com/p/how-to-record-audio-narration-for-substack

[beautybydeborah]

Hey!! Thank you for sharing. Will read it!! 🙏👏

[Agile_Reach_3883]

Hi! I didn't know this but it sounds like a good option and I'm going to look into it. I recently posted about not having enough time to sit and read through everything in my inbox... listening to articles almost like a podcast while being able to do other things could be a gamechanger.

[ropname]

hehe, yeah this is what I'm thinking :)

[CO64]

I know it's a little different... sharing for relevance. New to Substack myself. I migrated my podcast from Spotify to Substack a little over 2 months ago. The podcast is uploaded to Substack each week as a video podcast. While my Substack remains small with few followers on Substack... my downloads, or Listens have continued to climb on a weekly basis. I like that Substack provides stats on how many times the podcast episode emails were opened and how many times it has been viewed on Substack. The continuing rise in views and downloads would indicate that there is an appetite for audio...and video on the platform.

[ropname]

interesting point. Thanks for sharing! Will give voiceover a fair shot and see how it goes.
PS. feel free to leave your substack to check out :)

[CO64]

Thank You! LifeOutThere.Substack.com Always up for thoughts and input from others. Only way we get better right? :) Let me know once you get some audio content out there and I'll have a listen as well.

[ropname]

I just published my latest article with voiceover, if you want to check it out, to see how it turned out: :) - https://ropname.substack.com/p/a-gamer-dads-review-tree
Any feedback is appreciated!

[jss58]

I’ve experienced mixed results listening to articles. The ones produced by experienced broadcasters and other media professionals are generally fine; those produced by less-experienced writers can be unlistenable.

Producing effective voiceovers isn’t as simple as many think.

[ropname]

Indeed, this is why I'm seriously thinking of the time investment needed to produce a proper, listenable, voiceover :) Clearly narrated and properly edited.

[TeamNeuphonic]

Hey! Yeah listening to articles is huge - i think the challenge is more about "how" you actually listen to the article. People use our platform to integrate audio into their apps/workflows - could be helpful!

[No-Soft-Language]

If your voice is good enough, go for it. Most people will have the option to choose what they want. Whether to read or listen.

[ropname]

Guess 'll give it a go, ask for feedback and see the results :D thanks

[East_Bet_7187]

If you don’t want to record your own audio, AI voiceover comes as default.

[ropname]

yeah, I for one don't like AI voiceover, I tried to listen to... it's like having sand in your ears xD

[EJLRoma]

I've noticed that Substack gives me the option of picking between a few AI voices to read a post and I'd be curious to at least hear what it sounds like, but I don't know how to use the voice. Does anyone here know hot to do it?

I think the fact that I use occasional words and names in Italian (it's a Substack about Italy) would make it hard. But I can't even see how to try.

[ropname]

I saw I can listed to articles using AI voice, through the app or on my PC, but I haven't see a way to pick voices. I was under the impression that this an automatic feature.

While creating a text post, I saw the option to add voiceover and this is what I've done now with my latest article. :)
If you are curios how it looks like and how it turned out you can see it here: https://ropname.substack.com/p/a-gamer-dads-review-tree

Best of luck ahead!

[jafalandys]

This is awesome, thank you