London-based ElevenLabs, a leader in AI voice technology, has entered into an agreement with HarperCollins Publishers to produce audiobooks for their foreign language business. ElevenLabs's text-to-speech tool will be used to create audio versions of select deep backlist series books, enhancing the accessibility and reach of HarperCollins's catalog.
ElevenLabs, co-founded by ex-Google machine learning engineer Piotr Dąbkowski and ex-Palantir deployment strategist Mateusz ("Mati") Staniszewski, leverages AI to create natural-sounding speech synthesis. Their technology is one of the best in the industry and generates realistic sounding synthetic audio capturing human-like emotion, intonation, and pacing. The company's "Projects" tool, designed for publishers, enables the efficient creation of audiobooks with contextually-aware synthetic or custom voices, ensuring a seamless listening journey.
"We're thrilled to collaborate with HarperCollins," said Mati Staniszewski, CEO of ElevenLabs. "Our technology makes it possible for more books in their incredible catalogue of works to become audiobooks. Now, every author can see their work come to life in audio, and readers can be offered more choice, dissolving the linguistic barriers of content."
With ElevenLabs's technology, HarperCollins can broaden its audiobook offerings, particularly in non-English markets, driving growth in these markets and providing a diverse selection of titles to listeners worldwide. It also substantially reduces the costs and operational challenges associated with traditional audiobook production.
HarperCollins emphasizes that this partnership will not replace their commitment to voice actor-led productions, which remain an essential part of their current audiobook creation strategy. Instead, text-to-speech technology will be used as a complementary tool to enable the production of audiobooks for backlist series books in non-English markets. This approach aims to diversify the selection of titles available in the audiobook format and drive growth in these markets.