Pros： Low price, very light, support for foreign languages, fast page turns, partial refresh; Cons： No audio support or text to speech, not all Kindle apps work. Pros： Infrared touch, partial refresh, cloud storage, x ray feature; Cons： No ePub support, no page buttons. Jun 09, 2015 Text-to-speech is one of the features that sets Kindle books apart from the likes of Kobo and Nook. But not all Kindle devices and apps support text-to-speech. In fact most don’t support TTS.
Is there any way to listen to Kindle books? I want to turn my Kindle ebook into audiobook so that I can listen to them while I'm commuting or running errands.
Compared with ebook reading, audiobook listening lets you grab the information more conveniently, without putting your eyes on the screen. Today in this post, I would like to share with you the best 4 ways to listen to Kindle books. Some of them even enable you to read and listen to the book at the same time.
1. Add Audible Narration Audiobook Companion to Kindle Books
When it comes to listening to Kindle books, you must know Audible narration. There are over 50,000 Kindle ebook titles that come with audiobook narration. You should not only own the Kindle book, but also its matching Audible audiobook companion. When you add Audible narration to your Kindle books, you can read and listen to books at the same time for an immersion reading, which is perfect for children learning to read, language learners, and anyone looking to boost their reading comprehension.
Another cool function is Whispersync for Voice, which syncs your Audible narration across all your devices allowing you to switch seamlessly between reading and listening without ever losing your place.
To activate this feature, just open your Kindle book with Kindle app. Books that have a matching audiobook will feature a headphones' icon in the corner of the book cover. Then tap the text saying 'Tap to Download' to download the Audible narration and tap the play icon to begin playing and reading the book together.
Which devices support listening? Which support reading? And which support reading and listening at the same time?
Listen on: Kindle app for Android/iOS, Audible app for Windows/Android/iOS, Fire Tablets, Kindle Keyboard/Touch, Amazon Echo.
Read on: Kindle app for Android/iOS/PC/Mac, Fire Tablets, all Kindle E-readers, Fire Phone.
Read and Listen (at the same time) on: Kindle app for Android/iPhone/iPad, Fire Tablets, Fire HD 6 & 7, Fire HDX, Fire Phone.
Note: Only limited Kindle ebooks come with an Audible audiobook companion (50,000 titles). Therefore, if you cannot find an audiobook version for your Kindle book in the Amazon Store, you can take the following methods to listen to more Kindle books.
2. Listen to Kindle Books via Text to Speech
The text-to-speech (TTS) is a cool technology that can convert text to audio, which is a great assistant for you to turn Kindle books to audiobooks when there is no Audible companion for the ebook or when you don't want to pay extra money to buy the audiobook. There are many free text-to-speech tools for PC/Mac/iPhone/Android. They also let you read and listen to books at the same time. Some of them even allow converting text to MP3 audio files.
But before you upload the Kindle book to such TTS tools, you must remove Kindle DRM since all Kindle books are DRM-protected in special Kindle format that's incompatible with the third-party TTS apps. Epubor Ultimate, as the best eBook DRM Removal & eBook Converter, is the perfect tool here that can help you decrypt and convert Kindle books to pdf/epub/txt effortlessly.
1Download Kindle Books to your computer via an older version Kindle for PC/Mac V1.17.
Note: If you don't want to downgrade or the downgrade does not work for you, e.g (1) you are using the macOS Catalina or maOS Big Sur, (2) your Kindle desktop forced update to the latest version, you can try the following two methods. The do work for both Windows and Mac users (macOS Catalina and Big Sur included).
2Run Epubor Ultimate to remove Kindle DRM and Convert Kindle Books to ePub/TXT/PDF.
The Kindle books downloaded via Kindle for PC/Mac will be automatically displayed and diplayed at the left column under the 'Kindle' tab. Just drag and drop the Kindle books from the left to the right. Select the output format as epub/txt/pdf that your TTS tool supports. Immediately, the Kindle books will be decrypted and converted.
3Find a Text to Speech tool that works great for ebook files.
There are many Text to Speech apps in the market. You can choose a one that you like most. If you don't know any TTS tools, here I've found some excellent TTS apps for Windows/Mac/Android/iOS for your reference. All these TTS apps support DRM-free PDF/EPUB/TXT files.
For Windows: Natural Reader.
For Mac: Natural Reader
For Android: @Voice Aloud Reader
For iPhone/iPad: Voice Dream Reader
3. Listen to Kindle Books with Alexa for Amazon Echo
If you have an Amazon smart speaker Echo device, you can try to let the intelligent voice assistant Alexa to read you Kindle books. While it may not match the skills of a human narrator since it also adopts TTS technology, it's might be an option if there isn't an audiobook available. You can listen to certain Kindle titles with Alexa, including eligible books purchased from the Kindle store, borrowed from Kindle Owner's Lending Library, borrowed from Kindle Unlimited or Prime Reading, and shared with you in your Family Library.
If you already read the book on another Kindle device, Alexa will pick up from where you left off last time. You can control the book reading just with your voice. Simply say:
'Alexa, play the Kindle book [title]' to start the book.
'Alexa, pause/skip/stop/resume' to control the playback.
'Alexa, play the Kindle book [title]'.
4. A Much Better Alternative to Listening to Kindle Books
Amazon Kindle Text To Speech
What is the difference between Text to Speech and audiobooks? The difference lies in the narration. Text to Speech is a technology that speaks aloud digital text such as ebooks with computer-generated voice on a computer or mobile device. However, audiobooks are professionally narrated by authors, actors or famous public figures, which makes a more immersive and dynamic listening experience.
In a word, compared with Text to Speech, audiobooks can provide you with a much more enjoyable listening experience. Amazon Audible, with the largest library of audiobooks, is absolutely the best choice for you to get all genres of audiobooks. Epubor Audible Converter, a powerful tool to decrypt Audible books, can help you convert Audible books to MP3 so that you can enjoy Audible audibooks on multiple devices, such as on any MP3 players.
Michelle loves reading very much. She seeks the methods to enjoy eBooks and audiobooks more freely and wants to share everything new she has got with you.
Last year Amazon added text-to-speech support to their Kindle for PC application for Windows computers.
Kindle Text To Speech Pc
Kindle for PC is free to download and use, so if you have a Windows computer and need a text-to-speech program you don’t have to buy a separate device to read Kindle books aloud.
Not all Kindle books support TTS but a lot of them do.
It says on the product page if an ebook supports TTS or not under the “Product details” section.
Kindle for PC’s text-to-speech feature also works with non-Amazon content. I tested a few MOBI and PRC files and TTS worked fine.
PDFs can be imported into Kindle for PC as well and text-to-speech works with them too.
One annoying thing about Kindle for PC is the fact that it doesn’t support personal documents that you’ve added to your Amazon account, but it will open supported files from your computer.
Here’s a basic summary on how to use TTS with Kindle for PC:
Text-to-Speech Keyboard Shortcuts
To use TTS with Kindle for PC you have to turn it on in the Tools menu, or press “Ctrl,T” on your keyboard.
Toggle Text-to-Speech: Ctrl, T
Pause or resume reading: Space bar (while in a book)
Read the previous sentence: Ctrl, Shift, Up arrow
Skip forward one sentence: Ctrl, Shift, Down arrow
Increase speech rate: Shift, +
Decrease speech rate: Shift, –
Toggle continuous reading: Ctrl, Shift, C