Bad News Regarding Spotify for Authors

A week or so ago, I posted about Spotify's new audiobook narration service, a free option for creating and publishing an AI-narrated audiobook. The details sounded great.

I also promised to test it out and report back.

Well, tonight, despite my lazy inclinations, I decided to do it. I already had my EPUB ready thanks to calibre, so I was ready to get started.

First came the payment setup—name, address, SSN, bank routing number and account number. I got that done quickly.

Now it was time to upload my manuscript.

Oops.

Nope!

Couldn't do it.

I received the following message in red:

Maximum manuscript length is 500,000 characters. Try again with a shorter manuscript. 

Are you kidding, Spotify?

Look, while my novel is the longest book I've ever written, it only comes out to a little over 114,000 words. From what I'm told, genres such as sci-fi and fantasy tend to be much longer. 

This will not bode well for Spotify's newly-touted "service".

Frustrated, I consulted Google's AI for an explanation. It told me that calibre (and other conversion apps) embeds XHTML code, style sheets, and formatting tags for every paragraph break, bolded word, and chapter marker. And it gave me detailed instructions for how to delete all that data. Okay, did that. Then I asked about the generic cover image calibre inserted. 

"Why, yes! Thanks for mentioning that! Here's how to delete the cover image completely, using these 500 steps."

After about an hour of "fixing", I tried re-uploading my EPUB.

Maximum manuscript length is 500,000 characters. Try again with a shorter manuscript. 

Hey, AI! Guess what?

"Ahh, I see. Well, you're left with two options:

1. Bypass Spotify's uploader and have ElevenLabs convert your document."

Umm, I was looking for a FREE option. ElevenLabs would cost me $99 to $130. 

"2. Split your manuscript into two EPUBs. Here are the two hundred steps required to do this in calibre." 

"AI, who's going to buy half of a book?"

"No, silly. Once you spend a day splitting and uploading each half of your book, Spotify lets you merge them together! Isn't that neat?"

"But AI, I'm skeptical it'll work like you claim."

"Well, let me know how it goes." 

 

You and I both know that something (everything) will go wrong if I try this. Is it worth it? Worth pulling out my hair and wasting an entire day on something I don't even care about that much? Wouldn't it be easier to create a Kickstarter so I could hire a human narrator? (I'm not keen on failing on Kickstarter, too. I'd probably net about $25.00. Plus, I'd need to figure out some rewards, and I've got nothin'.)

Here's the deal: Yes, I promised to report back. And no, I haven't even reached the narration setup step, which was the main point of the exercise. I may or may not continue to pursue this. I hate reneging on a promise, but technically, this post is my "report back". Not my fault that Spotify didn't hold up its end of the bargain.

I'm not saying I won't try, but I'm trying hard to live a stress-free life. Spotify isn't helping. 

Fellow authors, if you've tried this new program and/or found a workaround for what I'm certain is a common problem, please let me know in the comments.