EA - How and why to turn everything into audio by Kat Woods

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: How and why to turn everything into audio, published by Kat Woods on August 11, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. If you love podcasts and audiobooks and find yourself occasionally facing that particular nerd-torture of discovering that an obscure book isn’t available on Audible, read on. I’m kind of obsessed with listening to content (hence building the Nonlinear Library), and there are easy ways to turn pretty much all reading materials into audio, including most books and even blog posts, like the EA Forum. In this post I’ll share my system to turn everything into audio and my rationale for people who haven’t yet discovered the joys of reading with your ears. If you’re already sold on listening to everything, skip to the section “Apps I use and recommend” for the practical nitty-gritty of how to turn everything into audio. Read while doing other things Have you ever reluctantly dragged yourself away from a really engaging EA post so that you could make dinner or drive to work? Have you ever procrastinated on doing the household chores because what you’re reading is so much more exciting and probably higher impact too, now that you think about it? If you have an audio version, you don’t have to choose between reading and chores: you can keep reading as you cook or travel. It’s a way to actually productively multi-task. Generally, if you convert your books to audio, you can read at times when your mind is not occupied, but holding a physical book would be inconvenient. For example, you can read while you are: Commuting to work Exercising Cleaning your house Running errands Traveling Cooking Brushing your teeth Showering (yes, I do do this. And yes, it is awesome) With audiobooks, you can consume content almost all the time, if you want. This is great if you’re a bibliophile whose bookshelves and internet browsers are overflowing with enticing unread material: you can get through more content and make the more mundane parts of your day more interesting. Listen and read at the same time A little-known life hack: you can read a book with your eyes and listen to the audio version at the same time. It’s called immersive reading or two-channel reading. I find that this requires much less energy than reading on its own. It’s more like a movie, where if your attention flags, it’ll draw your mind back in. There’s also something about engaging more of your senses. When I do this, I can stay focused for longer and reading feels more relaxing. So, if you’d like to read but are feeling tired or are struggling to read something important but kind of dry, try listening and reading at the same time. How to convert text to audio Lots of people like the idea of listening to books and articles, but aren’t sure how to get texts into audio format. Here’s what I look for in a text-to-speech app, and some recommendations of specific apps to try. What I look for in a text-to-voice app In my opinion, the best text-to-voice apps display the text you’re reading as they play the audio, and allow you to skip around by clicking on the text. This means that if you don’t catch something, or your attention wanders, you can easily go back to the last part you heard. You can also skim the text and skip forward if you’re bored or if the current section isn’t relevant. Here’s an example of what I mean: On voices, sometimes people give up on these apps very quickly because they find the reading voices annoying. Firstly, if you haven't tried for awhile, try again. The voices have gotten way better in the last couple of years. Something to do with AI getting better at a completely non-terrifying pace. Nothing to worry about there... Secondly, if you find the voices weird to start with, I suggest that you persevere for a while - most people get used to the voices after only a few hours. I even feel aff...