TextAloud: Popular Novelist Finds Romance in Text to Speech
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- Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 10:26:51 -0400
eMediaWire.com
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
TextAloud: Popular Novelist Finds Romance in Text to Speech
By Press Release
For Writer Carolyn Jewel, NextUp's TextAloud Provides an Essential Finishing
Touch to the Novel-Writing Process
Clemmons, NC and Petaluma, CA (PRWEB) October 9, 2007 -- California native
Carolyn Jewel is the successful author of such historical and paranormal
romance titles as SHARDS OF CRIMSON, A DARKER CRIMSON, THE SPARE, LORD RUIN,
and MAGELLAN'S WITCH (upcoming in 2008 from Grand Central Publishing). She is
also a fan of Text to Speech, and chooses the TextAloud program near the end of
the writing process as one of her most important proofing tools. Easy,
affordable, and a breeze to use, TextAloud is a Text to Speech program from
NextUp Technologies (http://www.NextUp.com) that converts text into spoken
audio files for listening on a PC (or a wide variety of popular portable
devices).
"At various times during the process of writing a novel, I use TextAloud to
read my chapters to me," she comments. "This allows me to catch typos my eye
has missed, or to find places where I need to tighten or clarify the language
and dialogue." As she's listening, Carolyn keeps her chapter open in her word
processing program at the same time, so that she can pause TextAloud's
read-through in order to make instant edits. It's now become an essential part
of her process for finishing each one of her books.
"Lots of writers recommend literally reading one's work aloud because it's a
great way to catch clunky phrases and repetitive bits," says Carolyn. "I tried
that once, but it's pretty hard on the voice, and it still doesn't solve the
issue of your eyes and brain conspiring to 'fix' typos for you." She adds,
"What I really wanted was for someone else to do all that reading! So, I tried
out three or four text readers, and TextAloud proved to be the easiest to use,
not to mention the most stable."
For the highest-quality listening experience, Carolyn purchased Premium voices,
choosing as her favorites AT&T Natural Voices (TM) Mike and Crystal as the
perfect solution. "Using the program is pretty simple. I copy and paste a
chapter right into TextAloud, keeping my word processing file open to make
fixes right away, and then put on my headphones. TextAloud doesn't miss those
typos, and I'm able to fix them right away -- same with confusing phrases or
other awkwardness."
A busy and successful novelist currently under contract for four more titles,
Jewel is now working on her next historical romance, titled SCANDAL (for
Berkley Books, with a tentative release date set for December 2008). "In the
next month or so, I'll be at a point where I'll have SCANDAL read back to me as
well," she comments.
Text to Speech can be a surprisingly strong tool for writers like Jewel, and
even more so for writers working with unusual words and character names.
"Several of my titles included some characters with unusual names (my hero in A
DARKER CRIMSON was a vampire named Tiberiu Korzha, for example) so I used the
voice editor to tweak the pronunciation of his name as well as some others,"
comments Carolyn. "That way, the names fit with how I imagined they'd be
spoken." She adds, "The most important thing is that TextAloud reads exactly
what I wrote, mistakes and all, and that I can pause the reading to insert
missing words or to fix typos. Hearing the work read aloud keeps me from
supplying meaning that isn't really there."
Carolyn runs TextAloud on her laptop, a Dell Inspiron 8150, and her favorite
aspect of the program is how unintimidating and easy to use it is, no matter
what the level of expertise. "When I'm on deadline, I don't have time to fuss
with figuring out how to do something," she comments. "I just need to be able
to do it, preferably without wasting time that I should be spending finishing
the book."
Carolyn is already at work on several titles to come, and TextAloud will be a
part of that. "Having my work read back to me is a truly valuable tool."
About TextAloud
Highly useful for writers, business people, students and people from all walks
of life -- TextAloud has been featured in The New York Times, PC Magazine,
Writer's Digest, on CNN, and more. Hailed by critics and users alike, TextAloud
is priced at just $29.95, and is compatible with systems using Windows (R) 98,
NT, 2000, XP and Vista. The program is available for fast, safe and secure
purchase via http://www.NextUp.com
About NextUp.com
NextUp.com, a division of NextUp Technologies, LLC, provides award-winning Text
to Speech software for consumers, professionals, businesses, educators, and
those with visual or vocal impairment, or learning disabilities.
In addition to TextAloud, NextUp.com markets other innovative Windows software
designed to save time and deliver vital information. NewsAloud (TM) is a
talking personal "news agent" that finds the stories users want, and then reads
them aloud or to portable audio files. WeatherAloud (TM) is a weather
application that lets users select and listen to personalized weather
forecasts, while StocksAloud (TM) reads stock updates and related news
headlines aloud for specific companies of interest. NextUp Talker is an easy
and affordable program that allows people who have lost their voices to use the
latest in high-quality computer voices to communicate with others. Most
recently, NextUp introduced a new text reader, AbleReader, available with the
AT&T Natural Voices (TM) for use on Mac computers. Information on AbleReader is
available at http://www.AbleReader.com
NextUp.com also offers TextAloud with optional premium voices from AT&T Natural
Voices (TM), NeoSpeech (R), Nuance (R), Acapela (R) and Cepstral (R) for the
most natural-sounding computer speech anywhere. Available languages include
U.S. English, U.K. English, Indian Accent English, Scottish Accent English,
French, Canadian French, Latin American Spanish, Castilian (European) Spanish,
Mexican Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin
Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, Korean, Japanese, German, Italian, Dutch, Belgian
Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, and Arabic.
Evaluation copies of TextAloud are available upon request. For more information
on NextUp.com or TextAloud, or for other case studies involving users ranging
from writers, firefighters, doctors and lawyers, to truck drivers, musicians,
and more, please contact publicist Angela Mitchell at (904) 982-8043 or via
Admitchell(at)Nextup.com.
All companies and products referenced in this press release are the trademarks
of their respective owners.
Media Contact:
Angela Mitchell
Paranoid PR (for NextUp.com)
(904) 982-8043
Admitchell(at)Nextup.com
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