Podcasts are format à la mode in 2019. Young people are being drawn away from traditional linear programming towards on-the-go digital audio. Music streaming services have laid the technical groundwork for a new storytelling format to dominate in the coming years. Podcasts have gone from quirky garage-band style productions to million-dollar productions from brands such as the New York Times.

However, launching a new podcast can take some work. First, you should decide what theme you are going to focus on. How is your podcast going to set you apart from the mass of competing shows on the Podcast Store? Then you have to start thinking about production. How much time can you afford to invest in your podcast? And is this going to take away from precious time spent creating other content? Will it be a worthwhile channel for your audience and for your bottom line?

Text-to-speech changes all of this.

Using the latest text-to-speech, creators may take existing text content and convert this into seamless human-like audio. No need for studio time, podcast hosting, scripts and guests, instantly convert text into audio using the suit of audio automation tools. In fact, there are a few of tts benefits;

Fractional costs vs podcast production.

Instant creation from existing content.

Publish in multiple languages, within minutes.

Distribute content on websites, podcast platforms and smart speakers.

Track this audio content across multiple devices.

Optimise websites for audio search engine optimisation.

Stay ahead of the game and your audience better access to content.

We’re listening to more and more digital audio every year according to The Reuters Institute of News, media consumers are reaching out, more and more, to those sites that offer an on-the-go option to engage. And this is just the beginning. As text-to-speech becomes seamlessly integrated into the world around us and news audiences convert from reading to listening — consuming news read out loud will become instinctive.

Speech Kit provides creators with lightening fast text-to-speech automation tools. Implement on WordPress or set up a manual project and turn your favourite articles into podcasts using the URL text converting tool. Get your content ready with SpeechKit with these simple steps;

1. Head over to SpeechKit and start a free account. Free accounts have access to 5 articles a month. Buy a $10 package to take advantage of podcast distribution and analytics.

2. Setup a manual or WordPress project — if you’re using WordPress download the SpeechKit plugin and enter the Project ID and API credentials.

3. Start creating audio — either publisher as you would on WordPress and see audio appear atop every article, or insert text or article URLs into your manual project and convert text into audio in the SpeechKit dashboard.

4. Once you have had your project set up and are ready to distribute your audio as a podcast head to the distribution tab in the dashboard (this is a premium feature), click ‘add distribution’ and add a podcast feed.

5. Once you have this setup you can connect SpeechKit to Apple Podcast Connect, Spotify, or wherever else you listen to your podcasts. Every time you convert a new article on SpeechKit a podcast is pushed to your feed!

To get started with audio versions, read aloud, head to SpeechKit and start an account. We work with publishers large and small and have built an audio toolkit that works with modern publishing technology, which includes a WordPress plugin.

For any questions on this or anything else, reach out via [email protected] or get us on Twitter @SpeechKit_io.