Being blind and unable to read print, I find the Amazon Kindle’s text to speech facility a huge boon. For anyone who is unaware of the text to speech facility, when activated, it reads aloud books where the author/publisher has enabled speech. While the reading voice is robotic, it has improved over the years and (in my experience) once the reader becomes lost in a good book, it is easy to forget that a dalek is doing the reading!
The majority of books in the Amazon Kindle store have text to speech enabled. Of those which do not, most (perhaps all) are available as audible downloads from audible.co.uk/audible.com. However, Audible titles are, on the whole more expensive than their Kindle counterparts, which means that someone who is unable to read print must (if the text to speech facility is not enabled on the Kindle version) spend more to obtain the book in audio form. Personally I believe that all titles should have text to speech enabled irrespective of whether they are available from Audible or other suppliers of audio titles, as it is wrong that a blind individual has to pay more for an accessible version of a book.
All of my books have text to speech enabled meaning that they are accessible to all. In addition my collection of poetry, “Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind” can be purchased, in braille from the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), while my latest poetry book, “My Old Clock I Wind” is in the process of being added to RNIB’s library.
To purchase “Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind” in braille please go to, http://www.rniblibrary.com/iguana/www.main.cls?surl=search#savelist=General_*_LOSTLABYRINTH, and to buy it in print or ebook formats please visit, http://moyhill.com/lost/. To obtain “My Old Clock I Wind in ebook or paperback please visit, http://moyhill.com/clock/.
You can find links to all of my titles on my website, https://newauthoronline.com/about/.
Kevin
K Morris - Poet 
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog and commented:
Please make all your books Text to Speech enabled 😀
Thank you for sharing, Chris, Kevin
Welcome, Kevin 🙂
Kevin, text-to-speech is enabled on all of my books. I don’t know how this happened, because I don’t recall seeing it as an option when I published. Do you know?
Many thanks for your comment, Tina. My understanding is that text to speech is enabled by default and that authors/publishers have to disable it on a title by title basis. As to how this is done, I have no idea. Back in 2009 Amazon agreed to allow disabling, on individual titles due to pressure from the Authors Guild. To the best of my knowledge the position remains the same. Its great that all your books have text to speech enabled. Kevin
You’re welcome, Kevin. I’m glad you brought this issue to our attention. Shared ♥
Thank you for sharing, Tina
Welcome, Kevin ♥
Thanks for your article Kevin. If a person has a Kindle app then they can free update Kindle for PC (or Mac; Android etc) with Accessibility Plugin https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200596280 This installs Text to Speech under Tools when a book is opened on Kindle. Likewise for a pdf go to: View, Read out aloud, Activate. and the book or even pdf document will be read aloud.
Hope these suggestions also help.
Many thanks for providing this helpful link and for reading and commenting on my post. Kind regards, Kevin
Reblogged this on Nesie's Place.
Thank you for sharing, Felicia. Kevin
You’re welcome, Kevin!