A Kindle feature for writers

One thing my lovely Kindle Voyage doesn't do is read out loud. Older Kindle models can read aloud, though, and I keep an old Kindle Touch for just that reason. Because I'm my own production department, I sometimes make edits even after the copy editor has gone over the book. For one thing, some of her question/comments make it clear I need to re-write a sentence or even a paragrah. This means I can introduce new errors,

When I'm getting a book to the page-layout stage, I send a copy of the file to the Kindle Touch and then have the KT read the m.s. aloud to me, while I follow along in InDesign, the page-layout software I use. I find that proofing this way makes it much easier to identify mistakes. On the screen or even on paper, I can read a line like this:

"Yes," she said, "I do plan go with you,"

. . . and totally miss that the word "to" is missing! So long as the missing word is tiny, my brain just fills in whatever is left out. But when I hear that sentence read aloud, the mistake is completely obvious. In addition to errors, sometimes I realize I have used the same word too often, just from hearing it over and over. Whatever the problem, I stop the robot voice, make the correction and then go on.

Another advantage is, I get to hear how someone might pronounce any made-up words. I'm working on a new manuscript, a science fiction romance called Alien Bonds. It's a novel set on an alien world with a lot of made-up names and words. When the robot voice tries to pronounce my invented words, sometimes it's the way I would pronounce it and sometimes it's a little different. Sometimes I like it better, and sometimes I think it sounds totally wrong. But either way, it gives me information.

I assume that the reason the newer Kindles don't read aloud is that not enough Kindle owners were using that feature. It's by no means a substitute for audio books, by the way. The robot voice does not do a great job at inflection and pacing. It will recognize that a sentence ends with a question mark, and infect the proper questioning tone, but it won't pause at all before the next word. It will pause for commas and periods, just not question marks. Go figure!  Also, the robot voice has to guess whether to pronounce "read" as "reed or "red" and so on. There are a fair number of heteronyms, like bow (either a weapon or a polite action) which can make for humorous mistakes Sadly, I don't think Amazon will do any work on improving the robot voice. But they might add speakers to future Kindles if audio book sales pick up.

The robot voice is a  reasonably fast reader (you can control the pace) but it takes a lot of concentration so I work slowly. I will post a photo of the cover of Alien Bonds soon, as it's almost ready.

Amazon delivers an amazing update

The other day I found a letter from Amazon in my Kindle home screen, alerting me that my Kindle Touch had been updated and listing some of the new features.  I have to say, it was an impressive list!

• You can go to landscape mode from the document menu. Yay!
• You can highlight across pages by dragging your finger down to the bottom right corner; this turns the page and lets you keep selecting the text you want to highlight.  Yay! 
• When you have text selected, in addition to the Add Note, Highlight, and Share options, there is now a "More" option that lets you either search the highlighted string in Wikipedia, translate that text into one of several foreign languages, or report problems with the content! Triple yay!
• You can set the KT to use a language other than English for menus.
• The Go To menu now includes the chapter titles as destinations, if the book has a table of contents. 

The translation feature is amazing!  I can't wait to try it out.  As part of the upgrade my Kindle downloaded a boatload of foreign language dictionaries, and I assume the translation program must use them.

The letter also said they had changed the home screen slightly, but the biggest difference I can see if the author name appears in smaller text underneath the title, instead of to the right. I think the sort menu (most recent, by author, by title) is a little cleaner, too.

This upgrade was so full of features it made me feel like I was getting something for free! If you have a KT, I think you will get the upgrade automatically, just by leaving your wireless on in wifi mode.