Make a local audiobook on Mac: chapters, review and export

Prepare a script that works when heard

An ebook can contain a contents page, copyright notices, footnotes and navigation alongside the prose. Those can become spoken text if you send everything to a model. Decide what belongs in the audio and prepare abbreviations, numbers and notes for listening.

Sonano currently imports EPUB, TXT and Markdown. Its audiobook importer does not provide PDF or OCR. If you have a scan, prepare and check the text in another suitable tool first. Use material you wrote or have permission to adapt into audio.

Review the proposed chapters

Inspect titles, order and body text before confirming an import. Deselect a contents page or appendix you do not want read aloud. A practice project can contain just an opening, one chapter and a closing.

1. Check that headings have not become unwanted narration and that chapter openings are complete.
2. Remove repeated headers, navigation and irrelevant notes.
3. Confirm the chapters and their order, then create the project.

Split a very long chapter where the content naturally changes. The structure will also determine how you review and revise later.

Choose a voice for the book

The current audiobook workflow uses one project-level model, language and voice. Test a passage with narration, quoted speech and a specialist name. Check long sentences, forms of address and delivery. Reuse a suitable designed or cloned voice from the Voice Library.

A script that needs a different voice for each speaker belongs in the multi-character dialogue workflow. A single-voice audiobook project does not automatically detect and cast every character.

Generate a chapter before the whole book

Generate one chapter and listen through it, including its ending. Check omissions, repetitions and continuity. Then generate missing chapters. If a task fails, inspect its error, model readiness and disk state before continuing.

When revising the script, check that the corresponding audio matches the current text. Review completion and integrity messages before merging so unfinished or outdated results do not become the final book.

Choose a format for the listener

M4B suits chapter-based listening, and Sonano writes basic chapter metadata. Choose M4A, MP3 or WAV when your destination or further production requires them. Players differ in chapter and metadata support, so open the export in the player you intend to use.

Jump to several chapter starts and listen across chapter boundaries. Keep the editable project and source text for future revisions. See the audiobook documentation for the workflow.