piperbook 2023.9.23

Uses piper-tts to convert epub files to audiobooks

PiperBook

Converts an epub to a directory of mp3s using piper-tts.

$ piperbook "Brandon, Sanderson - The Emperor's Soul.epub" "Sanderson, Brandon/The Emperor's Soul"
$ tree "Sanderson, Brandon/The Emperor's Soul"
.
├── 01_by_Brandon_Sanderson_Ebook_edition_note_If_you_purchased_a.mp3
├── 02_For_Lucie_Tuan_and_Sherry_Wang_who_provided_inspiration.mp3
├── 03_Prologue.mp3
├── 04_Gaotona_ran_his_fingers_across_the_thick_canvas_inspecting.mp3
├── 05_Day_Two_Shai_pressed_her_fingernail_into_one_of_the_stone_bl.mp3
├── 06_Day_Three_The_next_daybathed_well_fed_and_well_rested_for.mp3
├── 07_Day_Five_Work_she_did_Shai_began_digging_through_accounts_o.mp3
├── 08_Day_Twelve_Shai_pressed_her_stamp_down_on_the_tabletop_As_a.mp3
├── 09_Day_Seventeen_A_cool_breeze_laden_with_unfamiliar_spices_cre.mp3
...

Supports voices models as listed on the piper Readme

Usage

usage: piperbook [-h] [--start START] [--end END] [--speed SPEED] [--voice VOICE] [--pause PAUSE] epub audiobook-folder

Convert epub file to audiobook directory of mp3s

positional arguments:
  epub              Epub file
  audiobook-folder  Destination folder for the mp3 files

options:
  -h, --help        show this help message and exit
  --start START     chapter to start from [default: 1]
  --end END         chapter to finish at [default: -1]
  --speed SPEED     speed of the generated audio (lower is faster!) [default: 1]
  --voice VOICE     voice to use for the generated audio. To see valid options, see the docs for piper [default: en_US-joe-medium]
  --pause PAUSE     length of pauses between sentences [default: 0.5]

Installation

Tested on Debian 12.

$ apt install python python-pip ffmpeg
$ pip install piperbook
$ piperbook --help

Bugs

Chapter detection and naming is very imperfect. Patches welcome.

TODO

• m4b format support.
• Use piper more intelligently

Credit

Epub chapterising logic stolen from epub_to_audiobook.