Turn a Kindle Ebook into an Audiobook on iPhone

Wish someone could read your Kindle e-book to you? Your iPhone can. Here’s how to turn a Kindle ebook into an audiobook. For free.

Turn eBook into AudioBook

Turn eBook into AudioBook

I love to read. But when I’m on the road, doing chores or working out, it’s easier to listen to books. Sometimes I purchase an audio format or find one at my local library. But audiobooks are pretty expensive, and they’re not always available for the books I want.

So what if I have an e-book already on my Kindle and I want my iPhone to read it to me? It can.

Here’s how to turn a Kindle ebook into an audiobook on an iPhone 5s:

1. Customize VoiceOver settings. On your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Accessibility.
2. Set the reading speed. On the VoiceOver screen, go down to the Speaking Rate bar and adjust it to a speed you like: toward the turtle image for slower, and toward the running rabbit for faster.
3. Choose the reading voice. On the same screen, you can select the voice you want to hear. Choose Speech. Under Default Dialect, you can choose among several English-speaking reading voices, categorized under U.S., Australian, U.K., Irish and South African English. Or tap “Add New Language” to enable one of many other languages.
4. Open your Kindle app (or download it here).
5. Choose a book from your Library. Or go to Amazon.com, select Kindle Store under the All Departments dropdown menu on the search bar, and search for titles (or search “Kindle free books” for free Kindle books to read). You should also check with your local library about borrowing Kindle ebooks.)
6. Open the book. Tap the book and swipe left to page forward through the front matter until you want to start reading.
7. Ask Siri to “turn on VoiceOver.” You can also do this manually by going back to Settings > General > Accessibility. Once you turn on VoiceOver, it reads everything to you. I find it annoying and more difficult to navigate in the iPhone with VoiceOver on, so I don’t enable it until I am ready to use it. After Siri confirms that VoiceOver is enabled, press the Home button once to return to your Kindle book.
8. Start the audio reading. A black border will appear around your Kindle book page. A voice will start to give you instructions. Swipe down with two fingers to begin reading continuously (beginning with the current page and continuing through the book until you stop.
9. Double tap the screen to stop reading and bring up the menu options.

If you’re used to audiobooks read by actors and professional readers, you’ll miss their polished performances. But the voice works for me in a pinch, when I just want to listen to an e-book I already have on my Kindle.

Why not try this with the current Genealogy Gems Book Club featured title, The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson? Click on the book title to order the Kindle e-book. It’s a perfect summer read: a light-hearted romance with colorful characters and a compelling historical backdrop at the outset of World War I.

genealogy book club genealogy gemsThis post was brought to you by the free, no-commitment online Genealogy Gems Book Club. We choose titles for their appeal to family history lovers, AND we interview their (often best-selling) authors. Click here to learn more about the Genealogy Gems Book Club.

Action-Packed WWII Maps Helped Homefront Families Follow the War

Canada at War by Stanley Turner, 1944. Online at the David Rumsey Map Collection. Click on image for full citation and to access image.

During World War II, millions of people anxiously followed the progress of battles and troop movements that affected their loved ones. Artists and map-makers stepped up to provide colorful, action-packed maps.

Toronto artist Stanley Turner was one of these. He created a series of maps between 1942 and 1945 that were printed and licensed as promotional giveaways to businesses in Canada and the U.S. Today you can find Turner’s maps digitized at the David Rumsey Map Collection.

Stanley wasn’t the only one making these beautiful maps. Read about Richard Eddes Harrison and the big changes in popular cartography during the war in my blog post, “World War II: A Revolution in Map-Making.”

Fast-forward 60 years in time, and the latest revolution in map-making and information-sharing is where? On Google Earth! Google Earth is packed with topography, but also shows us man-made features like roads and bridges, geographic boundaries, historical maps and photographs and so much more. These help us understand things like movements of our ancestors–whether they were troops in World War II or settlers in distant places.

Historic_Maps_VideoWant to learn more about using Google Earth for genealogy (or the Google Earth Pro version that was just released FREE to the public)? Become a Genealogy Gems Premium member. You’ll have access to video classes like these:

  • Time Travel with Google Earth
  • 5 Ways to Enhance Your Research with Old Maps (this class’ retail value alone is $39.95)

Premium Membership is a bargain at only $29.95 for an entire year’s access, plus right now you get the free bonus ebook Lisa Louise Cooke’s 84 Best Tips, Tricks & Tools from Family Tree Magazine. Click here to learn more about Premium Membership.

Texas State Genealogical Society Conference 2016 Welcomes Lisa Louise Cooke

Texas State Genealogical Society Conference 2016 is coming up next month and there is still time to register! Learn from some of the elite genealogists in the field, including our own Lisa Louise Cooke.

Attend Texas State Genealogical Society Conference 2016

Pre-Conference Research Day

The Texas State Genealogical Society (TSGS) Conference begins on the 27th of October with the Pre-Conference Research Day. This free research day is being hosted by the Dallas Public Library and the Dallas Genealogical Society.

Held at the Dallas Public Library from 10 am to 8 pm, this research day will include:

  • Staff-led tours available of the Genealogy Division (8th floor), the Dallas History & Archives (7th floor), and the Government Documents Division (6th floor);
  • Volunteers on hand to assist people with research and Texas Heritage Certificate applications;
  • and light refreshments to be served.

The Texas State Genealogical Society Conference 2016

This year’s conference venue will be the beautiful Crowne Plaza in downtown Dallas. You can really get excited for this three-day conference packed with 70 sessions and 35 speakers. The TSGS hopes to provide something for every genealogist. The conference will also include special afternoon breakout sessions and five in-depth workshops among the noted activities. An exhibit hall packed with the latest and greatest from genealogy companies and researchers will be enticing and Genealogy Gems will be there, so don’t forget to stop by and see us!

Lisa’s Sessions at the Conference

Lisa will be presenting a class titled Beginning Evernote for Genealogists on Friday. You will gain a firm grasp of what Evernote can do and how to get started. Best of all, learn how easy it is to put all your genealogical research notes (text, audio, images, etc.) into Evernote and to have it at your fingertips with super fast note retrieval.

On Sunday, Lisa will present Using Google Earth for Genealogy. In this popular class, Lisa (our Google Guru!) will teach you how to unlock the mysteries in your research from unidentified photographs, to how an ancestral location looked a hundred years ago. You will be amazed to discover how Google Earth is one of the best free genealogical tools available today.

Register for the Texas State Genealogical Society Conference 2016

If you haven’t already done so, there is still time to register. Early bird registration is available through October the 7th. See all the price options and register by clicking here: http://www.txsgs.org/conference/registration/

We hope to see many of you there. Don’t forget to stop by and see us in the exhibit hall to share with us what you have learned!

To see where Lisa will be teaching next, see our seminar page here.

More Gems for EEvernote for Genealogy Quick Reference Guidevernote

Get started using Evernote even before Lisa’s class on Oct. 28, 2016. Our quick reference guides make it easy!

Evernote for Windows for Genealogists Guide

Evernote for Mac for Genealogists Guide

 

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