Lesson 2 of 5·10 min read

Content & Media Production

ElevenLabs is revolutionizing audio content production. What once required recording studios, voice actors, and weeks of production time can now be done in minutes — with quality that matches professional recordings.

Podcast Generation

From Text to Podcast in Minutes

ElevenLabs enables creation of complete podcasts without a recording studio:

Workflow:

  1. Write script or have an LLM generate it
  2. Choose voices — from Voice Library or your own clones
  3. Generate audio — ElevenLabs Projects for long texts
  4. Post-production — Add intro/outro, music, sound effects
  5. Publish — RSS feed, Spotify, Apple Podcasts

Multi-Speaker Podcasts

For conversational podcasts with multiple voices:

RoleVoiceSettings
HostClear, warm voicestability: 0.6, similarity: 0.8
Guest 1Energetic, youngstability: 0.4, similarity: 0.7
Guest 2Calm, experiencedstability: 0.7, similarity: 0.8

Cost Comparison

MethodCost per Episode (30 min)Production Time
Professional studio€2,000–5,0001–2 weeks
Freelance voice actor€500–1,5003–5 days
ElevenLabs€5–2030 minutes

Audiobook Production

The Market

The audiobook market is growing at 25% per year. Traditional production is expensive — a single audiobook costs €5,000–20,000. ElevenLabs makes audiobooks affordable for every publisher.

ElevenLabs Projects

For long texts (books, reports), ElevenLabs offers the Projects feature:

  • Chapter-by-chapter processing: Split book into chapters
  • Consistent voice: Same tone across hundreds of pages
  • SSML control: Fine-tune pauses, emphasis, pronunciation
  • Multi-voice: Different voices for narrator and characters
  • Export: MP3, WAV, or M4B (Apple Books format)

Quality Tips

  • Text cleanup: Remove footnotes, page numbers, formatting
  • Pronunciation lexicon: Correctly pronounce proper names and technical terms
  • Chapter pauses: 2–3 seconds of silence between chapters
  • Trial run: Check first chapter completely before generating the entire book

Video Narration

Use Cases

  • Explainer videos: Professional voice-over without booking voice actors
  • Product videos: Consistent brand voice across all videos
  • Training videos: Quick updates when content changes
  • Social media: Create short videos with voice-over in minutes

Workflow for Video Narration

  1. Finalize script and set timing markers
  2. Generate voice-over with ElevenLabs API
  3. Import audio into video editor (Premiere, DaVinci, CapCut)
  4. Synchronization — align audio to visual cuts
  5. Export and publish

Localization with Voice Preservation

The Killer Feature: Dubbing

ElevenLabs Dubbing translates videos while preserving the original voice:

Input: Video in German with original speaker
Output: Same video in English — with the same voice

How It Works

  1. Transcription: Audio is transcribed and speakers identified
  2. Translation: Text is translated to the target language
  3. Voice cloning: The original voice is recreated in the new language
  4. Lip sync: Audio is adjusted to match mouth movements
  5. Mix: Background music and sounds are preserved

Supported Language Combinations

  • 29 languages for voice cloning
  • Automatic detection of source language
  • Batch processing for multiple target languages simultaneously

ROI of Localization

MethodCost (10-min video, 5 languages)Duration
Human voice actors€10,000–25,0004–8 weeks
ElevenLabs Dubbing€50–2001–2 hours

Practical tip: Start with localization — the ROI is immediately measurable and impressive. Translating a 10-minute video into 5 languages costs less with ElevenLabs than a single voice actor session.