Very Normal TTS is now PodRead

I built a tool to convert text to podcast episodes last year under the name Very Normal TTS, hosted at tts.verynormal.dev. Not a bad name for a side project, but not a great name for something I want people to actually remember.

So: Very Normal TTS is now PodRead, and lives at https://podread.app.

Why the name

PodRead. Pod, like podcast. Read, like the articles you're turning into audio. It's what the product does. I wanted something short, obvious, and easy to say out loud. Most importantly I needed the domain to be available, so that ruled out a few options.

The old domain (tts.verynormal.dev) will keep redirecting for the next several months before I retire it. Nothing will break in the meantime.

What's new alongside the rebrand

Since I was already in there making changes, I shipped a few things:

• Full site redesign — new marketing pages, new color palette. I turned down the hacker give me crypto vibes in favor of this is a real product made by and for real people.
• Email-to-podcast — forward any article or newsletter to your PodRead email address and it becomes an episode
• Better author detection — articles from more sites now correctly attribute the author instead of showing "Unknown"

The rest of the functionality hasn't changed. You still paste a URL, upload a file, or paste some text and it will show up as a podcast episode in your personal RSS feed. I have the same voice choices, same fast turn around time from submission to episode appearing in your podcast app of choice, and same pricing. Just a name and domain that make it clearer what the thing actually does.

What you need to do

Probably nothing. If you subscribe to your feed through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or any other standard podcast app, your
feed will update automatically. The old tts.verynormal.dev URLs redirect to podread.app, and I've added the standard RSS tags that tell podcast
apps the feed has moved.

If you manually pasted your RSS feed URL into a podcast app or RSS reader, you may want to update it. Log in at podread.app to grab your updated feed URL

Same principles, new paint

PodRead is still bootstrapped, still independent, still built for users instead of investors. No ads in your feed, no dark patterns, no algorithmic recommendations.

I make money when you pay for the product, not when I sell your attention.

If you have questions about the transition, just reply to the migration email you'll get or reach out!