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CLEMMONS, NC - For many writers, their writings often don't truly come to life for them until they can listen to those words spoken aloud. This makes Text to Speech tools like NextUp's TextAloud especially valuable, as they enable the writer to listen to her words and not only catch typographical errors that traditional word processing spell-checkers might miss, but to also get a sense of flow and syntax, and to even get a realistic feel for spoken dialogue exchanges between different characters. Now NovelMaker.com, an acclaimed new online community for writers, agents and editors, has honored TextAloud by recommending the program to its participants seeking the best proofreading tools for writers.

TextAloud is an award-winning program that converts text into spoken audio for listening on a PC, and can also save to audio files for the added option of easy playback on-the-go, from iPod™, to iPhone®, to car and beyond. Thanks to an elegant and simple program interface, along with a wide array of superb premium voices in almost any imaginable age, gender, or accent, many writers have already discovered the value of TextAloud to proof or simply listen to their work. Now comes the endorsement of NovelMaker, sure to be a resource for thousands of writers worldwide.

Just launched in July 2007, NovelMaker.com is the world's first truly interactive community for fiction writers, readers, critics, literary agents, editors, and publishers. With NovelMaker, authors upload their manuscripts or works in progress to the site for free, and can upon completion see their completed books in the site's own literary library. Community members (authors, editors, agents and more) as well as readers will then offer suggestions, reviews, ratings and encouragement. The site recommends TextAloud as one of a short list of helpful tools in its Helpful Tools & Links section.

"TextAloud offers enormous assistance in the writing process by catching errors more conventional tools like spell-checkers may miss," comments Chris Olander, President and CEO of NovelMaker.com. "It also offers a great deal of creative potential, for use in testing dialogue or even characterization. TextAloud ultimately offers a multitude of fascinating uses sure to be helpful to writers who take part in the NovelMaker community."

"We're delighted to have been recommended by NovelMaker," comments NextUp President Rick Ellis. "TextAloud has often been considered a secret weapon by many writers who have contacted us, assisting them in truly listening to their works in a way that was not possible before. We hope that writers and editors in the NovelMaker community can use this recommendation to discover the power of Text to Speech for themselves."

TextAloud enables anyone to easily and affordably export documents, books, magazine articles, web content, even e-mails, into spoken audio. The program smoothly converts text into spoken audio for listening on a PC or laptop, and can also save text to audio files for playback on portables like the iPhone®, iPod™, PocketPC®, and a wide range of other players and devices. Highly popular with people of a variety of professions and walks of life, TextAloud is affordably priced, and is simple for anyone with a PC, laptop or portable.

About NovelMaker.com
NovelMaker.com is the world's first truly interactive community for fiction writers, readers, critics, literary agents, editors, and publishers. From authors to agents, every participant in NovelMaker has access to a large, interactive community to participate with them in the creation, and potential commercial success, of new works of fiction. For more information, please visit www.NovelMaker.com.

About TextAloud
TextAloud has been featured in The New York Times, PC Magazine, Writer's Digest, on CNN, and more. Hailed by critics and users alike, TextAloud is priced at just $29.95, and is compatible with systems using Windows (R) 98, NT, 2000, XP and VISTA. The program is available for fast, safe and secure purchase via /purchase.html.

NextUp.com also offers TextAloud with optional premium voices from AT&T Natural Voices (TM), NeoSpeech (R), Nuance (R), Acapela (R) and Cepstral (R) for the most natural-sounding computer speech anywhere. Available languages include US English, UK English, Indian Accent English, Scottish Accent English, French, Canadian French, Latin American Spanish, Castilian (European) Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, Korean, Japanese, German, Italian, Dutch, Belgian Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, and Arabic.

About NextUp.com
NextUp.com, a division of NextUp Technologies, LLC, provides award-winning Text to Speech software for consumers, business customers, educators, and those with visual or vocal impairment, or learning disabilities.

In addition to TextAloud, NextUp.com markets other innovative Windows software designed to save time and deliver vital information. NewsAloud™ is a talking personal "news agent" that finds the stories users want, and then reads them aloud or to portable audio files. WeatherAloud™ is a weather application that lets users select and listen to personalized weather forecasts, while StocksAloud™ reads stock updates and related news headlines aloud for specific companies of interest. NextUp Talker is an easy and affordable program that allows people who have lost their voices to use the latest in high-quality computer voices to communicate with others. Most recently, NextUp introduced a new text reader, AbleReader, available with the AT&T Natural Voices (TM) for use on Mac computers. Information on AbleReader is available at http://www.AbleReader.com.

NextUp.com also offers TextAloud with optional premium voices from AT&T Natural Voices (TM), NeoSpeech (R), Nuance (R), Acapela (R) and Cepstral (R) for the most natural-sounding computer speech anywhere. Available languages include U.S. English, U.K. English, Indian Accent English, Scottish Accent English, French, Canadian French, Latin American Spanish, Castilian (European) Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, Korean, Japanese, German, Italian, Dutch, Belgian Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish and Arabic.

Note to Editors:

Evaluation copies of TextAloud are currently available upon request. To receive a review copy, or for more information on NextUp.com or TextAloud, please contact publicist Angela Mitchell at (904) 982-8043.

All companies and products referenced in this press release are the trademarks of their respective owners.