How to Create a Custom Yoto Card with AI-Generated Audio

What You'll Need

Before we get into the step-by-step, here's the full shopping list:

• A Yoto player — either a Yoto (the full-size one) or a Yoto Mini. Both work with MYO cards.
• Make Your Own cards — your Yoto comes with one MYO card in the box. You can buy more in packs of 5 or 10 from the Yoto store.
• The Yoto app — installed on your phone (iOS or Android). This is how you upload audio and link it to a card.
• A Narratory account — free to set up, and the free tier gives you enough credits to produce a short story without spending anything.
• A story — yours. Could be something you write from scratch, a family story you've been telling for years, or a bedtime tale you want to finally get down on paper.

That's it. No recording equipment, no soundproof room, no audio engineering degree.

Step 1: Write Your Story in Narratory

Log into Narratory and create a new book. Give it a title (“The Dragon Who Couldn't Sneeze” or whatever your story is called), put your name as the author, and pick a default voice. Don't overthink the voice choice at this stage — you can change it later, and you can assign different voices to different characters once your text is in.

Think in chapters. Each chapter in Narratory becomes a separate MP3 file when you export — and each MP3 becomes a separate track on your Yoto card. That means your kid can skip between chapters using the knob on the player. For a short picture-book-length story, one chapter is fine. For something longer, break it into chapters the same way you'd break a bedtime story into natural stopping points: “And that's where we'll pick up tomorrow night.”

Write the text directly in the editor. Narratory's editor works like any word processor. Type or paste your story, and each paragraph becomes a “line” that gets its own audio generation. This is actually a useful feature for kids' content — it means you can preview and tweak individual sentences without regenerating the whole chapter.

Add pauses where they matter. You can insert silence markers between paragraphs using the /pause command in the editor. A half-second pause between sentences keeps things flowing. A two-second pause between scenes gives your kid a moment to absorb what just happened. Think about how you'd pace it if you were reading aloud.

Yoto card limits to keep in mind: each MYO card supports up to 100 tracks (chapters), with individual files up to 100MB and a total card limit of 500MB. For reference, a 10-minute chapter at standard quality is about 2MB. So unless you're producing a 40-hour epic, you won't come close to the limits.

Step 2: Cast Your Voices

This is the fun part. Narratory lets you assign a different voice to every line of text, which means you can give each character in your story their own distinct voice — just like a real audiobook production.

For the narrator: Pick a warm, engaging voice. For kids' content, voices with a bit of natural expressiveness tend to work better than flat, newsreader-style delivery. Browse the voice library and preview a few options with a line from your story. You want something that sounds like the kind of person your kid would enjoy being read to by.

For characters: Give each speaking character a different voice to make dialogue pop. A grumpy troll should sound nothing like a cheerful fairy. Use the voice selector on individual lines to swap voices wherever a character speaks. Even two or three distinct voices can make a story feel dramatically more alive to a young listener.

Dial in the emotion. Each line has emotion settings — presets like “excited,” “whisper,” “dramatic,” and “conversational.” These make a genuine difference for children's stories. A dragon's roar should feel different from a mouse's squeak, and the emotion controls let you shape that without needing a professional voice actor. Some ideas:

• Use “whisper” for spooky scenes or secrets
• Use “excited” for action sequences and celebrations
• Use “narrator” for steady, even storytelling
• Use “dramatic” for big reveals and climactic moments
• Use “conversational” for dialogue that should feel natural and warm

Preview as you go. You can listen to individual lines before committing to a full generation. This is invaluable for getting character voices right — better to discover that your dragon sounds too friendly now than after you've generated the whole chapter.

Step 3: Generate the Audio

Once your text is in and your voices are assigned, open the Generate modal, select the chapters you want to produce, and hit Generate. Narratory processes each line individually and stitches them together into a polished chapter.

How long does it take? A 1,000-word chapter — roughly five minutes of audio — typically generates in under a minute. A full 10-chapter children's book might take five to ten minutes. You can watch the progress in the generation queue.

Listen to the output. Play through each chapter and listen with fresh ears. Here's what to watch for in kids' content specifically:

• Pronunciation of made-up names: Fantasy characters and invented place names are the usual trouble spots. If the AI mispronounces “Zorblex,” try spelling it phonetically (“ZORB-lecks”) in the text.
• Pacing between dialogue and narration: Kids lose track if the transitions feel abrupt. Add a pause line between a piece of dialogue and the next narration block if it feels rushed.
• Tone consistency: Make sure the narrator voice stays warm throughout. If a line comes out oddly flat, regenerate just that line — it costs nothing extra.

The beauty of AI narration is that revisions are instant. A line doesn't land right? Tweak the text, adjust the emotion preset, and regenerate that single line. You're not rebooking a voice actor or re-recording a session. For a deeper look at this workflow, see our full guide to making an AI audiobook.

Step 4: Export Your MP3 Files

Happy with how everything sounds? Time to export. Open the Export modal in Narratory and choose the MP3 format (one file per chapter). This is exactly what Yoto expects.

Select the chapters you want to include, click Export, and Narratory will process and download your files. Each chapter comes out as a separate, mastered MP3 file — properly leveled, consistent volume, no background noise.

A note on file naming: Rename your exported files so they sort in the right order on the Yoto card. Something like 01 - The Beginning.mp3, 02 - Into the Forest.mp3, etc. Yoto sorts tracks by filename, and you don't want Chapter 10 playing before Chapter 2 because of alphabetical sorting.

Where to save them: If you're going to upload from your phone (most common), save the MP3s somewhere your phone can access — iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, or just email them to yourself. If you're uploading from a computer via the Yoto website, your Downloads folder works fine.

Step 5: Upload to Yoto and Link Your Card

Now for the Yoto side. You have two options for getting your audio onto a MYO card:

Option A: Using the Yoto App (Phone)

This is the easiest path for most people.

1. Open the Yoto app and tap Create at the bottom of the screen.
2. Name your new playlist — use your story title so it's easy to find later.
3. Tap Add Audio Files and navigate to wherever you saved your exported MP3s. Select all the chapter files.
4. Once uploaded, drag and drop the tracks into the correct chapter order if they're not already sorted.
5. Tap Create to save the playlist.
6. Go to Library, find your new playlist under “My Playlists,” tap the three-dot menu, and select Link to a Card.
7. Choose “Use your phone” and hold your MYO card against the back of your phone. When the button turns green, you're linked.

Option B: Using the Yoto Website (Computer)

Handy if your MP3s are on your computer and you'd rather not transfer them to your phone first.

1. Go to yotoplay.com/create in your browser and log in with the same account you use for the Yoto app.
2. Click Make New, name your playlist, and upload your MP3 files.
3. Arrange tracks in order and save.
4. Link the card using your phone — open the Yoto app, find the playlist in your Library, and use the “Link to a Card” option.

That's it. Insert the card into your Yoto player and hit play. Your story, your voices, your kid's new favorite card.

Tips for Making Great Kids' Audio

Creating audio for children is a slightly different discipline than producing an adult audiobook. Here are some things we've learned:

Keep chapters short. Young kids (3–6) do best with chapters under 5 minutes. Older kids (7+) can handle 10–15 minutes per chapter. A Yoto card supports up to 100 tracks, so don't worry about having too many short chapters — it's better than chapters that are too long.

Use your kid's name. This is genuinely the superpower of making your own content. No store-bought audiobook puts your child in the story by name. Write a tale where they're the main character — even a simple one — and watch their face when they hear it for the first time.

Add a “card intro.” Make the first chapter a short introduction: “This is [Story Title], a story for [Child's Name].” It gives the card a polished, professional feel and helps your kid know which card they're grabbing from the shelf.

Lean into repetition and rhythm. Kids love patterns. If your story has a recurring phrase or a chorus (“And the dragon sneezed again!”), that's gold. It gives them something to anticipate and say along with the audio.

Test it at bedtime volume. Most Yoto players live in bedrooms. Listen to your finished audio at a low volume and make sure the whispered parts are still audible and the excited parts don't jolt anyone awake.

MYO cards are reusable. You can re-link a card to a different playlist whenever you want. So don't stress about getting it perfect the first time — you can always update the audio later, swap in a revised version, or replace it with a completely new story when your kid is ready for the next one.

Ideas for What to Create

Stuck on what to make? Here are some of the best things people are putting on MYO cards:

• Original bedtime stories — the ones you already tell your kids, finally recorded properly
• Personalized adventures — your child as the hero, their friends as sidekicks, your pet as the wise companion
• Family history stories — tales from grandparents, family traditions, “when you were a baby” stories
• Educational content — fun facts about dinosaurs, space, animals, presented as a story or conversation
• Guided relaxation — calm, slow-paced audio designed to help kids wind down at bedtime
• Serialized stories — one card per “season,” with each chapter as an episode — kids love collecting these
• Holiday specials — a new story for Christmas, birthdays, or the first day of school

The point is: you're not limited to what's in the Yoto store. Your family has its own stories, and now you have a way to produce them at genuine audiobook quality and hand them to your kid on a card they can play independently. That's pretty special.

What It Costs

Let's break down the actual cost of making a custom Yoto card:

For longer stories or if you want to produce several cards, Narratory's paid plans start at $99/month for 25,000 credits (roughly 25,000 words — that's a lot of bedtime stories). One credit equals one word of generated audio.

Compare that to buying content from the Yoto store, where individual cards run $7–15 each for someone else's stories. For roughly the same money, you can create something completely original and personal. And MYO cards are reusable — once your kid outgrows a story, you re-link the same card with something new.

Quick Reference: The Full Workflow

Here's the entire process at a glance:

1. Create a book in Narratory — set a title, author, and default voice
2. Write your story in the editor — one chapter per Yoto track
3. Assign voices and emotions to characters and narration lines
4. Generate audio — preview, tweak, regenerate any lines that need it
5. Export as MP3 (one file per chapter)
6. Upload to Yoto via the app or website — create a playlist with your MP3s
7. Link to a MYO card using NFC on your phone
8. Hand the card to your kid and enjoy the look on their face

The first time takes maybe an hour as you learn the tools. After that, a short story can go from idea to Yoto card in under 30 minutes. For a more detailed walkthrough of the Narratory side of things, see our guide to making an AI audiobook from scratch.