Audio: AI versus human

The first four books in the Colonial Explorer Corps series are up on my YouTube channel. You can listen to them free! And the first ten chapters of book 5, The Romara Confrontation, went live today as well.

These books are performed by the voices at Spoken. I've told you about them before. The robots aren't as good as real humans, but they're definitely listenable and getting better every week. I'm using Spoken because this series doesn't earn enough money to support human-narration. And I know, a lot of folks will say I should use a royalty share deal to get them narrated. That's when a narrator takes a chance on an author, does the work for free, and the narrator and author split the royalties.

But is convincing a narrator to spend a month working on these books in the hope that they'll make money some day really in their best interest? Is it fair to ask someone to work for free on a donkey* series?

Spoken uses ethically sourced voices. Voice actors are paid for each use of their voice clones. In fact, you can go make your own voice clone at ElevenLabs (which is one of the sources Spoken uses) and license it–you might make a few dollars. When we were in Vegas a couple of weeks ago at Author Nation, we met the woman who created the highest paid voice at ElevenLabs. She makes six figures from that recording! Not bad for a few hours work.

But human narration is still the gold standard. Which is why A Dragon Rider's Guide to Retirement will be narrated by two live humans. Stay tuned for the casting announcement!

For me, audio is an accessibility issue. I want my books available to those who can't see or can't read for some other reason. And they're up on YouTube for free.

*Romance author Elana Johnson talks about her race horse series and her donkey series. Donkey series just don't click with the audience, and while they'll continue to plod along, they're unlikely to ever bring home the prizes.