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saxbrightwellFrankly, I think improved text-to-speech capability is one of the BEST uses of AI technology. There is a lot more text out there than there are voice actors to read it all, much less funds to pay them. Certainly I can't afford to pay anyone unless I sell MANY more books than I have right now.
I considered the idea of recording my own voice, but I decided against that for several reasons. The first is simply a skill and resource issue: making voice recordings like that is something I've never done, and have none of the equipment for doing - I barely know what the equipment IS. (A microphone, obviously, and then The Magnus Archives extras said something about putting a sleeping bag over your head for sound quality? But what about all the rustling, and hyperventilation from excess CO2?) The second is a privacy issue: as I've said in the past, it's important to me to maintain a total pseudonym. A voice recording of myself would out my nationality and sex at minimum, and my whole identity to anyone who listened and somehow knew me in real life. So, "read by the author" is simply not an option (unless I, say, sold so many books I could afford to quit my dayjob - you may be noticing a common refrain here).
So, since I can't pay a voice actor, and both can't and won't record myself, audio versions of my books wouldn't exist at all without digital voices. In this instance no money is being WITHHELD from anyone; the technology enables something to exist where without it there would be nothing.
All this is to say that I've taken part in the Google Play Books auto-narration free beta test, and I'm very pleased with it. My first exploration of TTS voices was the app NaturalReader, which is useable but badly flawed. However, the Google voices can have their pronunciation corrected, which is a major game-changer. I still had to change certain incoherent noises (mostly sex noises) into words, because the models don't stretch so far as to be able to say things that aren't even made-up words. But overall, I found the voices very serviceable!
The audiobook series is here:
Individually, Low Dawn is here:
and High Dusk is here:
If you're someone who benefits from audiobooks, I hope you enjoy these ones! Everyone deserves access to books, including books that are just for fun like these. Please remember to give the content warnings a listen and then arrange for an appropriate level of privacy!
I considered the idea of recording my own voice, but I decided against that for several reasons. The first is simply a skill and resource issue: making voice recordings like that is something I've never done, and have none of the equipment for doing - I barely know what the equipment IS. (A microphone, obviously, and then The Magnus Archives extras said something about putting a sleeping bag over your head for sound quality? But what about all the rustling, and hyperventilation from excess CO2?) The second is a privacy issue: as I've said in the past, it's important to me to maintain a total pseudonym. A voice recording of myself would out my nationality and sex at minimum, and my whole identity to anyone who listened and somehow knew me in real life. So, "read by the author" is simply not an option (unless I, say, sold so many books I could afford to quit my dayjob - you may be noticing a common refrain here).
So, since I can't pay a voice actor, and both can't and won't record myself, audio versions of my books wouldn't exist at all without digital voices. In this instance no money is being WITHHELD from anyone; the technology enables something to exist where without it there would be nothing.
All this is to say that I've taken part in the Google Play Books auto-narration free beta test, and I'm very pleased with it. My first exploration of TTS voices was the app NaturalReader, which is useable but badly flawed. However, the Google voices can have their pronunciation corrected, which is a major game-changer. I still had to change certain incoherent noises (mostly sex noises) into words, because the models don't stretch so far as to be able to say things that aren't even made-up words. But overall, I found the voices very serviceable!
The audiobook series is here:
Individually, Low Dawn is here:
and High Dusk is here:
If you're someone who benefits from audiobooks, I hope you enjoy these ones! Everyone deserves access to books, including books that are just for fun like these. Please remember to give the content warnings a listen and then arrange for an appropriate level of privacy!
