This Crazy Writing Life: AI And Indie Pubbing—Is This The End Of The World As We Know It?

By Steven Womack

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Want to read a book that’ll scare the bejeezus out of you? Grab a copy of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies—Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All. The authors—Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares—have studied artificial intelligence for decades and have reached the conclusion that if we keep going the way we’re going, AI will soon be smarter than we are. The next step is for it to become sentient and when AI is able to perceive, feel, and outsmart us, it will ultimately get into conflict with all us mere humans.

Then guess what? We’re toast…

Is that the way this is all going to play out? Who knows? As Yogi Berra once said: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

One thing I do know is that the whole AI thing is taking up more and more of our bandwidth each day. Major corporations are laying off tens of thousands of workers and replacing them with AI. From driver-less taxis to robotic Door Dash deliveries and fast food cooks, AI seems to be on everybody’s mind. Try calling a large corporation, hospital, or customer service center, hoping to reach a human. It’s harder than ever.

It’s no different in the publishing world, especially in the indie-pub space.

I’ve been lucky in that I’ve been able to attend the last four Novelists Inc. annual conferences. At each one of those conferences, the issue of AI in indie-pubbing—especially AI-narrated audiobooks—has been front-and-center. Is AI going to put human audiobook narrators out of business? Do we need a new army of Luddites smashing the machines to protect the paychecks and lifelines of the modern-day equivalent of textile workers.

Again, I’ve given up prognosticating. I’m usually wrong anyway.

But I can make some observations, and you can draw your own conclusions from them. Let’s start with AI-narrated audiobooks.

First, a brief history. In 1976, Ray Kurzweil unveiled the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the first modern text-to-speech synthesizer. He originally envisioned the machine as a way for blind people to have access to text (Stevie Wonder bought the first one). By 1988, the Apple Macintosh had an effective TTS (text-to-speech) capability, and development has continued to this day.

By far, the that biggest hurdle to creating audiobooks—especially for indie authors—is the production cost. Costs vary widely, depending on a number of factors, but professional audiobook narrators with credits typically charge from $100-300 or more per finished hour. Studio rental, editing, and mastering the files can add significantly to the cost.

For audiobook producers who choose to have multiple narrators, sound effects, etc., costs can double or even triple.

Not only are the costs out-of-reach for many indie authors, the ROI is often simply not there. A ten-book series by an indie author can easily cost $35-50K to produce and publish. Obviously, in a competitive marketplace where discoverability is also an issue, one must sell an enormous number of audiobooks just to make back the production costs.

The evolution of digitally narrated audiobooks has rocketed into high gear in the past few years. In March 2021, Hume AI began developing AI platforms that analyzed vocal inflections and facial expressions that better gauged human emotional states and could create more human-sounding voices (and AI characters).

In 2022, a machine learning engineer and an ex-Palantir deployment strategist—both from Poland—created ElevenLabs, motivated by what they felt were American films badly dubbed into Polish. In January 2023, ElevenLabs’s beta platform went public. Since then, a number of versions have been developed and deployed.

Today, ElevenLabs is leading the charge on realistic digital voice narration for audiobooks. They have a library of hundreds of voice samples. You can even create an ElevenLabs account and upload of sample of your own voice. It goes in the library and if someone likes your voice, they can choose you. Only you won’t actually narrate the book. ElevenLabs will synthesize your voice based on the sample and narrate the whole book and you’ll get a small licensing fee.

In November, 2023, Amazon rolled out an invitation-only KDP Beta test for digitally narrated audiobooks. Early results were considered by many to be problematic. The only appealing thing about it was that it was actually free (but you could only sell your audiobook on Amazon).

At this year’s NINC conference, I had the chance to sit in on a panel presented by Dr. Phil Marshall, the founder and CEO of a company called Spoken, which is the latest contender in the digital narration sphere. Marshall—who’s an M.D. and a surgeon who left the field of medicine to pursue a career in AI development— founded Spoken two years ago, a company whose mission is to make the most realistic and effective AI-narration available to authors at a reasonable cost.

“Listening is the new reading,” he explained. “Half of all Americans listen to spoken word media every day.”

Marshall then demonstrated the Spoken platform, which works on multiple levels. Authors can choose totally digital narrator voices, or they can use voices of real actors, whose voice samples are then synthesized and replicated by the AI platform to speak the text in the audiobook.

He emphasized the editing capabilities of the platform, which enables authors to manipulate voices at a single-line level. If an author doesn’t like the inflection or pacing of a delivered line of dialogue, for example, he or she can go so far as to record the line the way it should be delivered. The Spoken app then analyzes the author’s reading of the line and regurgitates it in the digital voice.

Marshall then outlined his company’s strategic partnership with ElevenLabs and Hume AI, in which authors using the Spoken platform can have access to literally hundreds (if not thousands by now) of voices available on those platforms.

This flexibility, combined with the pricing structure, even makes multi-voiced cast recordings accessible and affordable. In Marshall’s view, he noted, this represents one of the greatest opportunities for indie audiobook producers. He demonstrated a project he’s working on now—his own novel Taming the Perilous Skies—which will contain over 100 voices.

Spoken’s pricing structure offers two different options. Authors can work on a per project basis, which offers an unlimited number of voices, custom voices, full access to the Spoken studio, project download, and audio mastering at a price of $10 per 5,000 words. For multiple projects, authors can subscribe for $50/month, with 50% off all narration costs.

So there you have it, folks. A human-narrated audiobook can easily cost $3500-$5000 to produce. A 100,000 word digitally narrated audiobook will cost a couple hundred to get out there. When you take into account the digitally narrated audiobook will sound about 90 percent human, that’s not a bad compromise. And I don’t think we’re too far away from a place where you’ll almost have to be an audio expert to tell the difference.

The question remains for many people is whether or not this is morally and ethically right. If you look at technical revolutions throughout history, they have always disrupted the status quo. In the 19th century, the Luddites were textile workers rebelling against the automation in mills. Did that stop the process?

No, but it created a whole new segment of industrial jobs. Somebody had to operate those mills. Textile workers became machine operators in a factory rather than sitting at home with a traditional loom. And while Henry Ford did put a lot of blacksmiths and buggy whip makers out of business, in the end I think it’s safe to say he created more jobs than the ones he eliminated.

Besides, blacksmiths are still around, and I’d speculate that they’re making more than ever.

Another way to look at it is if I produce an AI-narrated audiobook, have I caused an audiobook narrator’s children to go hungry? No, because I can’t afford the human narrator in the first place. I drive a KIA; that doesn’t mean I took a Cadillac worker’s job. I can’t afford a Cadillac to begin with, not to mention I wouldn’t be caught dead in one.

Nearly twenty years ago, many gurus railed that the advent of the eBook industry spelled doom for print books. But are print books dead? No, they’re more popular than ever before.

So if you’re a human audiobook narrator and voice-over artist, do you need to be looking for a new career? I don’t think so. Human voices are always going to be needed, even in audiobook narration.

Two years ago at the NINC conference, I had a conversation with USA Today best-selling author Sylvia McDaniel, a hybrid author who’s penned over 100 romance novels. She’s very successful and a delightful person to be around. I’m genuinely fond of her.

She told me that her approach is to produce two audiobook versions of her novels. The human-narrated version is priced as a traditional audiobook—roughly the $10.99-on-up range—and a digitally narrated book for as little as $.99 with an Audible membership.

So if you’re an audiobook consumer and want the joy of hearing Tom Hanks narrate the latest best-seller, then you can shell out a little more for that privilege.

But if you’re just looking for somebody to read you the dang book while you’re driving to and from work, then that option comes a lot cheaper.

Does any of this sound familiar?

During the Great Depression, a lot of people couldn’t afford food and clothes, let alone expensive hardbound books. In 1935, a London publisher named Allen Lane came up with an idea to make books more accessible and affordable. He created a universal format that was cheap to produce and would easily fit into standardized wire racks that could be placed in any retail space, not just bookstores.

He founded a company—Penguin Books—to move this idea forward and the mass-market paper was born. For the next seventy years—until the advent of the eBook that replaced it—the mass market paperback was the chief medium for both fiction and nonfiction sales.

I think we may see something very similar to that in audiobooks.

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But it’s not just audiobooks. What else is expensive to produce for an indie author?

Foreign translations…

With Amazon.com in practically every corner of the globe, marketing eBook translations can be a lucrative revenue stream. Only it costs a boatload of money to hire a translator and there’s no guarantee you’ll ever see a decent ROI.

While at the NINC conference, I met indie authors who are using a company called ScribeShadow to produce AI-translated foreign editions. I spoke with a few authors who have used this service and have been very happy, especially given the 90 percent-plus savings in creating the foreign work.

What about the quality? Idioms and inflection? The nuances of slang and regional dialect? I once had to explain to a Japanese translator that my use of the Southern idiom slicker than snot on a doorknob didn’t mean there was literally mucous on the door handle. Yes, I agreed, that would be very unhygienic. 

One author explained to me that when you produce a foreign language eBook, if the translation sucks, readers will beat you to death in the reviews. She’s done a number of German translations—without speaking a word of German—and so far, her reviews have been positive.

This author doesn’t even use German proofreaders to check the translation. She told me she feeds an English manuscript into the ScribeShadow AI platform, and a German translation pops out the other end. Then she feeds the German translation into ChatGPT for a final check.

There you have it, folks; a foreign edition of your English masterpiece that’s entirely untouched by human hands.

As I’ve said so many times over the last year-and-a-half of writing these columns, it’s a whole new world out there.

As always, thanks for playing along.

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Wait! Stop the presses! The day after I turned this column in, Amazon announced via PublishersLunch that they’ve launched an AI translation service for indie authors publishing through KDP. It’s currently in Beta and will convert books from English and Spanish and from German to English (not sure exactly what that means), with more languages to be added soon.

To quote from Amazon’s announcement: With less than 5% of titles on Amazon.com available in more than one language, Kindle Translate creates opportunities for authors to reach new audiences and earn more…Within a few days, authors can publish fully formatted translations of their books. All translations are automatically evaluated for accuracy before publication, and authors can choose whether to preview or automatically publish completed translations.

And, like KDP’s digital audiobooks option, the service is free.

See what I mean, folks? Things are changing so you have to update columns before they’re even published. I’ll do some more digging and report back in next month’s edition. Best guidance going forward—jump in and hang on!

Creating Your Personal and Business Road Map to Success as an Author!

By Pamela Ebel

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One of the most daunting tasks I faced starting my fifth career, with the intention of becoming a published fiction author, was two-fold:

First, I had to decide on my long term goals. 

Six years later I laugh every time I look at the list -  a) finish my novel and find a traditional publisher and b) arrange book tours while writing book two.

Everyone who has been writing and publishing for any amount of time recognizes the problem immediately – a complete lack of understanding that to be a successful fiction writer it is not enough to create a physical space to write in and carve out the time to use that space to write something publishable.

Like most fiction writers, I had written stories for many years. When I decided to turn to writing as my fifth career, I failed to do a deep dive into the skills and tools needed to create a road map for success. 

Writer groups that I joined spent little time on craft specific discussions and practically no time on the one issue every professional needs to understand. I felt the need to help correct the omission.

I developed an approach to the writing journey that informs my work. I hope this series of articles will be helpful to those who are starting to or currently are making decisions about career goals that will lead to success. 

My journey started at the beginning of the Pandemic. During lockdown I examined writing processes by tuning in to a number of ZOOM presentations offered by writers with different years of experience, writing in different genres, and offering widely divergent suggestions and opinions about what ‘you must do to be successful.’

Watching videos and reading online articles, I realized there was little advice about what we should do before starting a writing career. What was missing from many of those presentations was ‘the notorious backstory.’ ‘Why’ and ‘How’ the presenters got started was glossed over, if covered at all. This led to my second task:

As I worked on understanding the ins and outs of the publishing world it hit me that missing was a clear statement that writing and publishing is a Business! 

Working to learn and hone’s one craft is a part of the Business. Finding groups, conferences, and other resources to assist us in honing the craft is a part of the Business. Learning how traditional publisher operations differ from smaller publishing houses, how those both differ from hybrid publishers, and how being Indie or self-published differs from all the rest is a part of the Business.  

Determining if and what type of legal entities we might need to create is a part of the Business. Understanding contractual obligations and how to relate to agents, editors and other professionals in the publishing world is a part of the Business. Understanding what type of costs and expenses will be incurred is a part of the Business.  We can’t make goal decisions without this information.

Before creating the perfect model, we need to understand that all businesses have one thing in common: a concrete list of the goals to be achieved and the planning skills to make those goals happen.

Those skills involve: a) avoiding ‘The One Right Answer’ when outlining career goals; b) creating a structure to keep on track to achieve those goals; c) developing ‘situational awareness’ to respond to the impact that time and events, both professional and personal, will have on the original career goals and d) being able to answer five questions to understand the business of writing and how to respond to each. 

In this article we consider the first skill: Avoiding  “The One Right Answer” 

Most of our educational experiences teach us to look for the “one right answer.”  It is a “teach to the test” approach that unfortunately does not account for the fact that life is ambiguous and frequently awash with many “right answers” and often “no right answers”. 

So, it is with goal setting. Assuming that the first goal or list of goals is the “one right answer” is a mistake. Most of our personal and professional journeys are not linear. Thinking that the first career goals are set in stone and if not met, or not met exactly as planned, leads us to believe we have failed. 

Learning to recalibrate based on changes in our personal and professional lives will prevent a sense of failure based on “the one right answer.” We will be able to remove stumbling blocks in the original path or create new paths to continue our journeys.  

Taking time to assess the current demands on our personal lives allows us to understand that any goals that create a change in the status quo will have a direct impact on our family and friends.                                       

Ask three questions: What do I want on my tombstone? What do I want to leave to those I love, to those whom I respect and to the world I will leave behind? How will I explain this new career to my family, friends, and acquaintances ?

The answers to these questions will define our personal goals and start us on our journey.  Next, consider the impact the move to professional writer will have on our current monetary and employment obligations. This step is where many writers fail because they have yet to understand that writing is a BUSNESS!

Calculating what is needed to keep up the current standard of living, while adding the expenses required to function professionally allows us to create a budget that responds to these changes.

It may well be that the current standard of living, the time spent with family and friends and on personal activities will all have to be adjusted to accommodate new demands on income and time. 

Learning how to make those adjustments and explain them to those directly impacted is crucial to successful career changes. Securing approval for life altering actions requires us to show that the decisions are based on improving the quality of life for all. Finding ways to garner acceptance and support of the decisions will be explained in the second article -  Creating a Structure to Gain Acceptance of New Goals and learning when to recalibrate those goals based on Changing Circumstances.

Punctuation is Power - Part 5: Are you in business or in hobby?

By Angela K Durden

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Across the board in creative endeavors something interesting is happening. Folks are getting to be about 55 or so, thinking of or are retiring, and getting back into the thing they loved before the kids came along and the bills piled up and their time was not their own in that thing we call Life. 

Whether it is music, writing, sculpture, painting, pottery, dance, and more, you will find many “of an age” mingling with young folks just getting into that creative endeavor. For some, writing a book or two is just a hobby. They don’t really intend to make it a business. Thinking about the bygone golden years of publishing when authors became stars. They dream of their book being:

• rep’d by an agent, 

• sold to one of the Big 4, 

• making the best seller lists, 

• selling like crazy domestically, 

• translated into multiple languages and selling internationally to wild acclaim, 

• made into a movie or two or three. 

Bring on the mailbox money! From your mouth to God’s ears, right?

Well, firstly, the business was never exactly like that. As we learned from the recent Hemingway documentary, his lavish lifestyle was mostly due to having a series of rich wives. Secondly, the old saying “make hay while the sun is shining” applies in this business. Much marketing of personalities went into the making of the myths. Hemingway used his marketing myth to get money for product endorsements. Nothing much has changed there.  

Still, much hard work by many people went into the writing, editing, printing, marketing, distribution, tracking of inventory, and sales of most books. Starting in the late 1980s, though, the book business began to change. Tired of being shut out and stolen from, the age of the Indie Author and Indie Publisher began and has not abated. Technology has made the publishing of a work easy; distribution via print-on-demand methods has made it within the affordable reach of millions. (Marketing of a book is a whole other subject. It is a bugaboo, a thorn in our paws, a never-ending challenge.)

Unfortunately, too many authors, having written a work, tire out and don’t do the necessary boring work of thorough and multiple edits and rewrites. Not only that, they are also unwilling to pay for it, too. Many will not take any advice when it comes to punctuation, sentence structure, flow of the material, etcetera. They see any question as an assault on their baby. 

I want to scream when I hear “Well, I [or my spouse, significant other, best friend, or sibling] have a degree in English and have already edited the book.” Or “My wife edited my book. She has a degree in English. She’ll get her feelings hurt if I let anybody else edit it.” 

Then these authors are not in business. They are in hobby. True, there are some creative outputs that are simply for making the creator happy. Enjoy the process! It is wonderful to have a hobby one enjoys. 

The business of book publishing, though, requires another mindset. Sorry to say, but one may still not see a profit from all that hard work. All business endeavors are a crapshoot. 

I have always had an allegiance to words in whatever form they take. I hate advertising language that reeks of the weasel. Since it has always been a moving target, I detest rigid rules of punctuation for rules’ sake. [See Part 1 of this series]. 

As a writer in many categories (business, children, non-fiction, memoir, humor, and fiction), my goal is to teach and/or entertain but always challenge the reader and tell it well.

As an editor my goal is to make a book the best it can be. One that, when a grandchild finds it on a shelf and reads Grandma’s or Grandpa’s book they will be proud of how good it is, not embarrassed about it. 

As a small publisher it is to bring to life high-quality books the Big 4 will not touch. Blue Room Books has published history, music business memoir, fiction, and more, some not easily categorized. We may or may not make a profit on these, but damn it all, when they go into the world they will be equal to or better than offerings from the big houses. 

So, as asked in Part 4, I ask again: 

Why do you write? 

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Author, editor, publisher, and more: learn about Angela K. Durden here and here and here.