🎙️ My Slightly Awkward Fling with AI Audiobooks

If you're the kind of person who breaks into hives at the mention of AI, I have one gentle suggestion for you: maybe go pour yourself a cup of tea and skip this post. No hard feelings—I’ll see you next week when I’m talking about Papillon dogs or haunted attics or something wholesome like that.

BUT… if you’re curious about what happens when an indie author who usually handcrafts her audiobooks like they’re artisanal sourdough decides to flirt with artificial intelligence… well, pull up a chair.

It all started when KDP (that’s Kindle Direct Publishing for the uninitiated—Amazon’s indie author arm) invited me into a beta program to test their brand-new virtual audiobook creation tool. You read that right: AI voices reading your book aloud. It’s like giving your manuscript to a robot and asking it to sound dramatic, heartbroken, or mildly sarcastic.

Now let me preface this by saying—I DO record my own audiobooks. I have a cozy little studio set up, microphones that cost more than my first car, digital audio workstation software that crashes just enough to keep things interesting, and even a soundproofing setup that makes my dog side-eye me like I’m slowly turning into a bat.

But here's the thing: I write in different genres. My cozy mysteries? Totally fine with my own voice—warm, quirky, and just the right amount of “this woman owns too many teapots.” But my thrillers? Yeah… not so much. There’s only so much gravitas I can inject into a scene where a tech billionaire’s secrets are unraveling before dawn.

I even tried to rope in my husband (also known as my CFO advisor, proofreader, and reluctant beta listener) to read the thriller parts. Let’s just say it takes a lot of dedication to try that. We love him anyway.

So, I thought: why not try this AI thing? Worst-case scenario, I unpublish it and blame it on a Mercury retrograde.

Now, if you’ve never worked with a virtual voice studio, imagine operating a vending machine that gives notes. There aren’t many controls. You can adjust the speed, throw in a dramatic pause, or tweak pronunciation—but that's it. Need to emphasize a word? Good luck. Want the voice to understand that “read” is pronounced two different ways depending on the tense? Time to get creative. I spent more time whispering, “No, not like that!” at my laptop than I care to admit.

And no, it’s not “push a button and boom—instant audiobook.” You have to listen through the entire book multiple times. Yes. The entire book. Because just when you think it's perfect, the voice says “data” like it’s about to fight you in a dark alley, and you have to fix it.

But here's the twist: It’s actually… not bad. For a beta program, it’s surprisingly impressive. If you’re an indie author, you know how hard it can be to justify an audiobook when you don’t have a $5,000 budget lying around under the couch cushions. This gives an option. A real one.

I priced the virtual voice audiobooks accordingly—because while it’s not a full human performance, it’s also not someone mumbling through your story while doing the dishes. And my cozy mysteries? Oh, those I will always read myself, with joy and slightly dramatic pauses and the occasional blooper reel. Because I love them.

But if you’ve made it this far and enjoy audiobooks, why not give it a shot? You’ve got very little to lose—except maybe the image of me yelling “EMPHASIZE THE DARN VERB” at a waveform on my screen.

👉 Curious? Take a listen here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3Z1BN88/

Let me know what you think - I'd totally like to know!

DIY Audiobook. A bit of equipment, good advice and lots of patience

I want to create an Audiobook - should I? Ever since the release of book one in the "Cannabis Preacher" series of thrillers, that question has been on my mind. The "Cannabis Preacher" books were quite long. To produce an audiobook from each of the four, including voice actors and audio production with a turn key service, I was looking at around $15,000 per book. Financially, that was a non-starter for me at the time. That amount represented a LOT of books and audiobooks to sell to recover the investment, and I shelved my plan again. With the popularity of the "Magical Papillon" cozy mystery series, I found myself coming back to the growing popularity of audiobooks. I knew that audiobooks could reach a wider audience and catered to busy readers who prefer listening while multitasking. The idea of bringing my characters to life through narration excited me, as it offered a new dimension to my storytelling. The cozy mysteries were only 60-65,000...

Writers, Don’t Be a Slave to Word Count: Let the Story Speak for Itself

As writers, we’ve all asked ourselves that nagging question: “Is my book long enough? Too short? How long should it be?” It’s easy to get caught up in the numbers, obsessing over whether our work fits neatly into arbitrary word count guidelines. But here’s the truth: Word count should never dictate the quality of your story. The heart of storytelling lies in the narrative itself, not in how many pages it spans. The Pressure of Word Count From NaNoWriMo goals to publishing industry standards, writers face constant reminders about “acceptable” word counts. A novel must be 80,000-100,000 words. A novella shouldn’t exceed 40,000. Short stories have their own limits. These guidelines are helpful, but they can also be stifling. We begin to pad scenes unnecessarily or trim meaningful moments just to conform to these benchmarks. I’ve been there. I’ve wrestled with my manuscript, forcing it to stretch or condense to meet expectations. And you know what happened? The authenticity of the...

The Glamorous Life of a Writer (Or, Mostly Just Staring at a Screen)

There’s a persistent rumor floating around that writers live thrilling, adventure-filled lives. Perhaps it’s all the dramatic author portraits on book jackets—moody, windswept, staring off into the distance as if contemplating the fate of the world. Perhaps it’s the movies, where writers are always dashing off to Paris to write the next great novel in a charming café (suspiciously never interrupted by spotty Wi-Fi or overpriced croissants). I hate to break it to you, but real writing? Not quite so cinematic. In reality, my writing days mostly involve staring intensely at my screen, willing the words to appear through sheer force of will. Occasionally, I engage in deep philosophical debates with myself—such as whether my protagonist should turn left or right down a hallway (the fate of the fictional world depends on it). And let’s not forget the highly intellectual process of naming characters, which can take hours because somehow every single name I think of is either the name of ...

Thinkingdog Publishing

Search This Blog