If You Prefer Audiobooks

Just to let everyone know — and I'm very proud of myself — all four novels are now available on Audible. Each story, and sometimes each chapter, is told by a different Virtual Voice, a new Amazon product. Despite the fact that the voices are computer-generated, I must say it was fun sifting through the variations to find the right tone for each narrator.

I think I hit the mark on most, but there were a few disappointments. I needed an effeminate male voice for the character of Terrance Nichols in OUT AND IN, who tells some major parts of the story. I could hear him in my brain, but not on Virtual Voice. I was also hoping to find a more "New Yorky" voice for Lena Verano in that same book.

For my German bad guy in ICE AND FIRE, I chose a British male voice, since Amazon didn't offer an English-speaking, German-accented voice. Why would they? But not having one meant I had to edit my original text to explain why the madman had an English accent. That didn't take much time, but other changes did.

Change, Change, and More Changes

Throughout this month-long process, I reviewed each novel's text within the Virtual Voice Studio platform, scanning for words the chosen narrator might not be able to pronounce. The good news was that I could edit mispronunciations by entering phonetic spellings. Sometimes, these took a good number of efforts, and I started relying on Google's Gemini to help me spell words phonetically, especially foreign names, like "Jean Genet" in BACKSTORY. I still don't think I've got that one quite right. The Virtual Voice wants to say "Gene Jennet" instead of "Zhahn Zhuh-NAY."

ICE AND FIRE was a major problem that took me an entire week, because I used a lot of words from ’Ōlelo Hawai‘i, which is the term you are told to use instead of "Hawaiian," because the latter word is only appropriate for a person of Hawaiian descent. (Oh, the linguists. Sigh.)

Another major issue had to do with a main character in ICE AND FIRE. At publication date, the lead FBI agent's first name had been changed to "Ena," which means many things in ’Ōlelo Hawai‘i, as many Hawaiian words do, depending on who's speaking, how it's used, and which dictionary you're using. (Oh, the linguists. Sigh.) However, the Virtual Voice could not pronounce "Ena" like it was supposed to sound, which was "Ehna."

In ’Ōlelo Hawai‘i, the "e" is pronounced like an "eh" sound, somewhat like it sounds in the English word "bed." But the Virtual Voice kept saying "Eeena," not "Ehna," no matter how many phonetic spellings I entered. Trouble was, "Eeena" sounded too much like "Lena," another character in that same book. Eventually, I had to give up and change Ena's name to "Pua," which means flower. (Thank heavens for Search/Replace.)

Are These Things Ever Finished?

(This is what my husband is always asking. He doesn't understand the fluid nature of digital publishing.)

All edits, once saved, applied to the subsequent uploads of each revised e-book manuscript, which were numerous. When you convert to Audible, you realize that you need to add a lot more speech tags and descriptive phrases to let readers know where the characters are and who is speaking. When you read a book, these things are obvious. But when you hear the book, you need more clues.

Working through these novels also allowed me to correct any mistakes I encountered. I found seven typos in ICE AND FIRE, this after having paid a professional copyeditor and my also running the work through Grammarly and spell-checking five times. I do not know where these goofs come from, other than my poor typing and constant editing.

Over and above typos, I noted an action item that could not have been possible, so I was able to correct that as well.

Clearly, I need a better editor!

Working through OUT AND IN, which was originally published in 2018, I discovered quite a few goofs, although I had hired three different copyeditors during that book's creation. More importantly, I did a bit of research and discovered that some financial and international facts had changed.

First off, the Republic of Seychelles and Pakistan have signed cooperative agreements to comply with the IRS FATCA laws, which those nations had not done when OUT AND IN was published. As a result, I had to edit a bunch of sections. In addition, the U.S.A. now has an Embassy in the Republic of Seychelles. Before 2023, it was in the island nation of Mauritius, so I had to change a bunch of stuff related to that.

The Virtual Voices are Darn Good for AI

The Audible Virtual Voices sound quite natural, much better than good ol' Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, in addition to some mispronunciation issues, a few voice inflections were not how I wanted the text to sound. When I wanted to emphasize a word or phrase, I discovered that editing these in all caps, or putting a question mark after a phrase, instructed the voice where to "inflect." But in some instances, I simply had to let the voice do what it could.

The most irritating issue was how the voices mispronounced the Big Island's tallest volcano, Maunakea. No matter how many phonetic spellings I entered, the voice kept saying "Mauna-kee-ah, not "Mauna-kay-ah." I even wrote to the Audible gurus at Amazon, but they couldn't help me. Eventually, I gave up. I hope some Hawaiian linguist doesn't get teed off by the mispronunciation. I tried!

Bottom line: I'm Glad to Have Audible Books "out there."

The cost for converting my four books to Audible was only a whole lotta hours of my time. I worked on these daily for over a month, but as I learned the platform's ins and outs, much of that time was spent re-editing and uploading the revised works. If my novels had been totally clean and written for audio in the first place, and if the Virtual Voices had been perfect, I certainly would not have spent so much time.

Of course, I would have preferred to hire humans to do the voices, but that would have cost many thousands of dollars, especially since I have so many different narrators. Yes, I've sold many thousands of books, but marketing them makes a huge dent in my ROI. That's why most small-press authors want to get a "big five" publisher.

On social media, there is a huge backlash against using AI for creative endeavors. However, the creative content of my novels is entirely my own. And I never use Grammarly's goofy rewrites. What would the world be if everyone wrote like Grammarly?

For all four novels, I've hired human editors who are clearly fallible, and a human designer who is perfect in every way. And I will continue to do so. In fact, I'm searching for a wonderful editor as we speak. For a long time, I considered narrating the books myself, but that would require major investments in audio equipment. So, that's why it's taken this long to get my audiobooks out there. And I hope you enjoy them.

If you read one, please let me know if you discover any mispronunciations or other issues.