ACX will let audiobook narrators scrape their own voice for AI narration.

ACX/Audible is also going to be continuing to mainstream their AI narration ‘services’ generally, but this is what caught my eye: “ACX’s new AI tool will allow voice narrators to replicate their own voice.” Translating some of the PR-speak on the fly, ACX will take a maybe-representative sample of the narrators’ voices, recreate it in hopefully an accurate fashion, and presumably pay a smaller royalty to the narrators to “reflect the work involved in creating and managing voice replica productions.”

That last is kind of harsh. Why? Because while I might not be inherently upset if somebody cloned their own voice for one of my audiobooks (since Audible didn’t steal it from somebody else), I am absolutely not going to pay full price for something like that. I might not even pay ten cents on the dollar. And why should I? When I got a narrator for FROZEN DREAMS, I was happily paying for the time and effort as well as the voice. If neither is as much of a factor, then my initial offer is going to reflect that.

Sorry if this seems hardnosed. But self-publishing is a business. I won’t pay boutique prices for mass-produced product.