Today you can get Helios free, with Konstantinos, the OG! Get it on Amazon, or use this affiliate link to score Gus a little more kibble. Here’s the link, though it’s also “free” for those with Kindle Unlimited.
Prefer “wide” stories? It’ll be available everywhere via audiobook before long–it’s in the editing stages now! In case you’re wondering, while for stories, “editing” means fixing plot holes, adjusting paging, enriching details, tweaking characters, and weeding out repetition, typos, etc, it means something else for audiobooks. That includes removing any double-takes (if the narrator flubbed a line and immediately did a re-do), sniffles or breaths, stomach growls, cords banging, and other extraneous noises. Then comes taming any hissy S sounds, removing any clicks or other mouth noises, and a proof-listen of the whole thing–that alone will be over ten hours!
“Why not just use the new AI and be done with it, Chloe? That would save hours and lots of money,” you say. “Then we could have all your works NOW in audio.”
I get that, but the AI voices are just not there yet for ordinary speech, let alone with accents or emotional inflections. I can’t imagine AI not botching Birgitte’s accent in Desire in Deutschland. If you listen to the sample, you can get the feel for it. No way could AI do that right now. I know some authors are using ChatRPG to even help them come up with plots and help write their books! I can see the appeal, with the relentless pressure to “quick, publish the next thing” to stay high in the rankings and bring in some cash. But one other facet is that while the AI is learning all the time, it “learns” from other works, soap operas, text conversations, and other sources, so its suggestions can be just plain nuts, or at best, very cliche.
To each his own, but for me, it’s sort of a “red pill” vs “blue pill” thing, or perhaps akin to cell phone use—people used to get them to use “only for emergencies” and over time, it’s become routine to simply text a meme or ask what’s for dinner. I can either keep doing it all on my own, or chase the money on that slippery slope of “how much AI is acceptable to use?”
My choice is to Just Say No to AI. I’d rather have a story I can be proud of, than to know that I’m taking credit for something I didn’t do. My works are, and will always be, 100% Human.
I think Konstantinos would approve. “Let us speak no more of it.”
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