Why does a computer ask humans to prove we’re not robots?
I’m a Luddite, which means I’m not an early adopter of technology.
- I like the quiet of the woods, the babbling of streams, the sigh of the wind in the trees, and hardback books.
- As a kid, I grew up without a tv in my house. As an adult, I lived without one until I got married.
- At one point in my 40’s, I went for several years without a newspaper, internet, dishwasher (although I did have five pairs of hands to wash things), or cable. My kids thought I was from the stone age!
- I didn’t get a flip phone until around 2005.
- I had dial-up internet at home until 2018.
But being an indie author has forced me to learn a lot of new technologies.
- I’ve switched from cameras to phones and started taking videos. I know this doesn’t sound like much, but it’s been a huge help when conducting book research abroad.
- I’ve started reading eBooks. I know this doesn’t sound like much either, but I read my first one less than a year ago because I wanted to know what readers want. Now I like the free eBooks I can download and read in doctor’s waiting rooms.
- I changed (delayed) my book launch plan because I experienced streaming tv. I wrote at least the first draft for all eight books of my first series before publishing the first so I can launch a new one every six months. I’m like most people – I don’t like waiting for the next episode anymore.
- I’ve had to go global – my cover artist is from Ukraine. I was used to international business as a global supply chain leader, but it’s different when you have to do it on your own.
- I’m learning publishing technologies, although I have a long way to go to get good at it.
- I’ve also had to start learning social media. To put it in perspective, I never looked at Facebook until I started publishing these posts.
My initial publishing plan was to get the first three books in the series out before I started marketing to learn the processes and ensure readers didn’t have to wait long for subsequent novels. I also decided to launch my books wide (across many retailers) in eBook format, paperback, and hardback to give readers a choice of format.
Even though I know audiobooks are the fastest growing segment of books, it’s underserved, and many people prefer audio over reading, I didn’t plan on launching audiobooks until some distant future. A huge part of it was cost – an estimated $2000-$5000 per book! I would never recover those costs with the number of books I sell.
Which leads me to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and publishing. I’ve been following the updates on advances in technology for some time. A few years ago, no one seemed to be using artificial voices to do audiobooks. But then I read one post where they compared AI and the author’s voice. The author said it was easy to hear the difference between her voice and the computers. But when I played the samples, the only way I could tell the difference was to look at the description above the play button.
Fast forward a few months, and I noticed that some authors were saying they thought AI had come far enough to use the computers on non-fiction books. Fast forward a few more months to when I first heard about DeepZen, which hired professional narrators for their voices and allowed some editing at a fraction of the cost of the traditional process. Then, last month, Google Play announced free audiobook production for authors on a test basis. It sounded too good to be true.
I’m pretty sure I know what my action will be because this is usually the stage where I’m trying to poke holes at a big decision before proceeding. I’ve listened to Google’s selection of voices, and I’m pretty impressed, but I’m going to wait until my wife weighs in on the voices before I decide (you might call it procrastination).
I’ll keep you posted.
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