I released a few parts to the story I had done as an audiobook, but I wasn't happy with it, so I re-did the edit.
The aim wasn't for this to be the proper launch anyway, I just got excited and wanted to see how they'd do.
Eleven Labs Nitpicks
One thing, and really the only thing that kind of bugs me about how the finished audio recording turned out is the weird pause the speaker takes randomly throughout.
I get having pauses for the sake of punctuation, but there are so many times every 3-5 seconds - or at least it seems that frequent - where the narrator pauses for a long silence.
Some of these occur... during a sentence and it makes it sound very... jarring and weird. Especially since it sounds like it's done on purpose to add dramatic effect to things that really don't require it.
Also, it messes up the pacing of it and basically causes some of it to fall flat.
The Process
I essentially need to listen in real-time and cut as I go, some breaks just need to be trimmer, and some that happen mid-sentence need to be cut down entirely.
It's such a pain in the ass, but it sounds much better for it.
There is some AI software, coincidently, that actually does this for you, but due to the nature of certain cuts, I decided to do it manually.
It's funny though, AI makes a problem, that another AI can fix, in some small sense I feel as though these AI companies are kind of taking the piss out of us.
The videos I did excitedly, and prematurely released are actually doing fairly well with 500-700 views each on TikTok, and the first one I put on YouTube amassed 500 too, while the other two parts got feck all.
Not amazing, but not bad for only a day. I think without the awkward pauses, and potentially some added effects like some light ambient sound, and potentially some sound effects, it could raise the production value a hell of a lot and make it a bit more enjoyable.
We'll see how they do when the new ones go out and these ones are all removed.