Ep. 317 - Is the Voice Over Industry Correcting Itself? AI Audiobooks and Human Narrators, with Gabby Nistico

Send us Fan Mail Is the voice over industry starting to correct itself? Gabby Nistico and I talk about the push back toward human work. A Washington Post piece puts acting in the group of jobs AI will reorganize rather than wipe out. Distributors are limiting how many books one account can upload because of the flood of AI books. And authors are calling us because they want a real person reading their book. Gabby asks the question the AI audiobook sellers don't answer: if a human still has to sit and listen to the whole book to check it, where did the AI save any time or money? We also talk about where AI is fine and where it isn't, why I'd like us all to say "generative AI" when that's what we mean, and how readers and narrators can help bring authors to Academy Voices, our alternative to ACX, where every audiobook is read by a real person. (00:00) Is the voice over industry correcting itself? (00:15) Why we started Certified Human Voice (01:08) The Washington Post on AI and jobs (03:36) Audible's AI Dracula beta (04:50) Why more VO platforms should say no to AI (05:39) Authors who want human narrators (06:30) Who checks an AI audiobook? (08:10) The author who tried AI and hated it (09:47) Distributors now limit uploads because of AI books (11:27) Readers don't care until they care (12:21) Can an author use AI to help them write? (13:25) AI-written books and copyright (15:30) Why I don't use AI to write (16:33) Do author books get priority on Academy Voices? (17:25) What's in Audible's contracts (18:47) Upload limits, and passing 800 audiobooks (20:02) Tell the authors you love about Academy Voices (21:08) If 350 narrators each reached 10 authors (22:23) Say generative AI, not AI (24:19) People want to know there's a real person (24:58) Bringing author friends over (25:58) Offering royalty share to win over a client (26:50) Not just royalty share: paying authors are joining (28:04) Why Trustpilot and Google reviews matter (29:15) The Audible name problem (30:12) Accessibility, and a script prep tool that labels characters (32:00) How people find things now: ChatGPT and Gemini (33:36) Short books to practice on (34:08) Does Academy Voices offer editing for authors? (36:07) A demo of the prep tools is coming Narrating Spicy Romance, live workshop, Sunday 25 October at 7pm ET ($27, replay included): https://www.avosjourney.com/spicy-romance-workshop?src=podcast Academy Voices, the alternative to ACX: https://www.academyvoices.com/ Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1cPh2GInUIY Support the show Social Links:    Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/anthony_pica_vo/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/AVOsJOURNEY Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/avosjourney/  LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonypicavo/