You don't say?
Audio book file update coming soon!
I personally don’t have an Audible (or any other audio book app) account anywhere as I prefer to read books, not listen to them. When A Thread of Waking Light launched in March, the audio book came days afterward, and I originally didn’t get a copy.
However, there was a short preview available online, and I listened to a short bit of it just to approve the selected voice for my publisher, or they had other options of different voices to try if I didn’t like the originally selected one. I was fine with it and moved on from there at the time.
Later, I was gifted a copy, and I started listening to it in earnest, and I found that the AI* voice that was used was making up interesting pronunciations of the made-up names I had in my world for people and places. Sometimes, it even invents more than one pronunciation for the same word, the why of which I haven’t figured out — it’s not even consistently inconsistent! Working with my publisher, we found that there was a way to correct the AI by defining pronunciations. For example, the AI voice has a tendency to name the deity Veladris by saying “VELL-uh-driss” or “VEE-luh-driss,” when I intended “vuh-LAD-driss”.
Thus, I am here to say anyone who has an audio book copy, my apologies for any strange-sounding words that may be unintended, and I am currently amid listening to the entire book — over 12 hours! — to jot down every word that it chooses to give a creative pronunciation to so that I can correct them to the intended one when I made up the name.
I am told that once I submit these to my publisher and they action them, the file updates shortly afterward for all purchasers so that everyone, even retroactively, can have a corrected file. I apologize for my newbie-ness and the late approach this process has taken.
Thanks everyone for your support,
Veladris keep you,
Jason Knightman
*Apologies to voice industry professionals and audio-book lovers that I do not hold sufficient funds to hire a human voice actor for this purpose; were I of means, I wouldn’t have hesitated. If and when I become able to do so, I will more than happily commission paid work for a human voice actor to redo the file.