Hacking My Way through the Thickets of AI-Art Swamps and AI-Audio Jungles//Update(s) re: DACLAXVIA

As a "Journeyman Writer"; retired... on a 'second-career foray', out into the thicket of issues that indie-authors must trek through-- I have stumbled into a couple of tangles that certain advances in "Artificial Intelligence" have spawned that surprisingly (to me, at least) get people all caught up in personal and organizational-entity turmoil.

The human-creation "purists" (who use the human tech of their cell phones and blogs to register their complaints) scream that those of us who may choose to use AI to illustrate their picture books or 'synthetic voices' to narrate their audiobooks are nothing more that shills for huge geomega-maniacal conglomerates bent on the eradication human originality in the realm of literature.

I was surprised because, I, in choosing to use AI to create the characters for my most recent picture book series, didn't realize that I was engaging in sacrilege. I simply thought that, since I stink at drawing... and seeing that my bank account also stinks; I could overcome that combined stench by taking the envisioned characters from my mind and use my Chat GPT freeware art program to get those characters out from their 'non-artist gulag' in my grey-matter's frontal lobe and out onto my book pages... in full-color, no less.

Honestly. There was not a hint of conspiracy in that choosing. It wasn't until I reached out to a book agent that I found out that only Adolf Hitler had committed deeper and darker crimes against humanity than I had.

Lesson learned re: ebooks and printed books.

Lesson not learned... in creating audiobooks. Repeat what I just wrote re: AI-art when I recently went to upload the 'ElevenLabs-created' audiobook version of my paperback novel, DACLAXVIA"... which I originally published in 2019 via KDP. Because I used a "synthetic voice" to narrate the book, I had now apparently added infamy to my previous blasphemy:

Move over Hitler and leave me a spot right next to Lucifer himself.

Not dissuaded, I have decided to continue to wield a recalcitrant-machete to slice through the thicket of those thorny AI-Issues. If "the pen IS mightier than the sword"... then, it should be able to stand up to David J. Liebherr's veritable jackknife sized indie-choices to 'forge ahead' with my AI-Art and AI-Audio rebellion... stinking non-artistic abilities and equally smelly bank account, notwithstanding.

If you'd like to risk falling prey to my diabolical plans to collapse the entire realm of literature and join me in my machete-swinging rebellion, I invite you to see my latest children's book "Midas B. Goodenkind": HERE

If you'd dare to plunge yourself into the absolute destruction of all that's holy by listening to the audio version of "DACLAXVIA" (The Novel) then stay tuned. Even now... I am finishing the re-upload of my paperback, all keyed to the audiobook; soon to be available wherever AI-narrated audiobooks are sold (which is everywhere but Audible/ACX... not because they are 'purests', but because they insist you use their comparably terrible version of AI to create audiobooks on their platform... if they grace you with an invite to do so).

Please enjoy the opening chapter of DACLAXVIA as a gift: HERE

Thanks for reading this update. In all seriousness, I am really enjoying the learning curve of how to navigate the always-changing landscape of the thrilling world of writing and publishing. To be sure, the newest tools are just that, TOOLS, to help writers get their books out into the literary realm... even in a previously-tilted field, angled only toward big names and big bucks ($).