Of course I would be interested!
AH. Sorry. I'm not clear.
Look at my stories and tell me if any of them are of interest to you to work on NOW. If you are going to start with a different story first, then I've got other things to work on. If a story of mine is one you wish to record right away, let me know which one, and I'll make a final pass to clean it up. I think I got the first few chapters of HKN and FTS lately. HKN is almost finished. I'm finishing up the last few chapters now. FTS, only book 1 is finished. I need to get back to finish Book 2. Hotrod Lantern is more of a Novelette. IWS, again, almost done with book one, but I needed to handle other issues, so it's on the back burner.
Alas, most of my stories are in basically rough draft format. I'm giving it away for free, I don't really feel the need to clean up my writing to the point where someone could read it out loud. However, for what it's worth, I do often write my stories with that in mind.
As a side note, have done more than my fair share of audio dramas.
Just doing TTS lacks a personal touch. The voice will often have an Uncanny Valley to it, like it or not. However, I was thinking of doing an audio version of my own work in the future. Alas, Its been years so I don't think I know of any of my old recording buddies. That said, the one thing I remember is that it takes forever to record something, if you are doing the entire things by hand.
My recommendation would be, (and I have my old recording equipment) Use TTS to cover the Non-Speaking roles.
For example:
A loud bang reverberated around the room as the professor slammed his hand down on the table next to Ryan's head, “MISTER REED!”
Ryan's head was cradled in his arms as if he had put it down to get some sleep. The sound startled him, causing him to jerk his head up a few inches and look around, trying to get his bearings. It was extremely disorienting, especially considering that just moments before, he had been splattered all over the pavement by a large, black truck.
~Wait… what?~
Ryan slowly straightened up in his seat as he glanced around. His eyelids fluttered rapidly in a feeble attempt to remove what felt like grime on his eyeballs. As he reached up to rub his eyes, he abruptly withdrew his hand as he wondered where his glasses had gone. Adrenaline kicked in along with a growing sense of panic. He snapped his head around, trying to look at everything at once.
“What the...?” Ryan muttered as he looked around, trying to make sense of his surroundings. He felt disoriented and confused, still reeling from the shock of being hit by the truck.
He was in a theater-style classroom, one that you would find in most universities. He was sitting at the long table, where his row of seats was located. There were more tables on both sides of him and behind him, with a staircase going up the middle of the room. At the front of the room, there were several chalkboards. To the side of everything, there stood a large desk and podium.
Ryan's confusion only deepened as he looked around the classroom, trying to make sense of his surroundings. How had he ended up here? Was he dreaming? He couldn't remember ever being in a classroom like this before. He looked down at the table and noticed a notebook and quill in front of him. As he reached for the feather sticking out of an ink well, a piece of paper caught his eye. It was a syllabus for a course called 'Introduction to Core Management.'
Now, in this clip, you can see there are only two speaking voices. One in Red (the teacher) and one in blue (Ryan). If you use TTS for the majority of the file, then have voice actors to record the speaking parts, you can then use Audacity to splice the clips together. You could have the "Though Bubble" part be the voice actor speaking normally, then had reverb to it to indicate that he is thinking, instead of his normal clear speaking voice.
This is basically a hybrid of the two, so that you have the TTS handling the bulk of the work, with you showing the additional effort of actually editing in real human voices for the speaking parts. The problem will be finding a female willing to record for you.
I'm sorry, but there is only so much you can do with a voice changer when it comes to female speaking parts. However, you do NOT need multiple voice actors. Truth told, one of each gender should be enough, with my experience. Although you can wing it.
Ooo... here's an old one.
Yeah. Not bad for recording without a proper microphone.
This channel was back when I was collecting stuff for WTNV
Ahh... that brings back memories. Gallowtree. Those guys were great. I wonder what those lunatics are up to.
Anyrate, My point is, you should develop a library of No Copyright Sounds. I could send you a list. The reason for using background music is to help coverup audio artifacts.
EDIT: Also, Additional Idea.
Since your plan is the scrolling Text along with TTS, if you are willing to pop for an account with an AI Art generator, might I recommend that you pick a proper description of the chapter, or key points of the chapter in question, then having the AI generate a pick based on it. Even if the pictures are strange or surreal, it'll keep people engaged if the picture changes every few minutes or so.
For example, this channel and how they handle Mister Blue Sky. I don't think you'd need to have the picture change with every paragraph, but even putting forth a minimal effort of a new pick for each chapter would set you apart from the many other channels trying the same thing as you.
