This week I tried to stop hiding behind the AI voice clone and record the next batch of videos myself.
I didn’t get very far.
Here’s what actually happened, and what I’m changing because of it.
Every video on my channel so far has been narrated by an AI clone of my voice.
Not me.
A version of me I set up months ago because it was faster, and because it meant I never had to hear myself.
This week was supposed to be the week that changed.
I had eight scripts ready. The plan was simple: record the lot over two evenings, in my own voice, and finally stop hiding behind a piece of software.
I got through about two minutes of the first one.
It was flat and stilted, like someone reading a statement in court. I’d get halfway through a line, lose the sense of it, and start again. Same thing, over and over.
The annoying part is I know that script. I’ve read it a dozen times.
But reading something out loud so it sounds like a person talking, rather than a person reading, turns out to be a completely different skill.
I gave up after about half an hour and went back to the clone.
A few days later, the real problem became clearer. I wasn’t bad at talking. I was trying to do the wrong job.
Reading a script aloud so it sounds natural is an actual skill, the kind of thing audiobook narrators train for.
I sat down expecting to be able to do it on the first attempt, in one evening, because I’d written the words myself.
That was never going to work.
So what am I doing now?.
The batch still goes out with the clone. All eight videos. It isn’t what I wanted, but the alternative was nothing going out at all.
I’ve spent years treating “I tried it, and it didn’t work” as a reason to stop.
This week it didn’t work.
Instead of becoming the end of something, it turned into information.
Small difference. It might also be the entire difference.