AI Podcast Clip of Seen & Unseen (TMC Book 1)

So, if you’re online as much as I am, you’ve probably heard of NotebookLM by now. If not, it’s a Google AI tool that takes whatever content you give it and provides summaries, outlines, and key insights from the material. It can also turn your content into a podcast-style discussion between two people (AI), which is what I decided to do with the first 3 chapters of my manuscript.

Generally, I’m hesitant to put my work into anything like this, because I made that mistake early on with ChatGPT and from then on, my own, original work came back as being AI-generated. I only put a few pages here and there, mostly to see if certain themes or key plot/scene elements were present and hitting at the right times, but (at least as it is now) I don’t think it’s worth doing. Not when it marks that work as AI-generated from that point forward. That said, NotebookLM says it doesn’t use the material to train its model, so I decided to give it a go. And I’m glad I did!

What a strange experience to hear my book being discussed, as if these two podcast hosts really existed and were doing a deep dive into those opening chapters! And even more strange is the fact that they really pulled out the key themes and important elements of these scenes. I genuinely feel like it gave me a better understanding of what the average reader might get from the first 3 chapters, and I’m so grateful that even an AI model could clearly identify not only the external plot elements, but the internal conflicts within each character as well. They even theorized about why the characters might be thinking or feeling the way they are about certain things, and surprisingly, their perceptions and predictions were pretty accurate.

Since I’ve not yet published my own novels, I’ve never heard anyone actually discuss them. Sure, I’ve had conversations with beta readers, editors, and critique partners, but this felt different. This felt like listening to an actual podcast, and getting to experience from the outside what others might take away from my story, without the influence of my presence on their opinions and take-aways.

I’m not sure if this will work, but if you’d like to listen to the 7-8 minute clip, I’m including a link to the “conversation” HERE.

Technology is wild, and as it continues to progress, I can’t even imagine what’s to come. But, this one brought me a bit of entertainment and joy today, and I’m glad I did it! Now, back to actually revising this thing…