This week’s news seems to be all about tools that could help authors make more money. We started the week by looking at Eleven Labs’ big move into dealing directly with authors to create AI-generated e-books. Today, we are looking at a couple of other tools that caught my eye over the past week, including TikTok and Twitch, both of which are expanding opportunities for creators to monetize their work.
ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
The theme is expansion of opportunity. That is, as with Eleven Labs, a lot of tools are being made available to more of us than has previously been the case. Whether through AI-powered features or new revenue streams, platforms are increasingly opening their doors to independent creators.
TikTok and Twitch Expand Creator Monetization
First up is TikTok, which has been somewhat absent from the news of late. If you remember, TikTok has a creator marketplace scheme that enables creators to connect directly with fans on the platform and sell to them. This is being wound down and moved over to the much broader TikTok One. And of course, the new creator suite will come with the obligatory AI tools—in this case, ranging from the useful (captioning videos to make them more accessible) to the eye-rolling (generating a script for you if you tell it what you’re selling).
Twitch is also opening up the opportunity for creators to make money by streaming to viewers. Previously, if you wanted to monetize your stream through viewers being able to tip you as you streamed, you had to have a certain reach to start with. This is now available to almost everyone. Of course, it comes with added tools (is anyone offering creators the option to migrate to something with fewer tools? I’d be in!).
As a performance poet and someone who loves doing readings and performances of my work, this feels like a really exciting opportunity to actually make some money from online readings.
Eleven Labs Enters Speech-to-Text
And because they want to make a play to clean sweep the week’s news columns, Eleven Labs has another tool. The company that is famous for its text-to-speech work has entered the speech-to-text market, claiming to recognize more than twenty languages with 95 percent or higher accuracy. So now you can dictate your book into Eleven Labs, which transcribes it and then spits an audiobook in a voice of your choice straight back out at you.
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