I sat down this week with bestselling, award-winning author and voiceover artist Aaron Ryan, and it turned into one of those conversations that wanders in the best possible way. We covered how he became a writer, why he treats his creativity like a business, how he narrates his own audiobooks, and where he thinks AI is pushing the whole voiceover world. We also went deep on Aliens, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Stephen King, so if you are a genre fan, this one is for you.
A storyteller from the very beginning
Aaron grew up in a small town outside North Bend, Washington, and he traces his path back to a second-grade assignment from a teacher named Mrs. Walker. She had the class write a little novella, and the moment he held the finished thing in his hands he knew he had made something. Add an early love of Tolkien, and you get a kid who was basically wired to tell stories. As he put it, every major job he has ever had has come back to storytelling.
Think like a businessman who writes books
One of my favorite takeaways was his advice for anyone who wants to actually make it as an author. He says to look at yourself as a businessman who just happens to write books. The various careers he has had, including roles where he had to hire and fire, taught him the business side that a lot of creatives never learn. Treat the craft like a vehicle, and it can take you somewhere. Treat it only like a hobby, and it stays a hobby.
Pantser, not planner
When it comes to process, Aaron is a total pantser. He flies by the seat of his pants, tells the story, and sees where it goes, as opposed to the planner style with index cards and flow charts. He writes during the nine to five, because after work he is a family man with two sons who need their dad. He is now up to 50 published books and working on number 51, a horror paranormal novel called The Darkness Within that he describes as a modern Jekyll and Hyde meets Misery.
Narrating your own work, and getting burned by AI
As both an author and a SAG-AFTRA voice actor, Aaron loves narrating his own audiobooks, because the author knows how the characters are supposed to sound. He even writes characters with Scottish or British accents on purpose so he gets to voice them later. He shared a frustrating story about casting a narrator for his horror novel through ACX, only to discover the person was actually an AI narrator with a convincing audition. He felt betrayed and had to start the process over.
The AI reckoning
That led us into the bigger conversation. Aaron uses AI as a tool to flesh out ideas, but he draws a hard line at letting it do the creative work, which he calls slop. As a voice actor he can hear the difference between a synthetic and a human voice, and he is worried. We talked through the consent problem, from the Scarlett Johansson situation to deepfaked likenesses of major actors, and the way studios will chase savings at the expense of real artists. He pointed to Sean Astin and the union fighting to protect performers from having their likeness taken without consent, and we agreed there needs to be real legislation around what is still a Wild West.
Detours for the fans
Because this is Drink O’Clock, we went off the rails in the best way. Aliens is his favorite movie of all time, we ranked the franchise, argued about the Star Wars sequel trilogy and the coming reset, geeked out over Palpatine and the anti-hero arc, and touched Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power, and Stephen King. I ended up buying the entire 51-hour Dissonance series on Audible right there on the show.
Where to find Aaron
You can find everything Aaron is doing at authoraaronryan.com, including all his social links and the different series. Authors can also join his Facebook group at authoraaronryangroup.com for tips, discount codes, giveaways, and news. The Dissonance series is on Audible, six books and 51 hours of content.
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