Flames of Bedlam – Making a Fantasy Audiobook for YouTube
Posted on August 12, 2026 by Aywren
While I’ve only been making YouTube videos for a little over two months, my ambitions always seem to get the best of me. I noticed that my videos seem to get more traction and comments (I’ll write a post about this later) than a lot of my written content does, sadly. So, that got me to thinking about how I might be able to repurpose some of my fantasy stories in an audio format.
However, oral storytelling is a significantly different skillset when it comes to recording voiceovers for a video than what I have been doing while creating FFXIV videos. I knew that going in, and I emerge from the experience with a newfound respect for actual voice actors!
It took about three hours to record an hour and a half of story – which covers everything from the introduction through all of chapter 1. Chapters in this story are broken down into sub-chapters, so that’s actually a lot more than it sounds.
Once I listened back to the recording, I saw the flaws and pain points in it. So, it took me another six hours of editing to get it into a more listenable state.
While it still remains an amateur attempt at narration - being my first try - I suppose it’s better than having AI narrate it… even if AI would likely sound nicer than my voice! I posted the video to my creative YouTube channel, and the views it’s garnered is nothing to write home about. That channel has never gained much traction, though.
I wasn’t sure how it’d be welcomed, honestly. As much as I like the story and the characters, I never found an audience for it in the written form – which is partly why there’s only one book of this so far. And while I know a few of the Sygnus Stories friends have listened through this recording (thank you!), I don’t know that the time put into this experiment has improved the story’s reach.
I’ve got some things happening starting next week IRL that will be taking up my time, so unless I find a strong demand for future installments of Flames of Bedlam, chances are, it’ll be a one-off attempt. With changes I’ve heard about in terms of YouTube coming down the pipe – I’ll write about that later – I’m feeling a little discouraged with the whole of YouTube only two months in.
Anyhow, it was an interesting project and I learned some things from it. Whether my future with video content will continue or not, it’s hard to say. Either way, here’s the story for those who might be interested!