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Episode 73 – Revolutionizing Multi-Voice AI Narration with Phil Marshall and Stacy Smith Rogers from Spoken

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This week, we’re exploring the rapidly evolving world of AI-generated audiobooks. Hosts Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite sat down with the team from Spoken to discuss how they are revolutionizing the way indie authors bring their stories to the ears of readers. With new updates to their platform and a focus on “human-centric” AI, Spoken is making high-quality, multi-voice narration accessible to everyone.

Meet Phil Marshall and Stacy Smith Rogers of Spoken

Phil Marshall is the CEO and founder of Spoken. An inventor with a background in audio, Phil is passionate about “narrative cohesion”—ensuring that AI-generated stories sound like a unified performance rather than a series of disjointed clips. He is also a sci-fi author who recently used his own platform to narrate his debut novel with over 100 distinct character voices.

Stacy Smith Rogers leads Author Relations at Spoken. As a narrative non-fiction and memoir writer, Stacy brings the “author’s chair” perspective to the team. She ensures the platform remains intuitive for writers and recently spearheaded a collaborative contest with Author Nation to celebrate the human stories behind digital narration.

The “Your Story” Contest: Putting Humans Behind the AI

A major highlight of the conversation was the “Your Story” contest, a collaboration between Spoken and Author Nation. The contest invited authors to submit stories under 10,000 words narrated via Spoken.

What made this contest unique wasn’t just the audio quality, but the requirement for authors to share why they were the only ones who could tell that specific story. Phil and Stacy emphasized that while AI handles the narration, the soul of the project remains human.

  • The Prize: The grand prize winner receives a full cinematic book trailer created by Spoken’s in-house video team.
  • The Goal: To showcase that digital narration is a tool for human expression, not a replacement for it.

Multi-Voice Narration and the MV2 Revolution

Phil discussed the upcoming MV2 (Multi-Voice Version 2) release, which aims to be the biggest transformation in multi-voice narration history.

  • Narrative Cohesion: Spoken uses patented technology to ensure that when multiple voices are used (multicast or duet narration), the flow remains seamless.
  • Character Casting: The platform can analyze a manuscript and automatically suggest “voice sketches” for characters based on their tone, age, and accent.
  • Accessibility: While a traditional full-cast audiobook can cost tens of thousands of dollars, Spoken allows authors to achieve a similar effect for a fraction of the cost.

Voice Cloning for Non-Fiction and Memoirs

For authors who want their books to sound like them, Spoken offers sophisticated voice cloning. Stacy highlighted how this is particularly impactful for non-fiction and memoir writers.

  • Personal Intros: Authors can record a personal greeting in their real voice to build rapport with the listener before the AI-cloned narration begins.
  • Monetization: Authors can even choose to list their cloned voices in the Spoken library, allowing them to earn a revenue stream when other authors use their “voice” for narration.

The “Pay When Perfect” Workflow

One of the most author-friendly aspects of Spoken is their pricing and production model. Steph noted that many authors fear “wasting credits” on AI tools that don’t get the delivery right the first time. Spoken solves this with a “Free to use, pay when perfect” philosophy.

  1. Upload: Authors upload a manuscript (Word, ePub, or PDF).
  2. Fabulate: The AI analyzes the text, creates summaries, and identifies characters.
  3. Lexicon: Authors can set specific phonetic pronunciations for made-up names or technical terms.
  4. Make Spoken: The audio is generated. Authors can regenerate passages as many times as needed at no extra cost.
  5. Publish: You only pay once you are satisfied and ready to distribute.

Pricing: Subscribers pay $10 per 5,000 finished words, while non-subscribers pay $20 per 5,000 finished words.

The Certified Spoken Producer Program

Recognizing that not every author has the “ear” for audio production or the time to manage the studio, Spoken has launched a Certified Producer Program.

  • New Revenue Streams: This program trains virtual assistants, voice actors, and audio enthusiasts to become experts in the Spoken studio.
  • Support for Authors: Authors with large backlists can hire these certified producers to handle the entire technical process, ensuring a high-quality result without the learning curve.

Key Takeaways from This Episode

  1. Audio is the fastest-growing modality: Younger demographics are increasingly preferring audio over text; AI makes meeting this demand affordable.
  2. Don’t fear the “Button”: AI narration is a collaborative process. It requires the author’s “ear” and direction to ensure the inflections match the story’s intent.
  3. Humanity Matters: Use features like personal voice-recorded intros to maintain a human connection with your audience.
  4. Leverage your backlist: With the “pay when perfect” model, it is easier than ever to breathe new life into older titles.
  5. Multi-voice is the new standard: In genres like Romance (duet) and Speculative Fiction (multicast), readers are beginning to expect more than a single narrator.

Resources Mentioned

Here are the links and tools discussed in this episode:

Transcript

[00:00:00]

Speaker: Welcome to Brave New Bookshelf, a podcast that explores the fascinating intersection of AI and authorship. Join hosts Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite as they dive into thought provoking discussions, debunk myths, and highlight the transformative role of AI in the publishing industry.

Steph Pajonas: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Brave New Bookshelf. I’m one of your co-hosts, CTO of Future Fiction Academy and Future Fiction Press. I’m Steph Pajonas and I am here to welcome you to all of the great stuff that’s happening in AI lately. Man, this year has really started off on a bang.

There are new models out all the time, new stuff is happening. Even just like this past week I was shifting more of my work over to Opus 4.6 instead of just, using whichever model came around. And, that’s been a lot of fun for me, a lot of work to do, but I get it all done with the help of AI and then go off to do a little art whenever I get a chance to, which is something I wrote about on my blog today.

It’s been a lot of fun. And, you guys all know me [00:01:00] from the Future Fiction Academy and Future Fiction Press, where we teach authors how to use AI in any part of their process, and we’re publishing AI forward books in the press. So AI obviously comes into a lot of the daily work that I do as well for both of those entities.

And we are really cooking on both of those as well, getting ready for our, is it three year anniversary? I think it is. The three year anniversary coming up in May for Future Fiction Academy, and we’re launching more books on the press in April. So very exciting. I’m here with my lovely co-host, as always, Danica Favorite.

How are you doing today?

Danica Favorite: I am doing great. Yeah, it’s so funny. I had thought of this really cool thing that I was gonna talk about today, and guess what I forgot. Which is why I really sometimes love my AI pals, because I do often, when I have little sparks of inspiration, I will turn on the voice recorder on my phone and dictate it.

And I didn’t do that. And so, you know, the lies we told ourselves that were true back then are still [00:02:00] true with AI. If you don’t write it down or record it, somehow you will forget. So, um. Yes, I, I did forget. But yeah, there’s a lot of other cool things going on.

We’ll eventually find that thing we were gonna talk about, but I too have been playing into the creativity. And I was thinking you and I should just do a segment on that sometime, because even though we’re always encouraging people to use the AI tools and how to use the AI tools, it’s really important to remember that the whole purpose of using AI tools is to give us that freedom and that space to do the things we love, to be more human. It’s not ever meant to replace us or anything like that. It’s just really how can we make this process easier? And it was so funny because I was in a meeting with my boss today and he said, oh, I was thinking, what do you think if I tried to vibe code an app to do this X, Y, Z part of our workflow, do you think that we could do that? And I was like, [00:03:00] actually I know three friends who are developing something similar. Since obviously we have proprietary stuff, you could easily do that. And he’s like, oh, okay. And so he’s off to go do that. And I love that because it’s just that excitement and that creativity. Because the thing that he wants to do is literally a slog for all of us. And I’m like, wow, if we could solve that pain point, then these other things we really get joy out of, we can do. And that’s the beauty of AI and that’s the beauty of what we do.

And for those of you who don’t know, I work for Publish Drive. I’m the community manager there, and we help authors at every stage of their journey, from getting their books formatted their metadata, their book descriptions, to AI covers, and then distributing their books to the largest worldwide audience possible.

Then once your book starts selling, we can do some book promotions for you, as well as when you have those royalties coming in, split those royalties. So yes, fantastic stuff because between [00:04:00] published Drive and Future Fiction Academy, we can really help authors no matter where they’re at. We can really help you find solutions to those pressing problems in your business.

And I’m really excited for today’s guests, because one of the pressing problems in the author world is audio books. I think a lot of audio is out there and authors are getting really excited about audio, but it’s still one of those things that they haven’t found that sweet spot. And being able to produce a good quality audio book at an affordable price is something that’s been a challenge.

And it was interesting for those of you who caught the report that Publish Drive put out for 2025 and what our sales data was. The audio books were the slowest growing market, which I thought was really interesting, because I expected it to explode and it hasn’t, but I’m convinced we’re almost there.

I’m convinced we’re just on the precipice of that, because getting audio [00:05:00] books out there are so easy and, or I should say easier. And the reason I say that is because we have today as our guest Spoken, and Phil has been on before. He is the CEO of Spoken and at the time they were just launching and rolling out a bunch of cool stuff and now they are in full production, doing such cool things. And so I thought it’s really time to have them back, hear more about the opportunities for authors with audio books and with him is the lovely Stacy Smith Rogers, who also works with Spoken. And she just ran an amazing contest for audio books that we’re gonna have her tell us about as well.

Without further ado Phil and Stacy, why don’t you say hello and tell us about yourselves.

Phil Marshall: Sure. Thanks Danika. Thanks for having us. We’re glad to circle back at a time when we’re a lot more stable and, uh, you know, um, we’ve, we’ve had a lot of exciting moments [00:06:00] between the last time we spoke and now. We not only launched a year ago, actually more than a year ago our product. But then, just before Author Nation, made some big changes in how we charge for customers to make it super easy. We say free to use, pay when perfect. And then only just last week did we launch our new UI, which just makes it that much more straightforward and easy to manage all of the passages and all the chapters that you have.

Coming up we are going to be launching what will be the biggest transformation in multi voice narration in history. Look for that. We’re very excited about what that will bring. But yeah, a lot of progress. And with regard to audio, it is absolutely growing at the fastest pace of any modality in consuming stories.

And only now are we starting to see that the AI narration, especially multi voice narration, is beginning to fuel [00:07:00] the indie author. That’s the part that you’re looking at, that you haven’t quite seen yet. And it’s definitely coming, because audio is becoming the preferred modality for consuming stories, especially among the younger demographics.

So we’re gonna be happy to be a big part of that.

Steph Pajonas: I love, I wanna just step in here and say that I love audio, because it gives me the opportunity to listen to stories, to be immersed in stories while doing other things like going out for a walk or doing some art. Or even cleaning the house or whatnot.

So I am a huge fan of audio books, and I love the fact that now we’re getting into a huge market of more stories being available and more of this, and that is really the super exciting part.

Stacy Smith Rogers: I love that you said that, Steph. ’cause I’m a chronic multitasker myself, and the only way I get chores done is if I have audio in my ears.

And so when we have the ability to empower more authors to bring their [00:08:00] stories to life, through Spoken, we can hear more of those great stories, while we’re doing tours all the time. So my role at Spoken, I lead author relations. I am thrilled to be on this team. I am constantly learning from Phil and all of the guys that are behind the scenes making the magic work.

What’s unique about Spoken is that we’re in constant evolution. The next, once we release one update, we’re working on the next. And we’re doing so with what the needs are, seeing it through the lens of an author’s viewpoint. One of our advisors calls it the author’s chair. We’re sitting in the author’s chair.

We’re seeing how they operate, how they, what their needs are, how to make the studio experience more seamless, and what they need to help bring more revenue to their business. And it’s really exciting time and I’m thrilled to be here with you guys to talk all about it.

Danica Favorite: Yeah, we are so thrilled to have you.

Like I said, like it’s been too [00:09:00] long, because you guys have done so many changes, and Spoken just gets better and better. We thought it was great when we first had Phil on, and now it just keeps improving. And so I’d really love to ask you about this contest you guys were having for the audio books because I found it just absolutely fascinating, and I want more people to know about it because hopefully you guys are gonna do it again. It was just so neat to see that whole process.

Stacy Smith Rogers: Yeah. This was, actually Phil leaned in a lot on the nuances about this contest and the idea for it. So I’m gonna let him tell you a little bit about the story, the personal story aspect. But it is a collaborative contest between us and Author Nation.

We were thrilled to partner with them. It’s celebrating great works, that happen to be narrated through Spoken, through digital narration. Most of the works that were featured or multicast. So there was a very wonderful immersive quality to [00:10:00] them. A lot of our authors took careful time to to cast just the right voices to tell their stories.

And Phil why don’t you share a little bit about the stories behind the stories and what makes that so special? It was a really important part of this contest.

Phil Marshall: Yeah, sure. At Spoken we’ve always prided ourselves on the people that are behind this. And in fact, that’s why Stacy works with us because we we screwed up royally.

She brought it to our attention professionally, and she wanted to make it better. And I’m like, can you just join us? And so she was grateful to see that there are real people behind the AI, because we get criticized so much for, for being inhuman. In fact we’re looking to bring a human story to the world, and so we wanted to highlight that in this contest.

And so it’s called Your Story. It’s under 10,000 words. Can be a standalone story or the first chapter of a book or whatever the author chose to submit, [00:11:00] and then they needed to submit why it was that only they could have brought this story to the world. Why was it that their unique background resulted in this, in this story?

And that has been a really attractive angle, because the people behind the story, you always want to, to hear, you know about that. And this, this brings that to life. It might be in their voice. They might be literally have, have recorded that, or we will have narrated their story if they send it in textually.

And and I should, I don’t know when this particular podcast is going to air, but the contest is not over. The contest is just kicking off the voting period. And depending on when this airs, um, you know, the, your, your listeners may be able to participate in voting for their favorite of the finalists.

We have an esteemed group of judges that chose finalists and it, they looked at the story itself, the performance of that story, using the audio, most as Stacy said, or multi voice, [00:12:00] but then also their personal story. What was it about their personal story that made it even more compelling? And those three dimensions will be used by readers for voting, and anybody may vote when that opens up.

So yeah we’re proud of that. We plan to do a lot more of those. It was a great partnership with Author Nation and Reader Nation as well.

Stacy Smith Rogers: And we might also add that, um, Danica, we’re thankful for you to be one of our eight expert judges to be part of that. And so thank you for the time that you’ve spent.

You took some careful time to listen to the works and to score those appropriately. Pleased to say that one of yours that you scored moved on to the finalist. And while you can vote through April 14th, we are actually gonna showcase these works on our YouTube channel for quite a while.

So you can still as a listener come in and, and listen to those on. On Spoken’s YouTube channel. The unique part about that, that Phil was talking about the stories behind the story, the personal commentary, why the authors are the only ones who [00:13:00] could write these books, I felt like that was something very unique that hasn’t really been celebrated before.

And the authors really embraced that. And there’s some fantastic personal stories behind it. And one of the important things that, that we always say, there are humans behind all this technology. There are humans behind all these words. And when you’re building a brand and a platform, sometimes you forget, it’s more than just the story you tell, but you know why it was that you were the only one who could tell it. It’s a pretty fun adventure. We are celebrating these works with motion book teasers. So you can hop on and see like a little short 30 second teaser of the works before you listen to the full work.

It’s usually, most of them are under an hour and the grand prize winner will get a full cinematic book trailer that’s created by our in-house video team. Because it’s Spoken, we’re pretty multi-talented. We got some pretty, pretty great people on our [00:14:00] team, so who can do lots of creative things.

Danica Favorite: Yeah, I think that’s great.

And I love that personal story aspect, because you’re right, we don’t hear that, unless you’re looking for an author. You go to their webpage and they just happen to say something about, this is why I wrote the story. It is really fascinating to see what is going behind? What makes an author write stories?

Like Steph for example, writes all these great stories that are Japanese themed, because she’s got this deep love and appreciation for Japan and travels there. And I love that about her books, and I love getting to see that love in her stories. So I really think that’s a very unique thing that you guys are adding to this.

Stacy Smith Rogers: Mm-hmm.

Danica Favorite: And. I think that’s important, so I’m really glad you’re doing that, and that’s why I was hoping you would talk some about that. So thank you for that.

Stacy Smith Rogers: Yeah, yeah.

Danica Favorite: What I’d love to hear is, I know Phil has spoken about the [00:15:00] multi voice, and I know a lot of those books in the contest were multi voice, and I would just love to hear more about the multi voice that you’re all doing, and what that looks like, because it was really interesting. I don’t wanna give any spoilers, but there were some really good differences in the voices of the stories that I heard, why don’t you two talk some more about that?

Phil Marshall: Sure. Yeah. Happy to uh, one of the, one of the premises that we started Spoken with was that not only would single narrator become more accessible and affordable, but equivalently multi voice would as well, whether it’s duet narration where you have a particular male voice delivering all the male characters and female delivering all the female, or just going to that next logical step and just having, um, the right voice delivering each of your characters.

We knew that was now gonna become possible when it was truly impossible before, like completely [00:16:00] inaccessible before. I think that the, I don’t know what the new Harry Potter full cast audio book might have cost. I have no idea. I shudder to think what that might have cost ’cause it was a hundred actors.

And, and yet, my book, taming the Parallel Skies is over 100 speaking characters. Um, each character, voice designed for that character the way I wrote that character. And, and so couple hundred bucks for a full novel versus what? Couple hundred thousand? I mean, God only knows what.

Steph Pajonas: Probably more, probably a lot more than that.

Phil Marshall: Right? Probably more. And and the thing is that you don’t just want it to be cheaper though, right? That’s the thing. It can’t just be cheaper. Um, it has to also work. It has to be compelling. It has to deliver, and we are at the forefront of any company, building out the scaffolding, the framework to make [00:17:00] sure that arc of delivery, that narrative cohesion, um, is achieved. And I’m an inventor and so we have patents pending behind all of this. And because of my work, and I knew I am an audio only reader and I love multi voice, I love multicast works. I was personally compelled to design that solution, and we’ve been nibbling at it, nibbling at it for, for now, you know, a couple of years, and we’re about ready to just put it on its head. And so our MV2 release is gonna be really remarkable in how we transform the achievement of that narrative cohesion in particular. And, and so, because right now it’s still tough for the author to, depending on their choices um, we use ElevenLabs and Hume and uh, you know, I really like Hume for its, its natural delivery.

It’s a little bit tougher to wrestle to the ground and getting the inflections just right. And so the way we’re gonna be transforming things is gonna really help all of [00:18:00] that just get so much easier and so much better. And so we’re just gonna continue to be the leader on that. Like we just are, like I, we do not lose on product.

So authors will always be able to rely on us delivering the best most affordable, most reliable way of achieving that. And, um, and so, uh, yeah it’s pretty exciting. There’s no limitation whether you’re choosing from our voice actor library of voices, you know, they get paid for every use, whether you’re using your own voice uploaded and creating a personal voice clone. I use mine for a villain, just because I like that. And or you create a custom voice around, around the way you wrote each of your characters. However works for you, we’ll deliver. So yeah, it’s it’s pretty exciting. And when you think about it and you look out there and you you’re on Reddit, you’re on different sites that talk about this stuff. Multi voice is desired. We do our own research that shows that that doing duet for [00:19:00] romance is highly desired, almost demanded now. Multi voice is desired for the multi character works, especially in speculative fiction.

And so we, we feel like we’re skating into the right room, I guess, to mix my metaphors.

Danica Favorite: Tell us about the voice cloning. I am so fascinated by this and I know a lot of people want things read in their own voice, but obviously don’t wanna sit there and try to narrate an entire book.

So tell us more about the, voice cloning, because I think that’s fascinating.

Phil Marshall: Yeah. Absolutely. Stacy’s all over that

Stacy Smith Rogers: I’m all over that because I am a nonfiction, narrative nonfiction and memoir writer, so to have something read in, in your own voice or close to your own voice is really important.

Also, we have a lot of extra bells and whistles, and so for our introductions, we. I have an opportunity for you to actually rerecord something like personally in your own personal voice like, introducing the piece. And I love doing that. I love just speaking and saying, hi, this is Stacy. I’ve used [00:20:00] Spoken to digitally narrate this work. I’ve cast the voices of real voice actors who get paid. I’ve also cloned my own voice, and I hope you enjoy it. So I love the fact that we have so much creativity. And the idea of using your own cloned voice for a lot of non-fiction authors is important, but also for a lot of our fiction authors that really want, if they want to actually put their voice out there and make money on it, they can do that through ElevenLabs. And we can put their voice on our studio. We can help them make another revenue stream. Or if you wanna just clone it and have it personal for you, your own voice, no one else can use it. You can just have it in your own voice library. So I actually love it and so do our authors.

Steph Pajonas: I love the voice cloning. I’ve seen a lot of people use it, and it just, it sounds so great. I think the ElevenLabs cloning has just gotten really good over the last year or so. It’s very impressive how well it goes. And. And a lot of people, I’m like, I wouldn’t even know [00:21:00] that wasn’t your real voice.

Right. It’s, uh, the clone is getting super perfect over time, so I’m really pleased with it. You know, uh, last year I came on and I did a few of my own short stories on Spoken.

Stacy Smith Rogers: Mm-hmm.

Steph Pajonas: And I really enjoyed the whole process. It was before you guys went to your full, full production, public release, and now you have this really cool, I wanna call it a feature, where you pay when it’s perfect. And I think I’d love for you guys to talk a little bit more about that. Because I find that a lot of authors don’t wanna go get involved in like the different platforms, systems, where they have to like use a lot of credits and the, they don’t get it right every single time and it just eats up their credits and then they feel like they’ve lost money on the whole thing.

And I love that you have come up with a different way of dealing with that. So Please, I would love to hear about that.

Phil Marshall: Yeah. Take it away, Stacy.

Stacy Smith Rogers: Phil likes to say, it’s free to use and you pay when perfect. So we again, are putting [00:22:00] ourselves in the reader’s chair and who wants to pay for their work without being able to hear it or proof it first or know if it’s the right voice.

It’s a big gamble. So in, in November, we made that change, and it was a bold one, because we think philosophically that’s where we want to support authors. We wanna be in their chair and we want them to be able to feel like they are pleased with the voices they chose. They’ve had chance, a chance to proof it.

And then when they feel like it’s to a point where it’s perfect, then that’s when they pay. And it’s been embraced widely by a lot of our authors and very appreciative of the opportunities to experiment. And what I’ve discovered in meeting with authors is that they have more time to be in studio.

So they’re gonna get a little bit better and better at doing this. So the next time they get in there, it’s gonna be more seamless. They’re gonna know the voices, they’re gonna know how to adjust the padding, adjust the volumes, adjust the speed if they need to. [00:23:00] And so it just makes the process so much easier for them.

So we can get them, their works out to the world a little faster.

Phil Marshall: That’s well said. I, one thing that comes to mind as I’m hearing Stacy describe it is, for us, I remember, I think it was Elizabeth that said to me gosh, that’s great for authors. It sounds really bad for you, actually.

And I’m like that’s true. We’re eating, we’re eating the costs on the re-gens, on the regenerated narration and passages. And that’s true, but we have confidence. We have confidence that the amount of time it currently takes, and the number of regenerations it currently takes to get your work perfect, especially with our upcoming MV2 release gets shorter and smaller, and so it comes off the shelf a lot closer to what you want.

And a lot more of the passages come off the shelf exactly as you want. And so what we’re banking on, like literally, is is that these passages are gonna get easier and easier. Now, that [00:24:00] doesn’t mean though, that authors, um, even if it’s easy, even if, if it’s quick necessarily have the ear for audio, I mean I do, um, you know, and my team does.

But a lot of authors, they just don’t. Sometimes we hear the works come out in multi voice, and it’s the grimace face, right? It’s like, neaah like, like did they proof this? Did they listen to it? We actually moved to a model where we require you to proof each of your chapters, to listen through each of the chapters.

Make, Make it Spoken. If the button says, Make Spoken and you need to do that individually, ’cause we want you to proof it. Now when we move to MV2, there’s gonna be one Make Spoken button again for your whole project. And we’re gonna go ahead and narrate every one of the chapters. You are gonna be confident enough that it’s gonna come out um, you know, well enough that we’re just gonna go ahead and sweep through the entire work in every chapter.

And and so that’s gonna be a really exciting change. But authors still might not have the right ear, even if it’s easy, there’s still gonna be some things that need to be corrected. And so we’ve introduced something [00:25:00] to address that for authors. And Stacy, maybe you could speak a little bit about our…

Stacy Smith Rogers: Yeah.

Phil Marshall: Producer Program.

Stacy Smith Rogers: Absolutely. Because we all know the independent authors, they do everything. And they may not have the time to, or the desire to, get in and learn a new platform. And they may not have the ear for audio. They may just have the vision and the brain for writing good copy. We’ve introduced the Certified Spoken Producer Program.

And that has really taken off, because we’ve discovered there’s a lot of creators out there who have an ear for audio, who have a connection to authors, who really love the opportunity to build a new revenue stream for themselves. We’re all looking for something to diversify. It’s a smart move in any industry to have a few different revenue streams.

And so we’ve opened up a series of trainings for anyone interested in learning how to use the studio, and as Phil has said, it’s going to get easier and easier. He always likes to say, this is the hardest it’s ever gonna be. It’s always [00:26:00] gonna get easier and easier. We are taking this pretty seriously.

We are we are inviting cohorts of trainees, Spoken Producers in training to come and take some training with us, and to dive into studio to really get familiar with it, and they submit a work. And then we go through the certification program and deem them official Certified Spoken Producers.

And those folks are discovering that they are finding opportunities to help other authors bring their words to life, especially those authors with back lists, those authors who don’t have the time to do this. And we are opening up a marketplace where we can publicize the fact that they’re there to help authors.

So when you go hop into studio, now, even today, you can see on the create page on our studio, do you need help? There’s a Spoken Producer out there who may be able to help you. So this is perfect for virtual assistants, [00:27:00] author assistants, people who have a little bit of experience in audio, but you don’t have to.

And what we’re also discovering, which I love so much, is that voice actors are coming to this.

Danica Favorite: I think that’s exciting. Yeah. So exciting because I think the voice actors, everyone keeps worrying, oh, what’s gonna happen to the voice actors? And there’s still opportunity for them, and I love that you’re creating that opportunity and giving them those opportunities. That’s great.

Stacy Smith Rogers: It’s fantastic. Well, one of the wonderful parts of our studio is speak it function. And so an author, a creator, can speak how they, they want the passage to sound. So there’s that creative part of this. And I know you guys are huge proponents of AI isn’t just push the button, it is as creative as you want it to be. What I’ve discovered is that the creative potential in Spoken is endless. And what some of these producers are learning is that they’re pretty good at what they do, and the voice actors are really good at that speaking function. They can [00:28:00] get that to sound like they want it to.

So that, that’s probably one of the most exciting things that we have opened up and has really really gone crazy with excitement and energy surrounding it. So we’re building that program, and if any of your listeners here would like to inquire about that, they can reach out to us at info@Spoken.Press or they could find us, they could do a quick Google and find us anywhere.

But we would love to open the door for more creatives to have another revenue stream, and to build more works in Spoken to be able to share it with the world. And help those authors, especially the ones with the backlist that really just need to revive their backlist so they too can make money off these words that maybe have been sitting, sitting around and not being refreshed to the world in a new way, especially if it’s multi voice. Um, you know, they can do it in different ways, right? You can deliver a work in a variety of formats. [00:29:00] We know that the print version, the, the epub and the audio. You could do single narrator, you could do multi voice, you can do so many different things, or you can give your readers something extra.

I can talk all day long about the new, the things, the creative things you can do in Studio, but that’s something I’m really passionate about.

Steph Pajonas: I love the idea of having this producer element to it, because there are so many parts of the process that authors have to do, right? We have to write the books, we have to edit the books, we have to produce the books, then then it goes on to audio or even translations. And this is something that I saw in the translations market, before I saw you guys doing your thing, was that it, there, there’s like an AI translation that happens and then you can send it off to a proofreading service that does the same sort of thing, makes sure that everything is correct.

They have the knowledge, they have the skills, this is what they were doing before AI came along, and now their job is not lost. It has just shifted. They’re doing the same stuff. They’re putting [00:30:00] their skills to use. It’s just doing it in a different, different way. I think it’s so important to, to use the people that we have on hand. They have these skills and we can put them to use doing the really cool parts of this, like listening and mastering and, and figuring out how to say things in ways that are gonna really, really make your work shine.

Great idea. I think that the producer thing is perfect. And it’s giving more to, more back to the community too, which I love as well.

Stacy Smith Rogers: Absolutely.

Danica Favorite: Yeah. And I like it to, um, because a friend of mine, her daughter, I don’t know if she’s going through it or just finished it, but she actually is doing the Spoken Producer Program.

And that was one of the things that my friend said to me is, my, my kid doesn’t know what she’s gonna do with her life, and I saw this, and so she’s doing the Spoken thing. And suddenly this is providing [00:31:00] opportunity for someone who didn’t know what they were gonna do, and now there’s this new opportunity and I really love that because again, I think so much of the talk is, oh no, I’m scared, I’m losing opportunities. And yet we also have to look at where opportunity is being created. And so it’s so beautiful. And I’m very excited, and I’m excited to see where this all goes and how creators can be celebrated.

I also wanted to ask, because we do ask about like process, which is I think really important in terms of letting people know just how easy it is to get an audio book done through Spoken. Could the two of you walk us through what that process of getting your book turned into an audio book by Spoken would be, although now I’m like, oh, but wait, you’re moving into V2, so we may have to pivot a little bit here. Because I,

Phil Marshall: It’s actually not gonna look, it’s not gonna look any different actually. It’s,

Danica Favorite: oh. Fantastic.

Phil Marshall: Yep. Yep. The workflow’s gonna be [00:32:00] exactly the same. I’ll be happy to share it with you.

When you sign on to Spoken, which is free, you can hit create, which goes into our studio. Studio is where you would create your works.

You upload your manuscript. You can upload it as an epub file, as a Word doc. We have screenwriters that create the audio dramas from their screenplays. And so they oftentimes use PDFs. And. And so upload your manuscript. You can even manually put in up to, I think, 20,000 words just in the entry box if you have a short story.

And then and then you can fabulate uh, and that runs your work through an in-depth analysis. And it will create chapter summaries that roll up into an uber summary. It will look for comparable works. It will create channel tags across your work and roll those up into an uber list of tags.

But most importantly it analyzes what kind of story it is as well. And so it, it will suggest different types of narration that may be, may [00:33:00] be of interest. And so most, most importantly, that’s single or multi voice and multi voice includes duet. If you just want them to, to alternate in male and female or dual.

But if you want multi voice then you can select that upfront and then you can say, would you like us to generate a custom voice for each of your characters automatically. And if so, we can use ElevenLabs. We can use Hume for that. And so what that involves is not just being able to separate a work if it’s multi voice into each of the passages that’s spoken by each of your characters, which is its own, its own thing that we do.

But we analyze every character that you wrote. And what kind of tone, what kind of inflection, what kind of accent. And it can be really any of the most common languages also so it doesn’t have to be English. But, but, but we, we characterize that character, we describe that character, and then we create a prompt for that character’s voice, and we’ll generate that alternatively.

We can use that same prompt, that same characteristics [00:34:00] to surface, which of the voice actors in the voice actor library are a best match for that character. And so you can see that right away. Okay. So once you’ve, once you’ve chosen your voices then, then we also have a lexicon. And so we’ll identify all those words, which may have the uncertain pronunciation, words or phrases.

And then you just put in the phonetic replacement like sounds like, you know, and, um, and then you can play a preview of it, see if we’ve got it right. And then once the voices, and once the lexicon are done, you can make spoken. And so we’ll then use that to narrate your work and then you’ll be able to proof it, be able to listen to it, make sure it’s right, and then upload your cover art and be able to make sure that your introduction is just right.

As Stacy said earlier, you can add your own personal intro if you wanna record a bit that goes into the opening or front matter as part of your work. And then once that’s all ready to go, then you publish it. And you don’t pay until it’s perfect. You don’t pay until you publish. And so it’s, for subscribers, it’s $10 per every [00:35:00] 5,000 finished words.

So you don’t get nickel and dimed for any of the process. You only pay for it when it’s when it’s to your liking. And so $10 per 5,000 words for per subscribers, $20 per 5,000 words for non-subscribers. And we, we use Stripe, the normal checkout that, that you would recognize for just about anything we use.

And that’s it. And then then you can distribute. We’re gonna be offering new avenues of distribution coming up. But right now you’ve got Spotify for Authors. You’ve got  Voices by INaudio. We do digitally sign our Spoken works for Voices by INaudio. So we have a relationship with them in that distribution um, channel all of their endpoints, you know, Cobo and all the others that they serve.

And so we have a relationship with them. And so the LPF files go up and from Spoken to  Voices by INaudio for distribution and and so yeah, that’s how it works. We’ll be adding some more exciting things here in the next 30 days on distribution, like I said, but stay tuned for that. So that’s generally how it works from manuscript to finished [00:36:00] work in a matter of however much time it takes you. And so with MV2, it’ll be a lot shorter.

Stacy Smith Rogers: And if, if you have a series that you’re working on, those custom voices you generated will be saved, that only you can use by the way. And when you go back, you can recast those voices. So you can continue on.

So the, so maybe the more the labor and voice sketching on the front end, which is not much. It can be even simpler when you go back in with your second A lot of really incredible author friendly extras. I guess you’d say that. And we’re continuing, as Bill said that, to make that easier and easier.

Steph Pajonas: Talk to me a little bit about the subscribe, right? You had, you said you have a subscription, right? For authors to what, what are the benefits of that?

Phil Marshall: It’s 50% off the price for, for publishing work for yeah, for publishing your work. So that’s the first thing. That’s the biggest thing.

But we are gonna be adding some other benefits as well. And we want to give our subscribers access to content [00:37:00] on optimizing their works and how to distribute their works that would not be accessible to non-subscribers as well. And and so yeah, there’ll be some things that we announce in that regard as well.

Stacy Smith Rogers: One of the things we do is build community because we just can’t help ourselves. You guys know us. We like people, right? We like tools, we like AI, but we like people too. So, you know, we, we foreshadow maybe a really strong community of subscribers who will find like-minded authors and share best practices and tips.

We’ll probably end up doing round tables, which we have already done with some other select groups of authors, called our ambassadors. And we’ve discovered that it can be lonely to be a writer and an author. And even though we’ve got all these things that keep us busy, it’s nice to connect with others who are in the thick of it.

And we’re pretty fortunate, because all of us on the team actually are authors too. And with Phil launching his debut sci-fi [00:38:00] novel most recently, Taming the Perilous Skies, and narrating it with over a hundred voices and what, six accents or so, he’s in the thick of it, really in the thick of it. To be able to learn specifically like the ins and outs, um, some of the tips and tricks from the co-founder of, of the company that’s kind of, you know, we’re kind of thinking maybe just building that community, equipping everyone with everything we know that will help them use our tool to the best of their ability. So that’s, that’s on the horizon for the subscribers. So more to come on that.

Danica Favorite: I think this is all fantastic. I just love what Spoken is doing, and all the ways that Spoken is helping authors and really understanding what the authors need in terms of audio books. So super, super cool. Before we let you guys go, is there anything else that you wanna share about Spoken that we might’ve missed?

Phil Marshall: [00:39:00] Let’s see. Depending on when this airs, might still be able to vote for your story contestants, which will be great. There’s some fantastic stories in there. Keep an eye out towards how we’re gonna be transforming the creation process, and then right after that on great avenues for distribution and for discovery.

So something that we didn’t talk about much, but we’ll hold back a little bit on that and hope for another podcast here with you, maybe to follow up, but but discovery becomes an increasing challenge, the more material is out there and we’re taking that on. Um, head on as well. So maybe next time for that as a little teaser, no pun intended.

Pun intended.

Stacy Smith Rogers: The pun. The pun is always intended.

Steph Pajonas: Excellent. I’m so glad you guys were able to come and hang out with us today to talk about all the cool stuff going on at Spoken Press. Even though I was late showing up, I was very excited to come here and talk to you guys today. I just need to pay more attention to my [00:40:00] calendar reminders. And we are definitely going to be putting all of the links and all of the information into our show notes for this particular episode so people can go find you and learn all about Spoken Press. Um, and, uh, we can tell people to come over to bravenewbookshelf.com. Check out the show notes for this particular episode. Learn more about Spoken and all that they have to offer.

And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. You just hit subscribe up at the top of the page and give us your email address and we will send you those show notes the day after the podcast airs. Danica, what would you like to add to our final words here?

Danica Favorite: Always as a reminder, please go like and subscribe all of Spoken on their social media.

And then of course all the Brave New Bookshelf stuff. For those of you listening to the podcast on your favorite podcast providers, thank you. Also remember we do have a YouTube channel so you can go watch the [00:41:00] video, even though I know most people listen to it. But we would love those viewers, those likes and subscribes, and of course on Facebook as well.

And then finally, make sure you are liking and following Future Fiction Academy, Future Fiction Press and Publish Drive on all of your favorite social channels as well.

Steph Pajonas: All those things. All right. Again, thank you Phil and Stacy for joining us today. We really appreciate it.

Stacy Smith Rogers: Thank you.

Steph Pajonas: And we will see everybody in the next episode.

Okay. Bye everybody. Thank you.

Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on The Brave New Bookshelf. Be sure to like and subscribe to us on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. You can also visit us@bravenewbookshelf.com. Sign up for our newsletter and get all the show notes.

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