The Publishing Performance Show

Andrew Wallner & Phil Marshall of Spoken - Revolutionizing Audiobooks: How Spoken Combines AI Narration with Author Monetization

• Teddy Smith • Episode 86

Share episode

Andrew Wallner and Phil Marshall are co-founders of Spoken, an innovative platform that combines AI narration technology with a streaming network for audio content. Coming from backgrounds in healthcare technology where they developed conversational AI systems, they sold their company in 2021 before turning their attention to the audiobook market. Phil, as a sci-fi writer and audio-only reader, recognized the need for better tools to create, publish, stream, and monetize audio content, which became the genesis of Spoken.


In this episode:

  • Origins of Spoken from healthcare technology to audiobook innovation
  • How Spoken combines AI narration with streaming capabilities
  • Multi-character and multi-voice narration options
  • Creating custom AI voices designed exclusively for specific characters
  • Using the "Speak It" feature for precise pronunciation and inflection
  • Automatic analysis of characters to suggest appropriate voices
  • The Unified Streaming Network monetization model
  • Free options for authors just getting started
  • How authors retain their rights on the platform
  • DIY audiobook creation in a single sitting
  • Upcoming "Take It With You" feature for exporting audio


Resources mentioned:


Book Recommendations:


Connect with Andrew and Phil:


Connect with Teddy Smith:




Support the show

[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Hi everyone and welcome to the Publishing Performance Show. Today I'm really happy to be joined by Andrew and Phil who are the co-founders of Spoken. So thank you for joining the show, Andrew and Phil, 

[00:00:15] Phil Marshall: it's good to be here. Teddy, nice to see you again. Teddy, 

[00:00:18] Phil Marshall: it was great to meet you both at Author Nation.

[00:00:20] Phil Marshall: How did you find the show? 

[00:00:23] Andrew Wallner: Author Nation was a really special time for us. We came in strong with what we. Thought was a good idea for Spoken and you know, shocked it around, but really invested a lot of energy in learning and getting close to the, to the experience. And we came away with a lot more insight that has really helped us to sort of upend some of our beliefs around how we think spoke should operate.

[00:00:48] Andrew Wallner: And really just get a feel for the, the entrepreneurial spirit that lives across all of these self-publishing experts out there as they sort of manage their domain. So it was a very positive experience for us. 

[00:01:00] Teddy Smith: Yeah, your stand was really busy the whole time, so Yeah. You must have been meeting so many people.

[00:01:05] Teddy Smith: It was amazing. I, I, I got loads out of it. Meeting all the different authors, meeting all the different people. It's, it's the first time I've gone. I'm definitely gonna try and go back this year, I think. Yeah. So why.

[00:01:20] Andrew Wallner: I said we'll see you there. 

[00:01:23] Teddy Smith: So why don't you give us a bit of an overview of exactly what Spoken is? 'cause it's slightly different to everything else that's around the moment. 

[00:01:30] Phil Marshall: Yeah, it is, it is quite a bit different. It, and it's, it's been interesting to watch people get their minds kind of wrapped around what it is that we're bringing to the market.

[00:01:38] Phil Marshall: Actually. They, they say, well, you're like this. And we're like, no, not quite. And you're like this. No, it's, it's kind of both of those things. So, yeah. So a little bit of background which might, might sort of help. Provide some context. Andrew and I and our third co-founder, we actually were in healthcare technology.

[00:01:56] Phil Marshall: We had the top conversational AI system in healthcare that automated conversations between doctors and their patients and called Conversa. And we sold that company in 2021. And and I turned my attention towards finishing my sci-fi novel. And and so as a. As a sci-fi writer I, as a new sci-fi writer, I went to workshops.

[00:02:21] Phil Marshall: I met lots of people. I learned a lot of things, but I'm also an audio only reader. And as an audio only reader, I'm very focused on, on how my writing and how everybody else is writing comes out in audio. And as a, as a technologist, those things combined to to just. Make me a fanatic for how technology can help writers to to not just generate their, the audio of their works using some of the technical tools we have now but to be able to actually.

[00:02:55] Phil Marshall: Publish, stream, socialize, and even monetize that work. And, and so that's really kind of how Spoken began. I tried to narrate a particular story that I have called Kill Your Darlings. And, and I had some workshop colleagues that were very encouraging of how technology could have helped me.

[00:03:18] Phil Marshall: And then once I actually had the end result I tried to. Figure out where to put it. And, and Audible wasn't the right place for a 40 minute listen. And, and, and I had used AI narration, so they wouldn't accept that. And, and so, and then podcasts. Podcasts are a fine outlet, but it's not exactly monetizable and, and so.

[00:03:39] Phil Marshall: And so what ended with all that was me going to Andrew and our, our third co-founder, our technologist, and, and saying, this is my idea for Spoken. And so what was born at that point was the amalgam of two things. Yeah. The ability to, to generate really high quality narration. With the, the streaming and sharing and monetization.

[00:04:01] Phil Marshall: And with this most recent release, which happened just this last Monday we went from being able to to publish or to generate in real time short form or installment chapter by chapter in a serial way to being able to sit down. Upload and narrate an entire novel in one sitting. And, and that's the first time that in human history we like to say that that has ever been possible.

[00:04:30] Phil Marshall: And we'll come back around to some of the other things that we did that were also first in the market. But but that's a little bit of the background. On, on all of this, the ability to in a DIY fashion, in a single sitting, be able to generate great audio and then also be able to stream and monetize.

[00:04:48] Teddy Smith: So the first part of the business is essentially using AI to be your narrator for the, for your books. How, how do you choose, like, who's going to be the narrator of the book? Is it a real person or is it just literally complete ai? 

[00:05:02] Phil Marshall: Yeah, it so lemme, lemme tell you all the options because, because it really comes down to what the author's preference is.

[00:05:09] Phil Marshall: If, if they, if, if they invested in studio recordings and, and used voice actors, which is the gold standard and as, as far as we're concerned, it could be the gold standard for a long time. Then you can upload that audio. Work to Spoken so that you can leverage the other aspect of it, which is the streaming and the monetization.

[00:05:29] Phil Marshall: Yeah. However, if, if you want to use the technology to help generate great audio, which you can do not just in single na narrator, but we specialize in, in what we call multi character, multi voice, what's, you know, multicast narration. Then our library of almost 300 voices is almost all voice actor voice actors.

[00:05:51] Phil Marshall: So, while you are using their voices on AI models, they do get paid for every use of that. But now we also have a new option that if you can't find the exact right voice in our voice actor library, we will actually take the in-depth analysis that we automatically generate of every character, including the narrator, and we will generate.

[00:06:17] Phil Marshall: A custom voice designed just for your character and exclusive to you as the author. And you can actually pace through. It's a little bit, it's funny, it's a little bit like Tinder swipe right, if you don't like those voices, right? And and, and so I guess swiping right is if you did like the voice right, is what the analogy should be.

[00:06:35] Phil Marshall: So ignore the tender analogy, but the but you know, you can just regenerate three after three, after three samples until you find just the right one. Yeah. And so this new custom voice design capability adds a whole new dimension. And so, yeah, when it comes to how do you choose the right voice there are a lot of great options both for single narrator as well as for the multicast approach.

[00:07:02] Teddy Smith: Right? Okay. So. I'm just when you create these voices with the ai, how, what happens if you, I guess you've gotta then go back and listen to it. What happens if you find a bit that you don't particularly like? Is it easy to go and say, oh, that bit's not really working for me? 

[00:07:17] Phil Marshall: Well, yeah, you gotta get what you like, right?

[00:07:19] Phil Marshall: Yeah. And here's the funny thing about it. If, if an author is going to use technology to be able to sit down quickly, easily, effectively narrate their work, they don't wanna have to spend a lot of time proofing that work. Mm-hmm. But it's, it's still important right now to go and listen to it, make sure everything came out okay.

[00:07:36] Phil Marshall: But we do do a couple of things to help with that. One is the lexicon. So if there are certain words as a, as a speculative fiction writer myself, I can tell you I come up with all sorts of crazy shit that you cannot pronounce. 

[00:07:49] Teddy Smith: Okay. 

[00:07:49] Phil Marshall: Like, like alien, alien sounds and cultures and, you know, and and so I.

[00:07:54] Phil Marshall: With the lexicon, you can just put in put in the phonetic pronunciation of that once and every time we see that phrase, then we'll replace it. With that, that phonetic pronunciation. The, the other thing that we have, which is pretty remarkable, people flip out over this and for good reason and that is our speak it.

[00:08:12] Phil Marshall: Feature. So for any passage that has to be delivered in a certain way, whether it's for pronunciation, but more oftentimes for inflection, for the emotive delivery of a particular of a particular passage, you can just click the microphone icon. Speak it exactly the way you want it to come out, and we'll loop it through the character voice, and it will come out exactly as you spoke it.

[00:08:35] Phil Marshall: Wow. And that's called our Speak it functionality. Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty amazing. 

[00:08:39] Teddy Smith: That's absolutely incredible. And so for people who want to get books written or noted in this way, sorry, is it is it free to start getting started or do you have a, a charge in order to get the book written?

[00:08:51] Teddy Smith: How does that sort of payment structure work? 

[00:08:53] Andrew Wallner: So for the time being, the beta of Spoken is entirely free. We're looking at a sort of late spring, early or I guess what, early spring, mid-spring launch of V one, which is where we'll start to introduce some of the monetization features. And at that point we'll set up cost narration.

[00:09:12] Andrew Wallner: So you'll be paying what you would pay anywhere else. From market leading voice technology company 11 labs or potentially others. But for the time being during this beta experience, everything is entirely free and you'll be able to carry the work that you create today forward after we start to introduce some of those monetization models.

[00:09:29] Andrew Wallner: So, all you have to do is go to Spoken press and, and join a beta there. I have Spoken press. If you don't wanna learn anything about us before you jump right in. 

[00:09:39] Teddy Smith: Great. So Phil, you've, you've got your sci-fi books as well. Could you give us a couple of examples of how Spoken works for getting your oration to be just right?

[00:09:48] Teddy Smith: I. 

[00:09:49] Phil Marshall: Yeah. Yeah. Well, in the early days when we launched the beta in July, it was a little tougher than it is now. So when I sat down to Do Kill Your Darlings in 11 Labs originally, well before Spoken, and part of the genesis of creating, Spoken for the workflow aspect of it what I had to do was I had to physically, because I wanted a multicast, narration. I had to split my work between what the character spoke and what the narrator spoke. And so that means splitting every dialogue tag out, et cetera, et cetera. And it's about a 40 minute work. And so that was a lot of work. And because the voices weren't quite right, I have an elderly Norwegian woman.

[00:10:29] Phil Marshall: I have a Russian man and his daughter. I actually hired, you know, voice actors for those bits. But you can imagine the final cut Pro dashboard with every. Single Spoken statement in every single narrator you know, dialogue tag broken out, and how many of those tiny little clips I had to line up, you know, across this dashboard.

[00:10:49] Phil Marshall: I have a screenshot of it. It's just absolutely nuts. So, so that's part of what inspired. Creating a great, easy workflow where we automatically separate those works into who's speaking, we roll it up to the character. Once you assign the voice once, you apply it once, and it just goes down through the entire work, including the entire novel.

[00:11:13] Phil Marshall: If that's, if that's what you've uploaded. Now, when we launched in July, that was still, that was still a task I had to go in and I probably had about 25% of the passages that I would have to speak it for, just the right delivery. But just since then, what, six months I. It has become so much better. And so now we apply mastering where it normalizes the different voices, background sound.

[00:11:37] Phil Marshall: If you do single narrator, it just comes out. I mean, there's really very little that you have to do at all to make single narrator come out, but the amount of work that you have to do is. Is getting lower and lower and lower, being able to apply the voice once, right? And we automatically generate your summary, your comparables, the tags that will be used to discover the work on the network we call channel tags.

[00:12:00] Phil Marshall: We automatically analyze every chapter for safety ratings across six parameters. And, and so. It's, it, it comes down to what can we do in an automated fashion to help create the best listen possible and all those things combined to be able to do that. I would say the most remarkable of them is rolling up all of the characters for single application of a voice across the entire work.

[00:12:28] Andrew Wallner: Yeah. And I, you know, I I, I definitely don't wanna lose sight of, of the. Consequential nature of what happens after you create this asset. You know, the other half of the entire Spoken experience is this what we envision will be a very engaging sort of first of its kind social immunity where you know, we're analyzing the work to come up with channel types, right?

[00:12:52] Andrew Wallner: These sort of like micro genre meets social hashtag concepts so that when your work is. Is eventually published, it finds the right bookshelf for other authors and listeners that we bring into the network to find and discover it's, it's like a. And Instagram plus Spotify plus 11 labs all smashed into one thing where authors like, you know, science fiction authors like Phil can build their brand on a sort of profile model and display all of their work and make it available in one place and surface in the, in the network in real time based on listener preference and taste.

[00:13:29] Andrew Wallner: So there's a lot there's a lot to the, the sort of social dynamic in addition to the, the narration technology, both sort of halves of the equation. Are there. 

[00:13:40] Teddy Smith: Yeah. What sort of what sort of, have you had any conversations with people who are in the narration industry? You know, people who are doing narration already and what's their sort of take on it?

[00:13:50] Teddy Smith: Have, have people, I'm guessing there's been some kind of pushback from some people and also some people are saying, let's embrace this technology and work with you to, you know, be your partner and things like that. 

[00:14:00] Phil Marshall: Yeah, I'll share a story with you. So I was at the big speculative fiction conference, Worldcon in Glasgow, and I attended a podcasting round table.

[00:14:10] Phil Marshall: And the podcast round table was a big round table because it wasn't an actual table because there were like 30 people there. But, but I, I mentioned, you know what I do. And, and and people definitely were skeptical. For sure. These were, these were voices for podcasting, right? I mean, these were, these were voice actors.

[00:14:32] Phil Marshall: These were people who make a living from that. And, and in the end. It was a really interesting conversation because whether it's people who are doing podcasting or it's voice actors there was a recognition that, that there's a gap in the market right now. That if you're an author with your printed work, your, your written word, you can DIY self-publish right now.

[00:15:01] Phil Marshall: You can prepare your manuscript, go to Kindle Direct and upload to KDP. You can do that right now. 

[00:15:08] Teddy Smith: Yep. 

[00:15:09] Phil Marshall: And, and yet with audio, which has become. Enormously popular and there are a lot of people that are now saying that audio consumption of works has eclipsed. The reading, the traditional reading of those works, whether digital or in paper.

[00:15:29] Phil Marshall: And I think that may be true, audio is huge growing by 25% clip year over year. Yep. And and so, and so there was a recognition that that same DIY self-publishing capability, it just doesn't exist for authors. The, the work, the time, the money. That an author has to go through to create a great audio work is, is a lot, you know?

[00:15:53] Phil Marshall: Yeah. And and, and yet we all recognize that studio recordings are the gold standard for it. And so, and so it's just a matter of that balance of affordability. Of quality. And, and so what we're doing now is bringing something to the market that at least for authors to actually find a new and reasonable economic model for their audio works.

[00:16:18] Phil Marshall: It's, it's, it's all it new it know, opportunity. And and so even with the voice actor community, there was a recognition that, that, you know, that sort of economic model and that DIY nature of audio, you know, is changing. 

[00:16:34] Teddy Smith: Yeah, for sure. Would you, would it be possible to narrate the book yourself if you wanted to, you know, just upload your own voice?

[00:16:43] Phil Marshall: Well, yes. Sit down with a microphone. 

[00:16:47] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:16:48] Phil Marshall: And record your book. So and so. If you, if you just sit down with a microphone and record every chapter up, upload them, upload them to Spoken, and then you'd be able to leverage the streaming monetization model. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. So, yeah, just, just do it.

[00:17:05] Andrew Wallner: Def, definitely don't wanna overlook the fact that, you know. Like I said earlier, there's the narration technology and then there's the networks like, you know, the network on the monetization model. And if you're an authorpreneur and you're managing your domain of eight different streaming platforms in addition to your print and e-reader distribution platforms, Spoken sits along nicely with a very disruptive revenue sharing option for authors.

[00:17:31] Andrew Wallner: If you've already narrated your work, right, bring the gold standard to the network and just take advantage of them. The subscription and monetization opportunities that spoke in class, but you know, on the other side, use the tool if you need to narrate it. Right. We really work to democratize access to audio for those who otherwise wouldn't have ever been able to get a, you know, a toe a toe hold.

[00:17:53] Andrew Wallner: Yeah. In the space. 

[00:17:54] Teddy Smith: Yeah, sure. Just before we move on to network, I just wanted to just get a couple, give a couple of tips to people who are trying to get AI narration for their book. So let's have, have you got any tips for people to try and find their first narrator with your platform? 

[00:18:09] Andrew Wallner: So one of the major, sort of recent features that we just deployed is it, it is actually sort of creating based on the work that you bring to Spoken based on the analysis of, of the narrative of the genre that you're in, and then each specific character, its narrative prose.

[00:18:29] Andrew Wallner: We actually create a mathematical sector that represents that character based on the way that they're described in the context of a work and their dialogue. We can actually create a description of what that character look. We create a picture of what that character looks like and how their voice sounds.

[00:18:47] Andrew Wallner: We actually surface from our existing library of voice actor voices, which voices we think would best represent that character when they speak both for a narrator or for the characters themselves. If none of those are good, like Phil said, we can actually generate from scratch designed for your character a voice I.

[00:19:08] Andrew Wallner: Based on that character as we see them unSpoken, we really take a lot of that hard work out of, of finding exactly the right narrator for that character. 

[00:19:21] Teddy Smith: Yeah. And how did you find the first narrator fuel book Smith Phil? 

[00:19:26] Phil Marshall: Do you mean how was, was that, was there a 

[00:19:27] Teddy Smith: particular, was there like a particular style you're looking for or how did that work?

[00:19:31] Phil Marshall: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. No, no. So style is, is you know, about, maybe about 50% of it. I'd say the other 50% is just the basics. The, you know, the, the age, the gender if there's a particular dialect and, and, and, but then add, add style on top of that. And so, and so style is something we, we have about 300 voice actor voices on the network.

[00:19:56] Phil Marshall: And so a whole wide variety of different styles. The descriptions allow you to, to go and search and find the right style. But if you do need to generate a custom voice. That's gonna be designed around your character. You can just change the prompt to give it a style and you can get it, it, the prompt actually works really well and responds very favorably to a kind of dramatic description, right?

[00:20:22] Phil Marshall: Yeah. So you can, you can do like, you know. Scary screechy witch in a woods on a windy day, right? And, and so and so the the models will come back with something that pretty, pretty darn good. And and so it, it does really, really well in generating these really unique one, one of a kind. Voices.

[00:20:44] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:20:44] Phil Marshall: Yeah. So that's, yeah. Style is half of it, I think the style that you're looking for. 

[00:20:48] Teddy Smith: So with the, with Spoken, the actual, when, when you've got your books narrated and they're uploaded to a platform, it's actually a place where your readers or your listeners can buy the books and download them. So it's, it's a platform for, for buying them as well.

[00:21:02] Teddy Smith: So how does that work compared to the other platforms like Audible, for example? 

[00:21:07] Andrew Wallner: So this was one of our biggest takeaways after the authorization event, right? Realizing that every single person that we are trying to bring into the network as a, as an author, creator you know, if they're at the top of their game, you know, they're entrepreneurs, right?

[00:21:20] Andrew Wallner: They're managing a portfolio of, of their products or their creative work, right? And they're trying to find the best. Least effort, highest payout opportunity for placement of their work and managing all these different revenue streams and so on. So when we went into Author Nation, we had a vision for Spoken of a simple what's called the Spoken Affinity model, which is gimme one second.

[00:21:44] Andrew Wallner: We we're gonna, this, I'm gonna blow my, is that okay?

[00:22:03] Andrew Wallner: These morning shows. 

[00:22:04] Teddy Smith: Yeah, 

[00:22:05] Andrew Wallner: so going into the Author Nation event, we had a very specific vision for what the payment model would look like. On Spoken. It was, it's a all you can eat subscription model we call the Affinity model, kind of like Spotify, where. Every, you know, all the listeners bring some, some subscription revenue.

[00:22:25] Andrew Wallner: It's split in a way that supports our business, but also the authors and then it's divvied up based on some kind of metric across all of the, the users. We looked at that and we said, Hmm, I don't know if we like the Taylor Swift. Approach where the most engaging or highest traffic user takes the dragon's hoard of, of revenue split from the other creators.

[00:22:44] Andrew Wallner: We flipped it upside down and we, and with the affinity model, what, what we created is actually a proportional distribution of a given listeners revenue subscription to only to the, the creators, the authors that they're spending their time listening to. So, it, it sort of removes that vacuuming of cash, the most engaging user on the network.

[00:23:07] Andrew Wallner: We brought that to, to the event, and we learned a bunch. The way that it, it was very disruptive. It's not how these entrepreneurs operate today. They have their own storefronts. They have their mailing lists. They have. Their own sort of locked in business model arrangements with other distribution services.

[00:23:28] Andrew Wallner: They really were after, was direct sales and we, we, we came back from Author Nation and we sat down, we put our heads and go like, 

[00:23:35] Teddy Smith: why we. 

[00:23:37] Andrew Wallner: How do we incorporate something that can give people more flexibility and, and give them what they want? And we actually came up with a concept called the Unified Streaming Network.

[00:23:47] Andrew Wallner: And this is actually, we think is gonna be very, very disruptive. So an author actually has access to three different sort of categories of monetization. The first being entirely free, so. For everyone in the future, once we go live with, with a v one of our product in the spring there will be no barrier to entry.

[00:24:10] Andrew Wallner: Anyone can join and stream content on Spoken. At the the second part of that sort of unified streaming network is the subscription model, the Spoken affinity model. But then the third is also direct sales, and we can support those. Outside of the network on a author's storefront where, where a user can purchase a product directly from their store and they'll be able to listen to it unSpoken or a user can discover that content and purchase it in the Spoken network.

[00:24:38] Andrew Wallner: So all three of these pieces of content, these, these categories of content will be available in the Spoken network right next to each other. And we imagine the enterprising author is gonna be the person who perfectly tweaks and balances their sort of blend of free content for, to, to show up in discovery and, and be, you know, have, have something everyone, whether it's a first chapter of a book or the first book in an epic series.

[00:25:05] Andrew Wallner: While they'll put some of their shorter form work, some of their, like high quality, shorter form stuff into that Spoken affinity pool so they can generate passive revenue off of their you know, quality stuff. And then of course they'll have their sort of direct sales, right, for those longer sagas, those things that they're a little more passionate about.

[00:25:23] Andrew Wallner: And we've created a very, very favorable sort of revenue share that's pretty ridiculously dis disruptive based on what else is out there right now. 

[00:25:31] Teddy Smith: Right. Okay. So really this is for people who are just starting out with self-publishing as well, because the way it is going to work is it's not going to be those people get no money because it, it is being split amongst the bigger creators.

[00:25:44] Teddy Smith: It's actually the people that are listening to their work is what's funding them. So the, these new authors, the more marketing they do to get the listeners and the more money they can make as well. 

[00:25:54] Andrew Wallner: A hundred percent. Yeah. One of the you know, my, my little origin story there is, you know, I'm not the most talented writer in the world.

[00:26:02] Andrew Wallner: I, I, I, I, I'm a visual storyteller, but I'm also one of those illiterate millennials who who spends a lot of time consuming. The kind of content on Reddit and Wattpad into the wee hours of the morning where I, you know, you look around and there are people that are incredibly talented, right?

[00:26:18] Andrew Wallner: There's so much, there's no sleep. Favorite little horror subreddit. I. I, we sound like a broken record every time I talk to somebody about this, but there are 18 million users in, in no sleep. And yeah. You know, if you just use the 90 10, about 2 million of those are probably people who contribute.

[00:26:33] Andrew Wallner: And you, you, you look at their profiles, you read their stuff, and you look at their profiles and you see they don't have a website. They don't have audible accounts. They don't have a Cobo. Or a Kindle, you know, unlimited account. These are people that just write because they write, and we've, we looked at that and we said, Hmm, I wonder if we can give them access to audio.

[00:26:57] Andrew Wallner: You go in the comments and you see people are like, Hey, is there an annual version of this? Can I click on you? You know, whatever. And and you realize. Oh, this is who this is for. Also, these people who are insanely talented, who want the lowest barrier to entry to, to create and build their brand for themselves.

[00:27:14] Andrew Wallner: They're welcome to come to Spoken too. And because of the nature and the cost economics and how it all works, we think they'll short form is gonna be huge. So you know, if you're just starting out and you have a bond. Shoebox under your bed full of 35 short stories and you never had an outlet for them before.

[00:27:32] Andrew Wallner: You can bring 'em to Spoken and you can make them all free. You can build your brain that way. You can dump half of them into this, you know, the Spoken affinity subscription model. And maybe one day you'll realize, wow, I'm leaving money on the table, as you know, as an author discovering, you know, my journey, I'm gonna throw a few of these behind a direct sale.

[00:27:51] Andrew Wallner: Opportunity and, and once again, manage that mix of the three options and, and build your, your, your career that way. Get your first steps in as a, as a, a big time self-published indie author. 

[00:28:02] Teddy Smith: Yeah, amazing. Looking forward to seeing this like really kick off the ground. We should definitely get a demo and to so we can see it a bit more visually.

[00:28:09] Teddy Smith: Like a lot of people that I work with, obviously they're publishing on Amazon. If they're self-published, how would it work? Say, for example, you've got a book and it is already on Audible and it's published with Amazon. Is there any restrictions on publishing in both places? 

[00:28:22] Phil Marshall: Well, so, so Spoken doesn't apply any restrictions at all.

[00:28:26] Phil Marshall: It's pretty simple, unSpoken. You retain all the rights to your work. You just have to attest that you have the right to, to publish the audio of that work. UnSpoken. Yeah. And so it really comes down to what the other networks may constrain in that regard. But we, we don't take any rights. And if, if for whatever reason you need to take your work and have it on a different network and they require that it not be elsewhere, you can certainly remove the work from Spoken at any time.

[00:28:55] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Okay, cool. And the last one was if, so the first part of the Spoken software is the doing the AI narration. Can you use that narration on other platforms or is, are you creating it specifically for the Spoken platform? 

[00:29:08] Phil Marshall: I. Yeah, so that's what we call the take it with you option. Yeah. And and so we haven't built that out just yet.

[00:29:14] Phil Marshall: We're still kind of building our, our network of, of enthusiasts, both authors and listeners. And certainly that streaming and the monetization of that streaming network is what becomes central to the value proposition to authors. But having said that, we do, we do take a lot of pride in the quality of the out.

[00:29:33] Phil Marshall: Output of the work and can imagine that that authors are gonna wanna take that work with them and put it elsewhere. And so we'll, we'll we'll add the feature of Take it with you. At some point, probably with the V one in the spring, it will be very likely a there will very likely be a charge for that.

[00:29:52] Phil Marshall: We haven't determined exactly what that is yet, but, but but yeah, that's the, take it with you feature and it'll be there. 

[00:29:58] Andrew Wallner: One of our, just, just one little piece of color commentary there that, you know, that slides nicely into a, a sort of larger, piece of the Spoken puzzle. And that is, you know, we really want to be easy to work with, a really great tool for these entrepreneurs or these people discovering their first steps in their writing journey.

[00:30:15] Andrew Wallner: And we wanna, you know, it's why we built the, the revenue model the way we did. It's why we built considerations and features in this into the studio experience. Right. Giving as much versatility and, and you know, while still being easy to use. And this take it with you is another example of we listen to.

[00:30:32] Andrew Wallner: You know, everything that we're learning from these entrepreneurs and we're saying, ah, yes, this is something that you want, we'll figure out how to put it in. Right. We just want to be right alongside everyone in the community to make it as easy as possible and, and check as many boxes of needs as as we can.

[00:30:47] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Awesome. I mean, I'm really excited to see where this goes. We'll definitely have to get you back on, as I mentioned, for like a, a video, more of a, a visual share so we can see exactly how it works. 'cause it's, it's, I think it's gonna really disrupt the industry as you mentioned. 

[00:30:59] Andrew Wallner: We would love to join in again.

[00:31:02] Andrew Wallner: We have poured a lot of time and energy and blood and sweat and tears into making very pretty little slides and user, user experience bells and whistles. So 

[00:31:12] Teddy Smith: yeah, that'd be really good. Well, thanks so much coming on. Usually when we end these shows, I ask people a book they recommend everyone should be reading, but I thought Phil, seeing as you've also got your own books as well.

[00:31:24] Teddy Smith: It'd be a good opportunity to hear, hear a bit, a bit about your books and whether you recommend, recommend people read them. 

[00:31:29] Phil Marshall: Well, my, my debut novel, my debut novel has been completed 18 times and, and and I've been rejected by a hundred agents and counting so far. And so that particular work is still unpublished.

[00:31:42] Phil Marshall: And it turns out I may be creating a publishing platform to publish my own dang work. So. That may be the whole reason behind all of this that I didn't quite realize at the time. Yeah. But as far as my, my other works go they I've, I've, I've got my personal website, dr phil marshall.com, where I have a couple of essays, but, but my other works kill Your Darlings.

[00:32:02] Phil Marshall: Welcome to the audio verse. Those are on Spoken and in fact welcome to the audio versus a fun little four minute story that, that really kind of. I think introduces people to the power of the audio platform and the multi character, multi voice feature really quite well. But if you want to go listen to Kill Your Darlings, it is the very first version of Spoken that was used to deploy that I'm now gonna be going back through and, and using different voices that are designed around those characters better.

[00:32:31] Phil Marshall: To, to redo that. And that, by the way, just. Since you is one of the great benefits of Spoken is that if you wanna tweak a single passage or you wanna change one character, or you wanna, you know, add in another installment serially, just go and just do it. It'll take a, a few seconds and, and and then your work all of a sudden is just now fresh and new and, and everybody now listening to it will automatically get the latest version.

[00:32:57] Phil Marshall: So these works, they don't have to be. Done. If you find improvements that you wanna make over time, if you wanna tweak this, that people, maybe people fall off in this part of the story and you need to kind of really, you know, pump that part up a bit or rip it out then you can just do that and, and just push live and it'll be, it'll be done.

[00:33:14] Phil Marshall: So as far as my works go though, those, those are the ones that are unSpoken and so, so go to Spoken Press today. Listen, Marshall's works. 

[00:33:25] Teddy Smith: Well, brilliant. Thanks Andrew and Phil for coming on. I'm looking forward to doing the visual presentation. I think that's gonna great and we'll speak again soon.

[00:33:32] Andrew Wallner: Yeah. Teddy, thank you so much. Thanks. 

[00:33:35] Teddy Smith: Thank you so much for tuning into the Publishing performance podcast. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring. I love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world. Now, just before we wrap up, let me tell you about publishing performance, the number one platform for authors who want to increase Amazon book sales, but I'm not really sure.

[00:33:52] Teddy Smith: Where to start Now this show is all about helping you to sell more books, and if you are looking to boost your publishing game and to maximize your book's potential on Amazon, then publishing performance is designed to help authors just like you to grow your readership and to reach a much wider audience.

[00:34:09] Teddy Smith: Now, I know who the Amazon ads can be slightly complicated, which is why publishing Formants is like having a personalized ad account manager to create your ad campaigns, to choose your best keywords and to make adjustments in real time. Now if you are investing in ads, you really want to make sure that your investment is being used effectively and publishing performance does just that It aims to make your budget go further, improve your organic rank, and target keywords more effectively.

[00:34:36] Teddy Smith: Just go to publishing performance.com to get started with Amazon ads for just $1.