Brave New Bookshelf Episode 39: Transforming Audiobook Narration and Discovery with Spoken

By Danica Favorite May 15, 2025

In this episode of Brave New Bookshelf, hosts Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite are joined by Phil Marshall and Andrew Wallner, co-founders of Spoken Press, to explore the transformative role of AI in the audiobook industry. Discover how Spoken Press is revolutionizing audiobook creation, distribution, and monetization with its innovative AI-driven platform that empowers authors to seamlessly produce and share their works. With a focus on transparency and equitable revenue sharing, Phil and Andrew discuss how Spoken is building a vibrant community for authors and listeners alike.

Introducing the Founders of Spoken Press

Phil Marshall and Andrew Wallner co-founded Spoken Press, a pioneering platform aimed at making audiobook creation and distribution more accessible. With backgrounds in conversational AI and a successful startup exit in 2021, the duo turned their attention to solving a personal pain point: the lack of simple tools for high-quality multicast audiobook production.

Why Spoken Press Was Created

Spoken Press originated from a desire to simplify the process of producing engaging, multi-voice audiobooks. Phil’s experience in developing a multicast story revealed a clear need for better tools tailored to authors. Spoken responds to this demand by combining intuitive creation features with AI-powered publishing and monetization capabilities.

Smarter Narration and Smarter Reach

Spoken’s technology doesn’t stop at narration. The platform integrates AI at multiple stages—from voice synthesis to metadata tagging and intelligent content discovery. Authors benefit from automatic generation of summaries, categories, and targeted tags that help position their audiobooks in front of the right listeners. Personalized recommendations for users help ensure content doesn’t get lost in the crowd.

A Fairer Revenue Model for Authors

Spoken stands apart with a bold approach to royalty distribution. Its Affinity subscription model promotes revenue sharing that reflects actual listening behavior, offering authors a 50/50 earnings split. This is a far cry from traditional models like Kindle Unlimited, which often leave authors with a fraction of their content’s value.

Fostering a Creator-Listener Ecosystem

Spoken is more than a tool—it’s a growing network that encourages meaningful interaction between storytellers and their audiences. As authors share their work, they also contribute to a recommendation engine that evolves with every interaction, continuously improving content visibility and engagement.

The Spoken Creation Flow

Getting started on Spoken is refreshingly easy. Authors upload their manuscripts, which the platform analyzes for narrative structure and character voice needs. They then choose or design AI-generated voices, tweak delivery with fine-tuning tools like lexicons and “Speak It,” and finally publish their audiobook to reach a broad audience.

Why Now Is the Time to Join

For early adopters, Spoken offers free access during its beta phase. This provides a rare opportunity to build visibility and feedback loops before monetization officially rolls out. Getting in early allows authors to shape the community and maximize their reach when the platform scales.

Tools of the Trade

Phil and Andrew shared their enthusiasm for the internal AI stack powering Spoken, which blends various voice and automation technologies. They also gave a nod to ChatGPT’s Deep Research capability, citing it as a key tool in rapidly developing topic expertise.

Key Takeaways from Episode 39

In closing:

Spoken Press simplifies audiobook production with intuitive, AI-powered tools.
AI enhances both narration and discovery, improving visibility and listener targeting.
The Affinity model ensures fair compensation through a 50/50 revenue share.
Early users gain free access and the advantage of early exposure.
Spoken fosters a creator-first, community-driven ecosystem for audiobooks.