Audio is awesome.
Hearing words, music, or narration really elevates a story experience for me.
It's also convenient. (You can't read a book while running a 5k.)
But it has a major flaw.
It's time consuming and expensive to produce.
I should know.
To create the 21+ hour-long, 67 episode audiodrama version of my debut novel Cereus & Limnic took 2 years.
That's a long time to self-produce an unproven story (hard business lesson learned).
The alternative would have been to pay for production. However, that's a problem too.
A full audiobook can cost between $2,000 and $5,000 USD.
Expensive!
If you're like me, you probably don't have that kind of cash available for a single audiobook.
That's why I'm building a tool to make this process much easier and cheaper.
Weekend Experiment
Starting Friday night (today) I’m putting on my “accidental software engineer” hat to see if I can build a one-click audiobook maker:
- Upload a DOCX (short story, novella, or novel draft).
- Choose a voice powered by ElevenLabs’ newest AI models.
- Get an ACX-ready MP3 in less than a day— no studio, no or tech expertise necessary.
If the beta works and people love it, I’ll keep polishing.
If it flops, you’ll still get a fun post-mortem about what broke. Either way, we all learn something.
Why I Think It’s Worth Trying
- I already know the audio-post workflow inside out; the pain is real.
- ElevenLabs' AI voices have matured. They sound good enough that Audible now allows AI narration (with disclosure). And even I - despite being in love with my own voice - enjoy the relative convenience of converting my writing to audio.
- Writers keep telling me, “I want an audiobook, but I don’t have the time or money.”
This is the answer.
How You Can Help
- Have a piece of writing that's right for an audiobook? Add your email to the private wait-list by hitting the button below
- You’ll get first dibs on the beta (English, ≤10 k words, single voice).
- And you get to try it out for free while I prove the concept.
No hard sell—just an experiment to see if we can shave months off the audiobook grind.
Hit reply if you have questions, horror stories from your own audio adventures, or feature wish-lists.
I've never built a software product I meant to sell before.
But I've been experimenting with AI so much for the last several years and beating around the bush about it that I figure it was time to see if I can use everything I've learned about code and business to build something that would be useful to you as a writer.
We'll see how it goes.
Talk soon,
Keith