Jules Horne (8:24)

So.

Joanna Penn (8:24)

Yeah, but translations are always weird since you look at the book and I've used the same cover as well with obviously the translated title and subtitle. But translations are so weird because even though you wrote the original words in English, you did not write the words in the other language. So it is quite strange and I can't judge the quality myself. So if you would like Pilgrimage in French or German, please do email me. Joannathecreativepenn.com I also have my pre launch page up for my short story collection, so you might want to go and have a look at the COVID of the Buried and the Drowned, which is going to be my first short story collection. And I love the this title and chat GPT came up with this, which was so cool because I. I've been writing these particular stories over probably almost a decade now and I couldn't see the theme of all of them. And yet it came up. Well, I got it to do like 30 different titles. But this one is so perfect because so many of the stories are about either digging up things we perhaps shouldn't because I'm obsessed with archaeology, or what was once drowned will be drowned again. And I was once a very regular scuba diver and so I write a lot about that kind of thing, a lot of underwater stuff and water things in general. So the stories are pretty dark, which you can probably get. And most have an edge of the supernatural, although they are not usually supernatural in themselves. And my model for short stories has always been Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected. And it's so interesting because I think anyone who hasn't read Tales of the Unexpected or perhaps even read Roald Dahl since they were a kid, those tales are very adult, for sure. I think they're sort of the original Black Mirror sort of stories. Very dark. Not necessarily about technology, but things with a twist and should also make you think in some way. And that is my goal with my short story. So I've just finished between two breaths and am writing the Black Church, set in Iceland. That is where I woke up on my 50th birthday at the black church. And those two stories will be exclusive to the Kickstarter. The others you may have. If you read my short stories, you may have read them before, but this will be the first time they are in print. There will be a gorgeous hardback and each one of my short stories has an author's note because they're all really personal. And so I will also be including photos from research and experiences that led to those stories. I am human narrating the audiobook and yes you can check it out out Sign up at the pre launch page. It will be in September but I've put the pre launch page up now. JFPen.com buried jfpenn.com buried and you can see the COVID which I made myself on mid journey and then I well I made the image on midjourney and then gave it to my cover designer Jane. And this is what I like. I mean I obviously talk about the AI assisted artisan author and that is what I am. And I'm still human assisted too. Like I mentioned, Kristen as my editor and Jane as my cover designer both work with me with my use of AI tools. Also, I've been on a few podcasts recently, so the Writing with Purpose podcast with Anna Wooliscroft talking about writing authentically, personal growth, the role of nature in creativity, and how walking fuels me pretty much every day, how I moved from IT consultant to author and a sustainable author career. I'm also on the Book Funnel podcast talking about building your authentic author brand over the long term and why you might not a clue at the beginning and this is a bit of a theme in a couple of these interviews because people ask me these questions assuming that I must have just known what I was doing and I really didn't. And that's okay because you can pivot over time. And also I have a bit of a rant actually about why we need to get back to writing what we love and what truly calls us to write, especially in an era of generate to market. Yeah, I have a bit of a rant about that. And I also covered similar long term thinking themes on the Author's Landscape Lounge with Osiris. And Osiris asked me questions that again assumed I know what I was doing. And I reminded him that he's talking to me now after almost 20 years of writing and that longevity and consistency count for a lot, especially in an era when people seem to want instant success and how many, many of the early years, nobody is listening, nobody is watching, no one is reading. And yet if you continue then eventually you can attract an audience. I also talk about how I used to say yes to so much and now I'm able to say no to most things because I know what is sustainable for me and I think it takes time to find that confidence. But it is important if you want a long term career. Also on my books and travel podcast, Wendy Nugent talks about traveling by cruise ship and how that has inspired her cosy mysteries. So that is on my books and travel podcast, photos and notes and things on booksandtravel page. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week. Laurie left a comment on the show Notes about Going Local says I'm a Canadian writer and journalist having lots of adventure and success going local in Muskoka, Ontario, a lake district a little like the Hamptons. Oh very nice. My book is a family story with historic elements. I find cottage owners and lake lovers at local fairs, farmers markets, boat shows, pop ups and craft show oh who are keen to hear more about the novel. I love meeting and connecting with them and it's fun to market the whole experience on Instagram Reels and TikTok. At age 58, going local is the best thing I've ever done. That is great to hear actually. Laurie, thanks so much for letting me know Tom sent a picture. I'm here in Quito, Ecuador and I happened upon the largest Neo Gothic basilica in the Americas. Thank you Tom. John sent a picture of a lovely gravestone in a cemetery in Iceland. The name grabbed me and reminded me of you. Johann Johanneson. I think that was probably a man, but that's fine. And Karen sent a picture on a snow field wearing ski goggles. I'm listening to the episode how to Pitch a Podcast. I'm in La Pava during school winter break. That looked really cool. And also she says I listened to episodes in February and March when I was struggling a lot. That gave me the strength to continue the happy writer and intuition, journaling and overcoming fear. So brilliant. Thank you so much everyone. And you can leave a comment on the podcast show notes@thecreativepenn.com or on the YouTube channel. You can email me, send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite church or cemetery or Gothic Cathedral at joannathecreativepen.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation. So today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital who I use for wide ebook publishing and also for managing my co written book, the Relaxed Author with Mark Leslie Lefebvre as they do payment splitting which is super useful. Are you an indie author in need of an easy and efficient print on demand service backed by a world class customer support team? Look no further than D2D print from Draft 2 Digital. D2D print is ideal for authors who've already published ebooks but haven't yet experimented with print. With D2D print you can convert an ebook to a print On Demand file With just a few clicks, turn an ebook cover image into a full wraparound print cover. In seconds, choose from dozens of beautiful interior layouts. Choose from a variety of industry standard trim sizes and formatting options you can distribute worldwide. Use free ISPs. You can also order author copies within 32 countries and print proofs without the word proof stamped on the front. 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If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering topics on writing, craft and author business, as well as tutorials and demos on AI tools. Last week I did my monthly Q and A audio and also patrons get a discount on my webinars if that's something you're interested in. The Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at Patreon.com P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com the Creative Pen Right, let's get into the interview.

Jules Horne (18:05)

Jules Horn is a Scottish playwright, radio dramatist, poet and fiction writer. She also writes non fiction for authors, including the very useful Writing for Audiobooks. So welcome back to the show, Jules hello Joanna.

Kristin Tate (18:20)

Thanks very much for having me. It's great to be here.

Jules Horne (18:22)

Yes, it's great to have you back. It was 2019 when you were last on the show. So first up, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and aspects of audio and performance.

Kristin Tate (18:33)

Yeah, so audio was never really a big thing in my life, but I did start writing very small and did a bit of, I guess, very junior theatre. And then when I studied literature at Uni. I got totally put off all that stuff because it was so daunting. And then I got into playwriting when local, when a theatre company came to our local area and offered workshops, sort of engagement workshops and that led to some writing commissions eventually. So I ended up writing some stage plays and a few BBC radio dramas and which was really, really lovely to do and worked in radio news writing and presenting for a while. So I did quite a bit of recording voice and writing for voice. I did a lot of. And some presenting. So you kind of got a real feel for the flow of audio. And I loved editing different people's voices. That was really fun. So. And the techy side. So I think that led to an interest in audio first and also a kind of a kind of real feel for. For voices in general and editing. So yeah, it's been a long term interest of mine.

Jules Horne (19:34)

So yes, as I mentioned, you were on the show in 2019 when we talked about writing for audiobooks and you've updated the book since then. But I wanted to come back to it because things have really changed, haven't they? I mean, over the last, I guess, let's say five and a half years. So what are some of the biggest industry shifts in terms of audiobook growth? Publishing, subscription platforms and technology changes? Huge question.

Kristin Tate (19:57)

But just as an overview, I mean it's been astonishing. It's just been extraordinary what's happened. And I think it was quite slow moving between 2019. We thought it was fast then, but what's happened very recently has just been whoosh. So I mean, I think the Audible and the ACX being the dominant distribution platform and other smaller ones, they had such a monopoly for so many years. And all that time it's been growing really, really strongly as a publishing niche. It's a really high growth niche in the publishing industry and new markets taking off and still really, really going strong. And I think one of the big things that's changing is changed over that time is far fewer one off purchases. It's now really fairly strongly gone over to subscription models similar to when you have say Netflix or Prime for TV and films. And that's been for a good few years and now. But then Spotify launched its audiobook tier in 2023, which is a bit of a game changer really as it puts audiobooks alongside music and podcasts and it really widens the audience there. And of course that comes along with some worries with Spotify for authors because it's not been great for musicians. Tiny royalties there. So time will tell how that plays out. And then, of course, AI, which is affecting just every kind of sector. And it has been expected for a while that Amazon would open the gates to AI voices. And now that's happened. You can very simply click and upload your ebook as usual, and then add an audiobook with virtual voices. So that's bound to have a major impact on publishing and of course, on livelihoods for audiobook narrators and actors. So, yeah, that's a huge development in this last while.

Jules Horne (21:40)

Yes. And I mean, obviously any technological change has a lot of benefits and a lot of downsides. So you mentioned there Spotify and the worries over potential royalties. But from my personal perspective, I often think about these places as, yes, some income, but also marketing and reaching a much wider audience. And in fact, as a listener myself, I moved over to Spotify for podcast listening years ago, maybe eight, nine years ago, and music. And then I moved my audiobook listening over. And so now I wouldn't go back because I listen quite differently and use the Spotify search engine and their algorithm. And so it's like we're meeting listeners where they are. And yes, there are some good things, some bad things, but you can't stop the change, right?

Kristin Tate (22:26)

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the widening of listenership and different people suddenly able to be introduced to your books in ways they wouldn't have before, I mean, that's huge for authors. So, yeah, definitely one to consider.

Jules Horne (22:38)

And again, I mean, we're in a time where people, a lot of people say, for some reason I don't read, as if like, that's something to be proud of.

Joanna Penn (22:44)

But a lot of people do listen.

Jules Horne (22:46)

A lot of people listen in the car. They listen when they're exercising or whatever they're doing. I listen when I'm out walking. So I think having our books in audio is so important and yet that it has been very expensive, hasn't it? So again, the trade off with, yes, there'll be different kinds of work for narrators, but for a lot of authors, it's not human or AI, It's AI or nothing because they couldn't have afforded it.

Kristin Tate (23:11)

Yeah, that's right. And I think the thing with what's reading is really interesting too, because I think more and more people are recognizing listening as a form of reading. So it's kind of the attitude to that being just listening is changing as well. So people are imbibing books in different ways now, and the cost of AI being really approachable. And I think that if that's the only option, then that's one that authors will definitely be considering, particularly with KDP where they've made it just such an integral part of the overall independence publishing experience, made it really simple to just upload and continue and then you can preview some voices and try it out. You can try out with different voices. It is quite extraordinary and I think a lot of authors will probably choose that route.

Jules Horne (23:54)

Yes. Well, just to timestamp this interview, we're in the middle of June 2025 and in fact just last week I got a email from ACX with a survey. I don't know if you got this as well, but it was. It included a whole load of questions around what I might want from. From AI voices. And it feels like even though the AVV is through the KDP dashboard and is quite simple, it feels like there might be something else on the horizon. I don't know, did you get that.

Joanna Penn (24:23)

Or what do you think?

Kristin Tate (24:23)

I didn't get that one. What were the questions? That's really.

Jules Horne (24:26)

There was things like, here's a list of things that you might be interested in. Rate them in order of what you want. And one of them would have been control. A lot more control of the text and the audio quality and sales platforms, like how to do much more marketing of things. And it was really interesting because I was like, oh, this. This seems very, very positive for the future.

Kristin Tate (24:48)

Yeah, that's a really interesting one too because the marketing side with ACX Audible has been quite. Has been really difficult for authors, hasn't it?

Jules Horne (24:55)

Yes.

Kristin Tate (24:55)

That you can't really easily, unless you're a vendor on Amazon, you can't really advertise your books and you can't price it and these kind of things. So I wonder if that's. Maybe it'd be great if that was in the offing too.

Jules Horne (25:07)

Yes. And I think that's a kind of basic point for everyone is even though these things are speeding up, you know, people seem to criticise the voices, for example, and say, oh well, they're not very good. And it's like, well, they're a lot better than they were six months ago and in six months time they're going to be even better. But I wanted to ask you about this because you are very experienced in all this different voice stuff, different elements of human voice performance. So I think your ear is probably very attuned. But, you know, let us know really, honestly, what do you think about some of the quality of these AI narrated voices or AI voices in general?

Kristin Tate (25:42)

I think the quality is changing. Super. Fast and I think what maybe sounds a bit kind of monotonous, I think that's the main quality that AI voices tend to have now. I think that's going to change really fast. And when you hear some of the higher end products in that space, like 11 labs, you kind of realize the way things are, the way things are evolving. It is quite astounding really. But at the moment, I mean there are very clear tells and I think most people will be able to pick those up. Although having said that, like in film imagery and you know, it's starting to get like quite blurred as to whether you can hear or not. I think it's still fairly. I did test my partner in a couple of examples. Is this an AI or is this not. Not an AI? And what's really astounding is sometimes he thought a human voice was an AI, which is kind of, oh heck, you know. And that's, that's happening with photos too and with films. And you remember that thing about the food photography where people were saying actually the, the, the AI food photography looks much more appetizing and realistic and so where's that heading? I think that it's about variation and variety sort of technically. It's often things like the emphasis on the wrong syllable. So I've hear, I hear a lot of downward inflections and if you listen to the KDP examples, you hear this once upon a time there was a do and then diddle, diddle, diddle, do. So there's a lot of similarity. Yeah, it's the rhythm and also the kind of pitch goes down in quite bit, a kind of regular way and over time that can get quite, almost sleepy. So people often have much more to go up at the ends of sentences and they go down and a lot of the AIs are kind of going down at the end. So I'm hearing that a lot and thinking that might be somebody's natural inflection. But I think it's quite a pattern when you listen to the voice samples in kdp. So I guess that's something they might look out. And the other thing I notice is as tails. But I mean you have to, to listen blooming heart to hear these and really be on the alert for them is emphasis on the wrong syllable. So one I heard was like salt pans rather than salt pans or hot to the touch rather than hot to the touch. So it might just slightly misplace the emphasis in a phrase and that. But I mean I listened to your book, I think your clone's Voice cologne is absolutely amazing. That's a higher end 11 lab voice clone.

Jules Horne (28:01)

Yes.

Kristin Tate (28:01)

Yeah, it sounds absolutely uncanny. I mean, your voice timbre and inflections in your voice are just amazing. All I could hear very occasionally was a slight mis emphasis of something like salt pans rather than salt pans. It's that kind of thing. But that was the tell for me. But otherwise I don't think I'd have known. So, yeah, it's very interesting.

Jules Horne (28:23)

It is interesting. Well, coming back to what your husband thought, like, is that a robot voice?

Joanna Penn (28:28)

Sometimes I will be.

Jules Horne (28:29)

In fact, I did this just the other week. I listened to a sample of someone and I thought, oh, I quite like his voice. And it was the author actually with the author doing. And then after a bit, maybe even half an hour, I was like, I can't even listen to this anymore. So I feel like the level of judgment that we have for human narration is also pretty similar. So as you mentioned there, the wrong emphasis. I listened and directed almost every single line of that book, Death Valley. And we, Simon Patrick, who helped do it, and we worked really hard. And so it's very interesting because it may have been if I had narrated that myself as a human, that I would have said the same emphasis and that you would have thought that was different. And when we're proof listening to humans, these things come up, don't they? There's always things that you might disagree with in terms of the way things are said.

Kristin Tate (29:20)

Absolutely. And there are natural inflections in certain kinds of accents which might be indistinguishable from the way that an AI would say. So it might have a downward pattern or that thing that in lots of British English now people have that going.

Jules Horne (29:34)

Up at the end that comes from the Americans.

Kristin Tate (29:36)

Ah, does it? Okay, okay. So I mean, that's an inflection. That's in some areas. But I mean, how much would you know, say, as a Scottish speaker, As a speaker of Scots, I wouldn't know whether that accent, which is a South Carolina accent or something, is authentic or not. And I think if you're at a distance from the accent that the book is read in, you probably couldn't tell. I mean, some of the Scottish accents, for example, because I'm really close to it. I'm finding, ooh, that doesn't sound very authentic. But a lot of American accents, accents, I really wouldn't know where it was or whether it was authentic or not. And I think conversely, that would happen with them in British accents. So it's all about context really. And often I've heard that if people are primed to hear this, if people are primed that it's AI, then they listen in a different way to not knowing. So I think the blur is just something that's going to get more and more blurry.

Jules Horne (30:31)

Yeah, I agree. And as you say labeling things and I label everything so people will know whether or not it's, it's human me or voice clone me. But I get exactly what you say. And I also feel like people have different expectations of what they want from audio. So you mentioned their BBC radio dramas that you've been involved with. Now the expectation is an incredibly high quality human, possibly famous actors in that kind of production. And compare that to me out for a walk, listening to, to a non fiction book on Spotify, walking near the busy road or something. I mean, I have a completely different expectation of the content and the production than the BBC radio drama. So there's different levels, aren't there?

Kristin Tate (31:17)

You're listening in different ways and you're listening for different reasons and there are different genres. You might be listening for information or for entertainment. And these things will change how you listen. And I think a lot of audiobooks narrated by AI are more towards non fiction, which seems to me a kind of sensible use when people are listening for information. Why does it have to be a very kind of highly performed kind of voice, a highly characterized kind of voice. Whereas if you've got a novel, really lively characterization, you want to hear that spoken in a particular way and really if it leaps off the page, you want it to leap off in the audio experience as well. So I think they're very different concepts, contexts.

Jules Horne (32:00)

Well then also to ask you, like again, the radio drama, there's the multi cast production, maybe with sound effects. And this is something that for indie authors has been almost entirely impossible because of the expense and the technical skill you really need to do to edit like a multicast radio drama. So what are your thoughts on multicast multi voice with AI? Is that going to make it more accessible to people?

Kristin Tate (32:30)

I think yeah, I guess it's. I guess it's open to experiment and to people trying these things out because these are sort of new kind of new possibilities that are coming in and people may try those things. I really am interested in what that might mean for radio drama because that definitely means huge implications for actor jobs, which is a massive concern. And you're seeing in film more people, you know, people using avatars and people using sets differently sort of artificial sets. So it's really quite seismic throughout the creative industries. I think for indie authors it is kind of an opportunity to try some things out. I don't know whether many people have yet tried that multivoice with AI voices, but things like the voice change are quite transformative. It's really fun to actually try that out because with that you get the expressiveness and the inflections of your own emotion across. So this, the spacing and the kind of intensity are in there. But you can change the timbre and the kind of voice quality that's, that's really interesting, I think that combination. And I wonder if indie authors and indeed producers, maybe in the radio dramasphere might be starting to experiment with that kind of thing. It certainly gives you the option of a massive cast, which you wouldn't be able to do, I guess. You know, in film you've got CGI and in some ways people have been able to build crowd scenes that they wouldn't have been able to do. They wouldn't have the budget to do the set. This will be the mill thing. And what are the options then in the sound world? It's really interesting time.

Jules Horne (34:02)

Yeah, it is. And I mean, I can see for example, maybe you keep the big name actors because they're the ones that, you know the headlines on the Audible extra you see the, the big actor names. But then there might be, I know 20 other voices in the production, right. That perhaps somebody would have just only narrated a couple of lines of, I don't know, the police person coming to the door or something like that. So I, I, I think they're, at the moment it's sort of this whole book is AI narrated or this whole book is human. But I can see a sort of hybrid approach with the multi cast type production.

Kristin Tate (34:39)

I can. But actually I think it'd be technically a really a real pain to edit and an actor with an actor's versatility and different sort of performance skills. I mean, I think there's a bit of a difference for me between a trained actor with massive performance skills, which are just, you know, it's just brilliant to hear, and someone who's maybe got beautiful voice but hasn't got the performance background for a novel. I think I'd be looking for that narrator every time. And I just think actually they'll do a superb job of that. And part of the interest for the listener is also hearing like you're Stephen Fry or actors who have got that kind of really engaging versatility and a lovely voice. I just think that's That's a good, really, really a more immersive and engaging and compelling experience for me. So I think that I don't think it'll ever quite go there and I think actors will actually do it more effectively. It's just that it does cost a lot more. But then your editing costs, your production cost I think would be quite high. Doing multi voice with short fire dialogue, that kind of thing, I think that would be quite epic to achieve.

Jules Horne (35:47)

But again, I think that might be now. But also, I would say, I mean, there's already famous people like licensing their voices of also Dead estates. So you mentioned Stephen Fry, who is still alive as we record this and as you say, wonderful, wonderful writer, actor, voice talent, all of that. But is it likely that Stephen Fry will license his voice or that his heirs and successors will license his voice after he dies? I often think of David Attenborough here. I mean, you and I, oh, gosh, we would know David Attenborough, who again is still alive as we record this. But he's pretty old dude. And his voice is super famous, isn't it? It certainly does. As British people and Scottish people, it's like this voice is iconic. I cannot see how the BBC won't be trying to license Attenborough's voice.

Kristin Tate (36:33)

Oh, God, that's a terrible thought. I can't imagine him doing it. I think he'd be horrified if his estate and sort of family did it because that would be such a betrayal. I don't know.

Joanna Penn (36:43)

But he will live on.

Kristin Tate (36:45)

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how he'll live on in his wonderful program. So I don't know if he has that need. But I guess some people are going there and considering I did spot one on 11 labs, which was somebody who had licensed their voice, who does a lot of audio online and.

Jules Horne (36:59)

Yeah, well, like 11 Labs has Laurence Olivier, Deepak Chopra, I mean, Maya Angelou.

Kristin Tate (37:06)

Wow. I haven't come across. Oh, yeah, they really got really famous.

Joanna Penn (37:11)

Yeah.

Jules Horne (37:12)

But Reynolds, I'm just looking now. Richard Feynman, I mean, they've got these iconic voices now. They've got John Wayne.

Kristin Tate (37:20)

Oh, my goodness, I'm shocked. Oh, my. Would John Wayne make of that?

Joanna Penn (37:23)

What would Lawrence Olivier make of this? I mean, this is the thing, I think it's very hard.

Jules Horne (37:28)

And we have these getting it, I think, because we are the people we are at the time we're living. But you fast forward a decade and goodness knows this will be either completely normal or. Or what? I don't know. But it is a very interesting time.

Joanna Penn (37:44)

Right?

Kristin Tate (37:45)

Yeah. I've certainly had my mind blown by listening to some of these voices and understanding what's possible. It's just. It is really my mind blowing.

Jules Horne (37:55)

Right. Well, regardless of whether we work with human narrators or AI narration where we actually have to direct the AI, we still need to keep in mind principles around writing. For audio. It's literally not a case of here's the existing book that is in text and it will just be perfect in audio. So let's start with non fiction. What are some of the things we need to keep in mind if we are trying to adapt a non fiction book into audio?

Kristin Tate (38:24)

Well, I think for non fiction the main thing is there are lots of visual elements that are in non fiction books like graphs and layout features and header hierarchies and that kind of thing. So for that you need to find some kind of workaround such as maybe one of these upload PDF uploads or just cut these elements. I think you need to look very carefully at what are the visual elements that don't translate well into audio. And numbers are another thing that's a little bit tricky because they're hard to take take in. Your brain just doesn't hold. I think it's more than five or seven things at one time. As you know, with phone numbers it can be quite tricky. So there are certain radio conventions like rounding up and down and also things in radio like the somebody's job before somebody's name, that kind of thing. Like the company boss, Fred blogs rather than Fred blogs the company boss. Because we take the kind of context in best first and then go into the details. I think context and details are useful concept in audio writing just generally. And other techniques that are really good are forward flagging. So up next you'll hear that a lot in radio. So people are a bit better oriented and then backward flagging. So we've just heard about say wombats and now we're moving on to koala bears. And so that kind of structuring and giving signals so that people are better oriented. I think that's pretty important in non fiction in particular.

Jules Horne (39:47)

Yeah, you mentioned their lists of numbers. I go further and say lists in terms of general. Sometimes I'll be listening to an audiobook and there's clearly in the text it will be a list of bullet points. But the way it's read sometimes just doesn't work. So sometimes I think rewriting lists into a more coherent paragraph can work. And I guess it's the overall point of you're adapting for audio, so sometimes you will actually have to write, rewrite sections of things.

Kristin Tate (40:14)

Yeah, absolutely. And I think what I've found more productive just over the years is writing audio first and then I don't have to spend time doing that work of rewriting because I did find that I needed an awful lot of cats and some rejigging, as you say there. And I actually now write audio first and then I don't have to do that editing. So that was an evolution of my writing process certainly.

Jules Horne (40:39)

But what do you mean by that? So when you're saying I write audio first, what do you mean?

Kristin Tate (40:44)

I read it aloud. I always read it out loud as I'm writing and test it for will it work on air. And so I'm writing it as a kind of performance and just the sentences are shorter. I won't use really awkward words. I'll make sure the order of information's right just so that it unfolds well for the listener. There's things like mental backflips where things like asides, they're a bit trickier with audio, so I'll probably avoid that kind of structure. So yeah, definitely reading it aloud. And to be honest, I think that that actually improves your writing anyway because I think it gives it more clarity and I just find that has been helpful for me as an editor. So yeah, that's what I do now as a matter of course.

Jules Horne (41:27)

And I think also like for me, I often use a lot of references in my non fiction books in at the end of the chapter and part of my adaptation is really just removing a lot from the narration. So some people are quite religious, they're like, well no, you have to read every single line that's in the ebook. And I'm like, well no you don't actually. It's not even a. And what abridged. If you don't do things like the resource lists or the appendix appendices and stuff like that, as you mentioned, you can do a download PDF or, or whatever, but it's almost like removing things like that or endnotes, that kind of thing.

Kristin Tate (42:04)

Yeah, exactly, because they're not going to make very compelling audio. They're just going to sound like that long lists of things. And rels are terrible as well. So that kind of thing. It's great to just put those into a PDF which most of the platforms I think now have, you know, can have an upgrade upload which adds value as well to what you're providing for the readers. So I think that's A really legitimate way to solve that.

Jules Horne (42:26)

Although as a listener, I never ever, ever download the PDF or look at the PDF.

Kristin Tate (42:31)

True. But we know it's there, so it's. If anyone does want to.

Jules Horne (42:34)

Yeah, yeah. And also on URLs, if there are URLs, you do want to say I use pretty links on my site to make an easy to say, easy to read URL as opposed to the sort of super, super long one. But generally I use guess it's again, it's hard to listen to and unless someone's taking notes, it doesn't really matter anyway, does it?

Kristin Tate (42:53)

Yeah, and a good call. And WWW is so hard to say. So you can just take that bit off and just say your site name dot com. You don't need to have the WW That's. That's already saving you loads of syllables.

Jules Horne (43:07)

Yes. And actually, well, that's an interesting thing around the human narration versus AI narration. So with human narration it's so funny because sometimes I will pick up things on a human narration, whether it's or another professional, and I will have read a different word, even a word that's not there. Or I would never have said WWW out loud because I just assume it. It wouldn't be read. But of course AI narration, it is going to read every single thing.

Kristin Tate (43:35)

It would be really literal. Absolutely.

Jules Horne (43:37)

So you do have to take it away. I will add there one of the benefits in inverted commas is if there is a mispronunciation across the whole book, you only have to change it once with AI and it will. Will update the whole thing.

Kristin Tate (43:49)

Oh, that's very handy. So character names and all that kind of thing.

Joanna Penn (43:53)

Yeah, exactly.

Jules Horne (43:54)

Yeah, that is super useful. Okay, so again, let's come back to fiction then. If we're writing for audio first, what are some tips for fiction?

Kristin Tate (44:02)

I think some of these points are general for whether it's fiction or nonfiction. So things like order of information and clarity and not overloading so that there's too much for the listener to take in at once. I think I remember in the context that people are listening in rather than reading reading, they're very often doing something else and they're very often in the car or there might be noises in the background or they might be rushing around doing jobs in the house. So it really needs to be very clear. So you can't emphasize that enough. I think some kinds of fiction are more reflective and maybe we have lots of long sentences and they have that kind of vibe. Long sentences can be hard for a Human narrator to read really effectively. So look at the length of sentences. And I did write some. I did hear some plays being read in my early days. And it was quite horrendous because I realized my sentences, I mean, the actors couldn't breathe. You know, they were getting to the end of a sentence. It's kind of. And you realize. So I think that's. That's a really useful tip for fiction. So that reading out loud tip, I think is really important. And I think also you can maybe cut some of the things like he said, she said. So depending on whether it's a kind of straight narration of a novel or a character performance style of audiobook, there's different sort of genres. Even within fiction readings. You might be able to cut some of the scaffolding, which is he said, she said and that kind of thing.

Jules Horne (45:29)

Yeah. And in fact, one of the most annoying things as a listener is the repetition of words or sounds. And a lot of early writing advice was, oh, just use he said, she said. Always, you said. Because it disappears on the page and it might disappear to the eyes, but it doesn't disappear to the ear. So as you say, get rid of he said, she said, use like action tags like Morgan, walk to the window and then start speaking. Doesn't have to say, use the word said. You can use action. So I think that's really important, but just on your breathing. So another editing tip for audio I found with AI audio is add. You just add in more punctuation. So it might be incorrect punctuation according according to written editorial. But it's punctuation that helps with the direction of the AI audio.

Kristin Tate (46:20)

Absolutely. I do that as markup in a script anyway. And you wouldn't put that in the written and printed form. But I used to use a lot of slashes and things and extra commas religiously to make sure the breathing was clear. So I would absolutely do that for an audiobook. And then if you go into the studio, if you're reading your own, it might not be the same as your printed book, but I would have a version where all those things are in there. It saves you a lot of. Of time later on. It saves you fluffing quite a lot. And I think the other thing that's really, I think, important for fiction is where you land in sentences. So there's kind of real estate within sentences. It sounds like a bizarre concept, but they're kind of real estate, which is more kind of salient, which includes the beginnings and ends of sentences. So sometimes I Used to read student fiction and quite often something like the murder weapon might be buried in the middle of a paragraph and slightly go wonder. Whereas if you kind of build up to something and then it's the knife and that's kind of resonant marks. It's something from poetry. The use of lines and the use of where things land can be really powerful on air. So it's really worth thinking about that when you're writing, using those powerful places because they give such clarity to what's going on and make it easier to follow.

Jules Horne (47:34)

Yeah, I actually think that people have to be living listeners in order to understand this. As in if you don't listen to audiobooks now and then you're trying to make an audiobook say, I think it. You need to be listening in order to understand what's. What Sounds good almost.

Kristin Tate (47:53)

Yeah, I think, I think that. Absolutely. I think you have to do your research and listen to books in your genre and get a feel for it and really look closely at the writing. I think I learn a lot from reading writers really closely and working out what they're doing, what tricks are they using, what techniques are they using. And I think that's a really valuable thing for getting into audiobook audio first writing to really look closely at what's going on there and see what effects are being used.

Jules Horne (48:20)

Well, I also just wanted to mention that again, as we record this, it's not out, but the ElevenLabs version 3v3 is going to have this direction available in square brackets. So you can say whispers and the. The dialogue will be whispered as opposed to. You don't have to say she whispered. It's. You can direct the voice within the text. So that is going to be hopefully available, I guess let's say autumn 2025 maybe. But I mean, that's certainly going to be interesting.

Kristin Tate (48:52)

Yeah, it sounds really. It sounds really interesting. It reminds me a bit of music where you have in the annotation for music, the notes and then you have an extra layer on top which is, well, here's the expression and what's emph sized and what goes loud and what goes soft. So it's kind of aligned to that. So I think that's a really interesting development.

Jules Horne (49:11)

Yeah. And I think the other thing I've heard about is again, at the moment we're talking about doing a lot of direction and doing that in the text. But essentially at some point you should just be able to upload a book and it should be able to act that way and do all of that itself, I think there'll be a lot more tools and help with it. I don't know. What do you think?

Kristin Tate (49:35)

Well, I'm not sure about that. I'm a bit skeptical about that because I just think human performance has got lots of expressive possibilities that I don't see AI easily being able to reproduce. So I'm kind of on that fence at the moment. But also knowing how much things are changing, it's really hard to tell. What I noticed in 11 labs is that you have these sliders. I thought that was really intriguing that there are different sliders which you can move different parameters. So it's not just a case that you have that voice and that's what you work with. You can also tweak it and have it low, high intensity and kind of change things. So it's interesting what you were saying about working with your producer there and the degree of control that you have within that, which I think people are maybe not aware of. I certainly wasn't that it's not just a case of uploading it and there it is. But there are lots of tweaks you can do on, on the way. So yeah, it'd be interesting to, to know more about that.

Jules Horne (50:29)

Yeah, I mean total spectrum I think of what you can do in audio and I think that's what I've always said. I mean what I would like is the sort of the stratification of audio rights is what I say, where you can license a book for human narration and you can license a book for AI narration and then multicast. And so it's not just one thing, you can have different variations and then different, different price points as well. Because people expect to pay more for a multicast human actor audio than they do for AI narration.

Kristin Tate (50:59)

Yeah, I think that's similar to what's happening in books that that sort of special add ons and special formats that are really sort of artisanal and that kind of thing are command a premium price. So I think similarly with audio that may happen there as well.

Jules Horne (51:17)

So I just want to pick up there. You said artisanal was. I would say artisanal. And this is a classic case of two humans actually pronouncing a word differently. And that also speaks to how difficult it is to direct a human or an AI.

Kristin Tate (51:33)

Absolutely. Yeah. The same word pronounced differently by different people in different countries.

Joanna Penn (51:38)

Yeah, I think that's, that's brilliant.

Jules Horne (51:40)

I mean even though we're technically in different countries, we're still pretty close to each other compared to someone who Might live across the other side of the world.

Kristin Tate (51:47)

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a really interesting consideration in audiobooks for lesser known languages or lesser known dialects because it's an opportunity to maybe hear them more or voice clones could be used for that kind of thing and maybe give more airing to lesser known dialects. So maybe more variety in the kinds of audiobooks that people can produce.

Jules Horne (52:09)

Yeah. And in fact, when I was at Frankfurt Book Fair a few years ago, I heard gone Ghanaian publisher and she was basically saying, look, you lot are all discussing this about English language audiobook production. You have this developed market, you have all the structural stuff that you need to have a really strong audiobook culture. And we don't have that. And now we're going to build it. And so this is the point again in English language we have a long history of doing this. So a lot of people in the industry, but there are countries where there's, there's nothing in their native languages. So I think this is another opportunity as you say.

Kristin Tate (52:43)

Absolutely. I think that's an awesome opportunity. I think that's been the same, it's been the same with books as well. I think access to the means of production is really opening up things for people and I think that will just give such, such great variety for listeners and I think that's only positive.

Jules Horne (52:59)

Well, I guess before we finish you, you're obviously an author and you also produce a audiobooks. So how do you recommend authors try and sell more books in audio? What are some of the ways that you market your audiobooks?

Kristin Tate (53:15)

Well at the moment that's not too easy because I'm with Audible solely and it's usually on the back of the print and ebooks. So what I would do is advertise that through Amazon and get some audiobook sales on the back of that. Sometimes I've given out QR codes and that of kind kind of thing. But by and large they're just advertising on my site and I use the marketing via. Via Amazon ads. But I'm hoping that there will be more chance of audiobook direct advertising in future because that will make a huge difference. And one thing I've never done, which I'm interested. I think you do that Joanna, that there it's possible to sell books on your own website as well.

Jules Horne (53:53)

Yeah.

Kristin Tate (53:53)

And some authors are withdrawing from being with Amazon and only selling their audiobook. Some. Yeah, some authors have taken it into their own hands. So there is that possibility as well. And Book Funnel lets you do that. So services like Book Funnel let you have your kind of fans that maybe want to buy your books and buy direct.

Jules Horne (54:13)

Yes, it is actually, I think it is the most profitable way to sell audiobooks, especially in bundles. So for example, at creativepennbooks.com you can buy bundles of my audiobooks and so you get a good deal and I get more profit and I get paid immediately. And so yeah, I think if you go wide to me, funny now when people say, oh, going wide. To me going wide means having your own store plus all the other things as well, where it's like you can't do bundling on Audible because, well, you certainly wouldn't want to because of the credit system. So yeah, it is interesting. But of course if you go non exclusive with Audible, your royalty drops precipitously. So it is, it's definitely a choice, but it certainly can be done. Okay, fantastic. So tell people where authors can find you and your book online.

Kristin Tate (55:03)

Where I'm online is at www.method-writing.com and you can buy my ebook and print books there. And my audiobooks are on Amazon.

Jules Horne (55:14)

Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Jules. That was great.

Kristin Tate (55:17)

Thanks for having me, Joanne. It's a pleasure.

Joanna Penn (55:23)

So I hope you found the discussion with Jules interesting. And a few tips for writing for audio and especially as a different perspective to the interview with Simon last Friday, which was a bit more technical about elevenlabs. So let me know what you think of today's episode. Leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel, or email me joannathecreativepenn.com Send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. Next Monday I'm talking to the lovely Ines Johnson about page turner, pacing and multiple streams of income. And Inez is such an enthusiastic writer and businesswoman. So I'm excited to bring that interview to you next week. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show notes@thecreativepen.com podcast and you can get your free Author blueprint@thecreativepenn.com.

Jules Horne (56:24)

If you'd like.

Joanna Penn (56:24)

To connect, you can find me on Facebook and X at the Creative Pen or on Instagram and Facebook Fpenauthor. Happy writing and I'll see you next time.