24 - AI Narration in Publishing with Louise Meyer-Schoenherr from ElevenLabs

In this episode of Brave New Bookshelf, we are joined by Louise Meyer-Schoenherr from Eleven Labs, a pioneering company in the field of AI-driven audiobook production. Dive into the fascinating world of audio narration as Louise discusses how Eleven Labs is transforming the publishing industry with their cutting-edge technology that makes high-quality, contextually aware speech accessible to authors and publishers alike. Discover how their mobile and web apps open new possibilities for content creation and distribution, allowing anyone to turn text into immersive audio experiences. Visit our website https://bravenewbookshelf.com to view the full episode notes, links and apps mentioned in the episode, and the full transcript.

[00:00:00] Welcome to Brave New Bookshelf, a podcast that explores the fascinating intersection of AI and authorship. Join hosts, Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite, as they dive into thought provoking discussions, debunk myths, and highlight the transformative role of AI in the publishing industry.

**Steph Pajonas:** Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Brave New Bookshelf. I'm one of your co hosts, Steph Pajonas, CTO and COO of the Future Fiction Academy, where we teach authors how to use AI in any part of their business. It's coming up on the end of October here, 2024 in the States, and it's looking very beautiful outside.

Quite unexpectedly, I usually expect it to be snowing by this time, but instead it's almost 80 degrees. So I'm going to go outside and enjoy that later while I listen to some audiobooks. And that's a little clue as to who we might be having on today, but I'm going to be passing off to my lovely co host, as always, Danica.

Danica Favorite, how are you? 

**Danica Favorite:** , I'm [00:01:00] Danica Favorite. I am the Community Manager at PublishDrive, where we seek to partner with authors on every stage of their publishing journey. So, from helping you create the metadata, And descriptions for your books to formatting your book to distributing your book, and then of course doing your ads and getting your book royalties shared and split, we can help you with all of that.

Very great to have every stage of that author journey covered as well as we can. And of course, Steph and Future Fiction Academy helps authors learn to write the books. So, with this podcast, you should pretty much get everything you need. 

**Steph Pajonas:** This is like soup to nuts, right?

Books to all the way to publishing. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah. And so, Speaking of getting everything you need, today's guest, I'm super excited about. I think that when Steph and I started conceptualizing the podcast and talking about, well, who would dream guests be? And what would like, things that we really want to have on the podcast be?[00:02:00] 

We really talked about other businesses, other industries, and a lot of authors already use this service and then there are people who are curious and want more. And so I am thrilled today to be able to introduce you to Louise from Eleven Labs. 

We have Eleven Labs here today. So grateful for that because I know a lot of people in the AI authors group on Facebook have talked about using 11 labs, talked about their success with 11 labs.

And so we actually have them here today. We get to talk to Louise and hear more about 11 labs and what they do and how they can help authors. But I'm not going to continue waxing poetic. I'm going to let Louise go ahead and tell us a little about 11 Labs, what they do and all of that good stuff.

And of course, Louise, please tell us about yourself. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** Yes. Thank you so much for having me. And I think it's so great what you're doing. And I think today's also definitely a time for a lot of learnings for myself [00:03:00] and everything you see in the space. Quickly recapping I'm with 11 Labs. Since almost a year now, I've joined a company kind of from the outside following its incredible success and unbelievable audio quality.

And at some point couldn't resist, but join and I'm now actually working on our mobile app. It's a new consumer app, which is live on iOS and Android. Where we actually allow anyone to narrate text with one of our high quality voices and are starting to also work with content publishers and authors and to actually find a new direct pathway for their content and audio.

So very excited to share more. And dive into the conversation.

**Danica Favorite:** That is great. I am really excited to hear that. For those of you who don't know 11 Labs does a lot of great audio books and has a lot of great narration for audio books using AI tools. That is fantastic for us because so many [00:04:00] authors have said they can't do audio because of cost and things like that.

And Eleven Labs is so reasonable, I think, in their cost and production and very, very high quality. 

So, I'm really happy that we have this opportunity for authors. One of the things Louise was telling us about when we were talking beforehand is that we've got the Reader app, the one that's going to be the mobile app, but then we've also got the web based app.

And so, a couple of different tools that are available to authors and to readers. Louise, why don't you tell us about those two different products and what the differences are and how people can access those. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** Yes, definitely. So the first one, let's start with the product. Like this is what 11Labs is all about.

The generation of speech that is contextually aware and really, really high quality. So that is working from the input of text and then the generation of speech through one of our voices. You can select over a library of [00:05:00] 3000 voices today, or even use your own voice through voice cloning to actually generate texts.

And that can happen in the shorter form or that can happen in the longer form, would that be the audio books, for example. So we do have. different methods to actually access our technology. The one is directly kind of developers. People are building products around our technology and the other is directly accessible through our website.

And specifically for authors, we offer a workflow called projects. Projects actually allows you to upload an EPUB or a manuscript that you have in Word. So it allows a lot of different formats and will take you right into our audio editor where you convert the book into speech, and then you can take creative control.

You can listen to the speech that our generator has created for you. Maybe you want it to sound a little bit different so you can go in regeneration. Maybe you want to [00:06:00] add multiple speakers so you can actually go to our voice libraries. Maybe we want a British woman together with Australian men and kind of create a narrative for whatever you have written in your book and make an audio version thereof.

And we try to make it really easy so anybody can actually use it, experiment. I think for many authors this is also maybe the first time they hear the book or the written in audio form and it can of course be the finished product but it can also be part of the writing process. That's what we're also hearing.

Some people just want to hear back their stories and see how it is to actually hear them and others want to create a finished product and really go creative. And with our tool, it gives you the infrastructure. You can really. Go into the details and have everything exactly how you want, or you can a bit more pragmatic approach, convert your audio and you're good to go.

That is the platform side. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I just want to [00:07:00] say that I've cloned my own voice. I thought it was really very fun and a little Like, whoa, that, that actually does sound like me at one of those moments. And that is really exciting though, for people, especially if you've always dreamt of narrating your own audio book, you don't have the setup at home for it, you know, I've got kids running around or dogs barking or whatever it may be .

You can go ahead and clone your own voice and do that instead. It's one of the things I love most about your product. It's very cool. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** That's really nice to hear. And we're hoping to add a lot of voices to our voice library. We have great voice actors. We actually, we do also pay out our voice actors, which I wanted to highlight.

So there's a whole community is working and we actually crossed a million dollars in payouts this month, which makes us really proud and I'm very happy to have all this amazing voice actors on board. 

**Danica Favorite:** I think that's fantastic. I'm glad you highlighted that because I know that there are people in the community that have that as a concern.

And so to [00:08:00] realize that you've paid voice actors over a million dollars, I think that's really impressive, and I hope that people take note of that and realize that what you guys are doing is so fantastic because I was listening to that I didn't realize you had over 3000 voice options like, wow, I remember back when you had a few, but then when you said 3000 my mind would just went.

**Steph Pajonas:** I think I've been an 11 labs member for over a year or two closer, maybe closer to two years. And when you started, I think you had like three, very, very small. And I kept waiting to be like, Oh, and then they got some more, more accents and they got some more languages. And then all of a sudden it was like, boom, so many.

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** Exactly. And especially like for the languages and accents, we are working on integrating really, really detailed filtering so that you can actually find what you're looking for. And we also see that voice accents actually, they submit different versions of their voice depending on kind of [00:09:00] the mood or an accent.

So, this creative control and this level of granularity. I think that's really exciting for a lot of creatives out there. 

**Danica Favorite:** For sure. I think that is something that for a lot of creatives listening to this, they're going to be like, wait, I didn't know that. That's amazing. Because I hear all the time in different writing groups.

Well, you know, I want to do the male and the female voice. How do I do that? And To be able to say, 11 labs has got you and they've got over 3000 voices with which you can do it. I think that makes it so powerful and it really does make those stories come to life. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** And I think one interesting aspect is you can start really testing with our product.

You can say, does this sound how I envisioned it to be? And maybe you can switch around the audio, and really find a narrator that clicks for you without maybe having a strict plan that you cannot deviate anymore, but it's like more of a testing, getting feedback and feeling what is right for you.

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, that is great. I love [00:10:00] that. And that is the web app. Let's hear more about your mobile app. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** Definitely. So our mobile app is actually for anyone. Not only for people that are looking to generate audio, but also for anyone that wants to consume audio and listen to it. The very first version of the reader app was actually enabled for user generated content that you could type something, or you could upload a PDF that you would need to read for work.

And listen to it with one of our voices and also there, you would have access to the voice library. So you could really choose what your favorite narrating voice is. For me, this really sometimes also depends of the time of day. Like sometimes I like it to be a bit faster. In the evenings, a bit kind of more slower. more soothing. So within the text, you can just switch and have this flexibility in there. 

We do have a set of iconic voices, that are only available in the reader app . For example, James Dean or [00:11:00] Judy Garland that you can have narrate your books or, for example, very exciting collaboration is also with Deepak Chopra. He does meditations. And so you can listen actually to his meditations that he's wrote exclusively for app on the app in his voice and also to your own meditation that you might want to create. 

But back to the story of the app. So we launched the app to allow anyone to upload content and listen to it. And then thought, we want to open actually this ecosystem. We want to, on the one hand, allow consumer to explore great content, but on the other hand, something we saw is that even though we are going towards a product which helps authors and publishers to make AI audiobooks and the tools, therefore the distribution channels are not yet as mature as we would want them to be for example.

So we [00:12:00] also want to open the app as gateway for this type of narrator content to reach its consumers. Any author or publisher can go direct and can actually make their work available on the app. 

The core features the app has, it has one section where you can still upload any type of content. It has one section where you can explore new content. We have a couple of books already on there. And we have actually a few self published authors already on there that you can explore.

The third level is actually the voices where you can access our full voice library and really find the one that's right for you and then yeah, bring it all together and you have really a new audio product that lets you narrate any type of text.

**Steph Pajonas:** That's super cool. I love the fact that you guys have thought about the consumer, especially there's just so much information out there, right? And we only have a limited amount of time to be sitting down and actually reading, like [00:13:00] viewing words with our eyes. Right. But then there's all of this time that we spend in the car or walking or whatever it may be.

And you want to listen to something instead. And, Not everybody wants to listen to audio books. Not everybody wants to listen to a podcast. Sometimes they just want to hear that news article that they were working on. So this is great because it gives them a chance to switch modalities and try listening instead.

And I think that that's a really great way to come into that market. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** That's exactly what we're hearing. And also how I experienced kind of the app usage. Especially then when just going outside walking and just want to get your eyes off the screen a little bit. And the good thing is it does have a highlight of the text so you can follow exactly where you are in the text and just switch if you want to go back to reading.

So kind of combining the text with the narration in the app, it's really up to you. You can do both. The narration piece really gives content that hasn't [00:14:00] traditionally been in the audio space, either because it hasn't been voiced or maybe an audio book wasn't produced, can be audio today.

It can be part of the audio world without any other barriers for it to enter it. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah. I wanted to go back to something you said earlier about 11 Labs and your voices that they're contextually aware, right? The entire text helps the voice and the tone and the mood of the voice to come through based on what it is reading in the text.

And that's something that a lot of people don't realize is the new wave of audio and voices. It's not just a robot saying things at the same tone all the way through. The voice actually modulates and you get a very, real feeling to it. It is amazing to see how it has come in the last couple of years.

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** I will tell this to the fantastic researching team that has made this all possible. And I'm myself [00:15:00] impressed every day, I must say of how well, and if the voices carry the emotion, especially if you're looking into long form content. This is an eight hour audiobook you potentially want to listen to.

You need this type of emotional range to stay engaged and to really enjoy that book in a way. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Absolutely. That's really, really important. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah. That's so true. I got into audiobooks way back when you had to check out the big container from the library and play them. And, you know, that's what kept us awake and going on road trips.

When they moved to some of those robotic voices, it was like, yeah, this is not going to keep me awake. This is going to put me to sleep. I love now still to this day, getting a really good audio book and going on a road trip. And that time, it just kind of flies. And even booking my trip to go to Budapest here in December. I love having a good audio book cause it just passes that time. 

But again, you've got to [00:16:00] have that good range of voices. Like Steph was saying about the improvements that even 11 Labs have done from day one until now, it just is pretty mind blowing because it really does make audio accessible to everyone.

I have a daughter who's got some processing issues and some learning disabilities. And for her, audiobooks are really what saved her, being able to finish school and all of that. She wouldn't have done that without audiobooks.

I think about that now. And you know, this kid, every time you see her, she's got a little earpiece in and it's an audio book she's listening to. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** That's good. That's really good actually. And exactly how you said, like, Adding audio to text makes it accessible and like expanding into a mission.

The next thing that really drives us accessibility is then the language of being able to access things in your native language maybe, or another language. So that barrier doesn't exist. anymore, as well. [00:17:00] 

**Steph Pajonas:** It's like that Star Trek universal translator. I just, we're so close. We're so close to being able to do that. And that's super exciting for, for a sci fi nerd like me. I really, I love the fact that you're able to do a lot of these translations almost like in real time.

It's super amazing. I'm excited about all that you guys are going to be doing. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** Yes, actually, it was pretty moving. I had one of our customers, it's a newspaper outlet in Germany. They have a podcast and it's about a war reporter that really goes into a very critical zones of the world.

And he reports in English. He has very unique insights that might not have been accessible to the broader world. So Being able to translate this and carry the emotions in the English language, incredible. But then also talking to his close friends that don't speak German and are so excited to finally understand what he's all about.

That's like the personal stories [00:18:00] that also stick, but I don't want to derail to podcasting because I want to stay with authors and publishers. And one thing I wanted to highlight is with the mobile app offering a new gateway for authors and publishers to go direct, which essentially means that we'd want to have a self publishing arm where our community or anyone interested in joining could actually upload their books and publish them to the app to either gain readership to sell it for whatever the motive is and actually have an audio narration in place.

So this is something that we're working on and we're super excited about, and hopefully it will get us some interest for it. Yeah, sharing this kind of very new plans. I'm also very curious to hear your thoughts on actually like this ecosystem. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah, I'm personally very excited about the idea of doing like a direct publishing to your platform because I was talking to Louise before we started, I have a ton of books and I [00:19:00] do not have the time to put them into audio books myself, either as a human narrated or AI generated. I'm just a very, very busy person, as you can probably imagine. So I'm hoping that this sort of workflow would work really well for authors, especially if they're short on time or they really want to embrace this new technology and move forward in this space instead.

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** Thank you for sharing it. As we're setting this all up, what do you think we should definitely know and consider when opening up this ecosystem? 

**Steph Pajonas:** I think authors especially they want like a very wide variety of voices and accents. You might want to go into a few author communities and see what people are looking for. Sometimes it'll be something very esoteric. I want someone with a Western Australian accent and you're like, I don't even know what that sounds like. Sometimes those are the kinds of things that they're looking for.

Especially male, female and, [00:20:00] you know, middle range sounding voices, definitely. What else can I think of? I think that a lot of them also want to do multicast, so, you know, have a female voice for a female part and a male voice for a male part, those sorts of things. I think those are the biggest ones I can think of.

What about you, Danica? Can you think of any? 

**Danica Favorite:** I was just thinking that I mean part of it is being able to push that so called easy button like the easier you can make it for authors, the better because I think what has been the barrier to entry for a lot of authors is how difficult it is. And I know 11 labs is already super easy, but the easier you can make it the easier you can make that workflow. 

Like Steph was saying with that multicast, I was talking to some authors. Oh gosh, about a month ago, where they were talking that their biggest complaint with getting some audiobook stuff going for themselves is this idea of, this person is American, but this person is German. And so you can't have the book all read in an American accent. You [00:21:00] can't have it all read in a German accent.

And they want it both and for them to have that easy enough. They think it's too hard right now. So can you find an easy way to do that so that you can just boop, boop, boop? Or if some of the fantasy authors with their weird pronunciations and things, they can just go in and say, okay, this is how you say this word. And then it gets it right. 

Because again, like just those little things are what I think really makes that difference for the authors, but also for the reading experience. I think ultimately as authors, part of it's our vision, but part of it is making that reading experience as wonderful as possible for our readers.

**Steph Pajonas:** Another thing that I've heard from authors is that authors are not audio engineers. So sometimes they'll get files back from any one of these AI voice companies, and, they don't know how to turn it into an audiobook. Like, and they don't understand things like room noise or the [00:22:00] floor of the audio.

These sorts of things are really tough for them to wrap their brain around, and they're not even sure what applications they need to produce these things. So I think making it so that part of just the production, if you push a button, yes, it's an audiobook, that would definitely be a big help.

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** Understood. Thank you. Thank you both for raising that point. And I think I'm seeing the same when we're speaking to authors, there's really a range of how much creative control people want to take some that just want to, maybe it's a nonfiction book. They want a simple professional narration, probably a bit easier but then others that exactly how you say, in their creative work, this character has been born in a certain way.

And we will have to also bring it to life in audio in a certain way. That's our goal for sure. And to make it easy because also that's a big part of accessibility for us. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, I love that. And I love that you prioritize accessibility. Because, even just in terms of the audio [00:23:00] book, being accessible, but it's just tech itself.

I think most of us not Steph, because Steph is like the computer genius over here, I am very not tech savvy. And so I get confused and I know a lot of other authors have the same problem I do where they're like, Oh my goodness, this is too hard. I'm just not going to do it. 

And I know some of the publishing process for me, the reason I haven't done as much as I would like, or maybe even should is, oh gosh, this is so hard. I don't have the resources to have someone do it for me. And so now the tools just get easier and easier. We're making this accessible for every author out there. 

I think your pricing structure is fairly reasonable. So it's nice to make sure that accessibility on all spectrums is there for everybody. So I love that. And I love that that's the work you guys are doing. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** And I think this is also a lot of what PublishDrive is doing, right. Making that ability or a [00:24:00] range of offers digestible and to easy tap into new distribution channels, into new tools. And I think it's really great what do you have built. 

**Danica Favorite:** Thank you. I definitely appreciate that. And I know Steph at the Future Fiction Academy, that's also the mission of the Future Fiction Academy as well. All of us believe that people have a story to tell and their story is important.

We want to give them the tools they need to get that story out as wide as possible. Even going back to what you were saying about that correspondent, you're like, well, this isn't really publishers and authors, but it kind of is because it is that idea that everywhere in the world. There are really beautiful and wonderful stories out there.

And we want people to have the tools to tell them whether that is to a journalism piece, whether that's just sitting. Yeah. At a cafe with somebody and having a coffee or having a book, like all of these pieces are that connection that I think is so important. And regardless of whether or [00:25:00] not we're getting that through a human means or through the assistance of AI, what it has the potential to do is bring us all over the world closer together.

And have that world community that I think is beautiful and exciting. So, I'm really grateful for Eleven Labs and all the work you're doing. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** I couldn't have put it any better. This was very beautifully said. And maybe to, to add to that, like, We always try to speak to authors and publishers and listen and try to understand what tools, what products where we help.

The amount of people that have already spoken to me and the community backing and sharing the story needs, it's been incredible. The amount of learnings we were able to make, and I'm really looking forward to continue the dialogue, have experienced just very, very helpful individuals in shaping what's next for AI and publishing.

So that's, we've been a great journey. 

**Danica Favorite:** Oh, that's awesome. So that actually leads me into the questions we ask all of our guests. The [00:26:00] first one is how are you approaching AI and publishing? And obviously we've talked some indirectly about that, but if you have any kind of succinct answer you want to share with our audience, we would love to hear that.

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** On the one hand, we want to give authors and publishers the tools and infrastructure to bring any text to audio or to do exciting things with audio, creating new audio versions. So really being the infrastructure and backbone to any creative production or generation.

And then on the other hand, we want to help authors and publishers to distribute what they actually do with the audio work. and have direct access to users, direct access to voices. And this is what we're doing with the mobile app. So these two core pillars. 

**Danica Favorite:** I think that's awesome. I love that. It is really a pretty succinct approach and mission. That is going to serve you all very well. 

So the next question, and you can interpret it how you want, because we have all kinds of different people who answer the [00:27:00] question, but I'd love to hear about your workflow with AI and that could be your personal workflow or even like what it would look like with 11 Labs. However it makes sense for you to answer that question.

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** I think I, when I look at myself on how I use AI, it's mostly very small tweaks. So I do have a little helper in my email inbox, so I can just type something and then have it check for grammar. That's my favorite one. Check spelling and grammar because I still like to write my own texts, but I want to do it in a nice way.

So this is probably the most apparent one. And then I do also enjoy large language models to just challenge my thinking, to see, did I think of everything? Is there something I'm missing? To see if I can find new inspiration. 

And then I've actually worked so much with our products on actually generating audiobooks ourselves and a lot of dubbing. So to actually translate from English into multiple languages [00:28:00] and really expanding audiences. We have some great partners we're working with that have seen a real growth in where their stories travel. And that's also an interesting space because you get to keep the original, how things were set and tone and the voice.

It's one application area I find very fascinating. And this is my three ways of using AI. If you have any more tips, let me know. Always interested to learn. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I love the fact that you're using some LLMs to challenge your process as it is, you know, like, have I thought of everything?

Maybe there's more, right? I think that's really important. Like we have to be able to look outside of our I'm experience and what we already have accumulated in life. And the large language models really help us look at things from different angles, different sides of things.

So I love the fact that you're using that in your process. It's great. 

**Danica Favorite:** I love that too. And I think that builds on even what we were talking about in our last episode, this idea [00:29:00] of. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I was thinking the same thing. 

**Danica Favorite:** Like this idea of how are we growing and challenging ourselves and using the models to do that.

Because it is important and otherwise we're just going to stagnate . And to really look at, is this the best thing that I could possibly do? How can I make it better? And honestly, if you want some tips, I mean, you just added on to a really great tip that we were giving last time, but definitely listen to the podcast and see what tips you can glean.

But I think really for me, my biggest tip, and I tell everybody this is just don't be afraid to play. I think if you approach this with creativity and curiosity and you want to play and try new things, that's going to take you so far. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** Exactly. And really, one fun thing to try with our app if you're an author and thinking about creating an audiobook, upload it to the app, have a first listen, get a feel, and then it's a very easy way to kind of test the waters.

**Danica Favorite:** I love that. I [00:30:00] love that. Because again, that's the play in that experiment. And even if you're like, I don't know if I'm going to do this, but you have a way to go. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** Exactly. 

**Danica Favorite:** Which is so fun. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** Exactly. Exactly. 

**Danica Favorite:** So tell us, the obvious answer, we already know this, but do you have a favorite AI tool? I mean, we know 11 Labs, obviously, but are there some favorite tools or anything you can share or talk about?

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** I think it would be my little email integration. It just moves up my operations and it gives me time to focus on kind of the bigger and harder questions. It just frees up time for me. And I think that's what probably the beauty is of a lot of AI tools to give us time back to think about the hard questions, hard tasks. That's why I do in my personal work, though, appreciate it the most. I hope that I'll be able to communicate clear and without spelling errors also in the future. 

**Danica Favorite:** I love that. I think that's honestly, that's where I first started with AI tools is really like, how can I make my business more efficient?

How can I make my day [00:31:00] simpler and do the things I don't like to do? Get that off my plate so I can really focus on what I love doing. That's something I think everyone can find a little something that just makes their lives easier. And that is exactly what we're looking for is just a little quick. Even if it's just a little quick, making your email life easier. I need that. 

**Steph Pajonas:** We often tell people that, what you need to do is look at your processes and find the pain points in those processes, the things that really just make you go, Oh, I don't want to do this and see if, see if AI can come in there and make that easier for you.

Like you said it's all about using these tools to give us the time back to either explore other creative things, to actually rest because goodness knows when you're in this kind of business where it's a lot of startup energy, you're going, going, going all the time and if you can get some of that time back to like rest and refill your well, then that's really important too.

So I agree. I think that you're doing great [00:32:00] with starting with the little email integration and maybe you'll find other things along the way that, that driving you a little crazy and you could try it instead for that. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** And playing with 11 Labs has I found like so many ways to make it fun.

Like we integrated it to some speeches where it created some audio segments. It just gives you all the tools to do voiceovers, sound effects, and all of a sudden, like, I've not been a sound engineer or did mixing at all, but I was able to create some pretty impressive things, and I think so can anyone. I hope that everybody enjoys the platform and especially looking forward to see more authors coming to the app. 

**Danica Favorite:** I actually love that idea of just going into 11 Labs and playing and, and mixing sound effects and things like you were talking about . 

First, I was like, Ooh, let's all go to 11 Labs for a day and play with their stuff. And I'm like, wait, we can just all do that right now, which is so cool. 

**Steph Pajonas:** We can . 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah. Yeah. And again, like having that playful spirit and [00:33:00] wanting to try new things and experiment, I think is really wonderful. So speaking of trying new things and playing around, I know you mentioned it before, but we talked about this at the beginning, where you're looking for some authors to test some things for you.

So why don't you tell us about that we will have in the show notes, we're going to have information for people to sign up for that. But why don't you give us some ideas as to what you're looking for and what authors can expect and who can help you out. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** Thank you so much for highlighting that.

Exactly. So we will have the first cohort, or maybe second even now of self publishing authors that would like to distribute directly with us on the reader app. And we're also interested to work with publishers. We do have a wait list, let us know, maybe give a quick sign if you come from this podcast, and it would be interesting for me to follow and sign up.

We will get in touch maybe for some interviews, maybe like already testing it. And we are very much looking forward and [00:34:00] having many more on the app. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Excellent. So we'll get a URL from you and put it in the blog post and then people can go and sign up via there. That would be perfect.

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** Thank you so much for sharing your perspective on everything we're doing and hope to keep the dialogue up. And yeah, we're listening. If you have anything we should know, please always tell us. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Fantastic. Great. Thank you so much for showing up today. It was great to talk to you about this.

You're awesome company. I can't wait to work with you guys some more. For everybody who's listening, you can drop by brave new bookshelf. com and read the blog post about this particular interview.

Danica, is there anything else you want to say before we head out? 

**Danica Favorite:** Well, just our usual reminders. We do have a Facebook page. So make sure you're liking and sharing from Facebook to help us get some more reach. We do have a YouTube channel as well. So if you don't want to listen to this podcast, you want to watch it. You can do that. Which this one I have to say there are some really cute little moments. There's this cute little dog that every once in a while walks [00:35:00] behind Louise. And I'm just like, I'm so in love with the dog. So yeah, 

**Steph Pajonas:** I get to see that. 

**Louise Meyer-Schoenherr:** I would bring him next time, right in front of the camera.

**Danica Favorite:** That would be awesome. So, yeah, we are on all the different podcast apps and just make sure you're liking and sharing because that always helps us and helps spread the word, not just for us, but for AI and publishing and great companies like 11 Labs.

**Steph Pajonas:** Thank you guys so much. It's good to talk to everybody. And hopefully we will see all of you listeners in the next episode. Bye. 

**Danica Favorite:** Bye. 

Thanks for joining us on the Brave New Bookshelf. Be sure to like and subscribe to us on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. You can also visit us at BraveNewBookshelf. com, sign up for our newsletter, and get all the show notes.