My teenage bookworm self would be proud. After fifteen years of dreaming, writing, and revising, I’m finally holding the hardcover editions of The Artifex and the Muse in my hands—five gorgeous volumes that feel every bit as epic and magical as the story inside. I’m thrilled to share this moment with all of you who’ve supported my writing journey. Watch the unboxing video below to get a closer look:

If you've been waiting for the hardcovers, you can now order them directly from me:

• The Voice in All (series Part 1)

• The Path of Mysteries (series Part 2)

• The Many Worlds (series Part 3)

• Realms Unreel (series Midquel)

• The Artifex and the Muse (Parts 1-3 and the Midquel in a single volume)

Prefer to support your favorite local bookstore? You can order hardcovers through them, too—or request a copy (print, ebook, or audiobook) through your local library. For author-signed hardcovers, please contact my hometown bookstore and request a signed copy.

Happy reading!

AA

Dear reader,

As a young bookworm, I loved nothing more than curling up with a novel and losing myself in a good story for hours on end. But grown-up life here on the farm is packed with projects in every season, and these days it’s hard to sit still long enough to fully immerse myself in a physical book. Even ebooks have their limitations when you’re out pruning the apple orchard or plowing snow from a mile-long driveway.

So, like many book-lovers, I’ve come to rely on audiobooks to discover new authors and revisit my favorite stories. I’m not alone—listenership has exploded in recent years, and audiobooks now make up a major segment of the publishing industry.

Given how much I enjoy audiobooks, I’ve long wanted to make The Artifex and the Muse available to listeners. Unfortunately, the cost of producing high-quality audiobooks—especially for a multi-book, multi-POV series—was out of reach for me as an indie author.

Fast forward to 2024. The rise of generative AI tools—including synthetic voices—opened up a fascinating new possibility: I might be able to create a full cast of narrators myself. I began experimenting with several platforms and quickly settled on ElevenLabs Studio as my preferred tool. Even a year ago, the quality and variety of their voices blew me away.

Designing custom voices for each character turned out to be surprisingly fun. Within days, I’d crafted compelling voices for determined Ava, curious Dom, energetic Emmie Bridges, world-weary other-Dom, commanding Lilith, and the mystical Voice in All.

But even the most forgiving listener would’ve noticed the rough edges. As impressive as AI voices were in 2024, they weren’t well suited to long-form fiction narration. Digital artifacts and robotic intonation broke the immersive experience, especially when listening over many hours. I tried brute-force solutions—painstaking manual edits and many, many regenerations of awkward-sounding lines of dialogue—but the result wasn’t ready for listeners.

So I set the project aside and focused on finishing The Many Worlds, Part Three of the series.

When I returned to the audiobook project a year later, I was amazed at how much had changed. While I’d been heads-down in my writing cave, the ElevenLabs model had continued to evolve. Those character voices I’d created a year ago were still waiting in my voice library—but now, the model rendering them had improved dramatically. Many of the distracting artifacts I once found unbearable were simply gone, and the emotional performances were vastly improved.

So I decided to give the audiobook project another shot. And this time? It worked. Using the latest ElevenLabs model (as of April 2025), I found the results incredibly satisfying.

Rhythm, emphasis, alliteration, emotion—these are all things we interpret for ourselves as readers. But an audiobook requires the narrator to make a single, authoritative choice about how each of those elements will sound. Combing through every word of each book to make those decisions taught me a lot about my own writing voice—things I’d never consciously noticed before.

To my surprise, the process of creating these AI audiobooks ended up changing my writing process, too. I now listen to drafts while walking or doing chores, giving myself “fresh ears” on the text. It’s been one of the most useful editing tools I’ve found for breaking through the tunnel vision of solitary writing.

I’m now pleased to share with you the AI-narrated audiobooks of the full series, streaming free here on my author website and on the ElevenReader app. I consider them a solid v1—not perfect, not human, but deeply listenable. These performances reflect not only the growing sophistication of AI voice technology, but also my own directorial choices—to let you hear these characters the way I do.

I hope you’ll enjoy listening to the audiobooks as much as I’ve enjoyed making them.

🎧 Listen to The Artifex and the Muse FREE at audreyauden.com 🎧

Happy listening,
AA

Happy April Fool’s Day! In the spirit of the day, I’m sharing for your amusement my first-ever 90-second cinematic trailer for The Artifex and the Muse.

I have no business producing films of any kind, but I do have a weakness for generative AI. This project is the lovechild of too many hours spent with ElevenLabs (voice synthesis), Midjourney (film still image generation), and Sora (generative video).

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!

AA

P.S. Bring on the critique, film nerds! I’ll need it for Take Two.

April 22, 2025 update: And here’s Take Two!

One of the best things about being an indie author is the freedom to make unconventional choices. My top three favorite freedoms?

• Telling stories that challenge genre expectations

• Creating cover art that reflects the soul of the story—whether or not it follows genre tropes

• Connecting directly with readers like you, who share what pulled you into the story and what stayed with you long after the final page

Over the years, I’ve heard from so many of you that it’s the unconventional things about The Artifex and the Muse that caught your attention. So as I launch my first big marketing push for the series, I’m leaning into that same spirit—experimenting, learning, and bringing you along for the ride.

Some of these experiments will be wild and weird (can’t wait to share more!). Others will be more traditional. Because sometimes, you have to play the game before you try to change the rules.

Right now, I’m doing exactly that—running a free promotion for The Many Worlds, Book Three of the series—and it’s working! As of this morning, the book is holding strong in the Amazon charts for Romantic Fantasy, New Adult Fantasy, and Epic Fantasy—all subgenres where I’m hoping to find new readers.

Want to help me keep that momentum going?

If you’ve got 30 seconds, all it takes is one click:

👉 Grab your FREE copy of The Many Worlds on Amazon

That’s it. No strings. Just a free ebook, a little boost to the algorithm, and a whole lot of appreciation from me. Feel free to forward to any fellow bookworms who might love the story, too.

Thanks, as always, for being part of this journey. I couldn’t do it without you.

Happy reading,
Audrey

P.S. Don’t we look pretty at #7 on the New Adult & College Fantasy leaderboard?

I’m thrilled to announce that my four-book fantasy series, The Artifex and the Muse, is at last complete and available on Amazon. Thank you for supporting me every step of the way—from the debut of Realms Unreel in 2011 to the release of The Voice in All in 2022, through The Path of Mysteries last year and now to the epic conclusion of The Many Worlds.

Buy The Artifex and the Muse

For those who have followed Dom and Ava’s transformative journey over the years, you know this series isn’t just about adventure—it explores fate versus free will, the role memory plays in identity, and the bittersweet interplay of love and loss. Whether you’re a longtime supporter or just discovering this story, I hope you’ll find the experience of reading The Artifex and the Muse captivating and unforgettable.

How to read the series

Here’s a quick guide to the reading order for the series:

• Book One: The Voice in All

• Book Two: The Path of Mysteries

• Book Three: The Many Worlds

• Midquel / Book Four: Realms Unreel (revised and expanded 2024 edition)

While I recommend reading Books One, Two, and Three in order for the best narrative experience, Realms Unreel offers flexibility. As a series midquel—that is, a story that takes place within the timeframe of another story—it can be read prior to, intermixed with, or following Books 1-3 without spoilers. For additional thoughts on the reading order, check out my Realms Unreel overview page.

What’s next?

Now that the series is complete, I’m excited to spread the word. Here’s how you can help:

• Enthusiastic readers: Consider joining my reader review team, to receive a free ebook in exchange for your honest public review of any or all books in the series.

• Social media mavens: Follow and tag me on social media, or join an upcoming social media book tour.

• Book clubs: Check out the book club reader guides for Books One, Two, Three, and Four, and consider inviting me to your book club for author Q&A.

I’m also beginning to query literary agents, so if you know someone who might be interested in my pitch for the series, I’d appreciate the introduction.

A personal reflection

Fifteen years ago, when I started work on the earliest draft of what would become The Artifex and the Muse, I had no idea how its characters, settings, and dilemmas would come to inhabit my mind and heart. As I flip back through these pages, I find the experiences of my own life woven into this story world—youth and aging, love and loss, achievement and exhaustion, idealism and wisdom. There’s a reason life mirrors art: each gives rise to the other.

Writing this series has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Nurturing Dom and Ava along their paths has been a way of nurturing myself along mine. If you’ve ever been called to write something—big or small, personal or commercial, fiction or non-fiction—I highly recommend answering the call. Writing is its own reward, even if the only person who ever reads the words is you yourself.

Writing can be solitary, but no one is ever truly alone on this journey. Thank you for all your support along the way.

AA

I’m delighted to share my personal playlist for The Many Worlds, with music by many amazing artists I love. I hope this soundtrack helps set the mood while you’re curled up reading.

You can stream the entire playlist from The Many Worlds soundtrack on Spotify.

I’ve enclosed the specific song-scene pairings below so you can identify where each song falls in your reading journey.

Happy listening!

AA

The Many Worlds chapter-music pairings

Chapter 1, “Promises to Keep” ⇔ Old Pine by Ben Howard

Chapter 2, “Passing the Torch” ⇔ Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum

Chapter 3, “The Place Prepared” ⇔ Letting Go by Ben Sollee

Chapter 4, “New Allies” ⇔ Be Around by Ocie Elliott

Chapter 5, “House of Healing” ⇔ Lonely Boy by The Black Keys

Chapter 6, “Stolen Fruit” ⇔ I Don’t Care I Love It by DJ Zam & Racer

Chapter 7, “House of Glass” ⇔ How’s It Going to Be by Third Eye Blind

Chapter 8, “East of Eden” ⇔ House Of My Soul (You Light the Rooms) by Langhorne Slim

Chapter 9, “West of Eden” ⇔ The Muse by The Wood Brothers

Chapter 10, “Homecoming” ⇔ Come With Me Now by Caamp

Chapter 11, “The Company of Men” ⇔ The Impression That I Get by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Chapter 12, “Mother Land” ⇔ Motherland by Natalie Merchant

Chapter 13, “The Crossroads” ⇔ Good Riddance by Green Day

Chapter 14, “Mother Love” ⇔ Shine by Benjamin Francis Leftwich

Chapter 15, “Westward Passage” ⇔ Waiting For My Real Life to Begin by Colin Hay

Chapter 16, “Cruising Altitude” ⇔ Untitled by Seryn

Chapter 17, start of “Spring Equinox” ⇔ Talkin’ Bout a Revolution by Tracy Chapman

Chapter 17, end of “Spring Equinox” ⇔ Cigarette by Jeremy Fisher

Chapter 18, “The Best Laid Plans” ⇔ Scrape Me Off the Ceiling by The Steel Wheels

Chapter 20, “Of Mice and Men” ⇔ By and By by Caamp

Chapter 21, “The End of the Lane” ⇔ Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show

Chapter 22, “Fatal Cure” ⇔ Run Away to Mars, by TALK

Chapter 23, start of “Epilogue” ⇔ Even the Darkness Has Arms by The Barr Brothers

Chapter 23, end of “Epilogue” ⇔ Who Knew by You Won’t

On these long warm days of summer, I love listening to audiobooks while I forage mushrooms and gather fruit here on my farm in the Great North Woods. I hope you’re finding your own ways to enjoy great books this summer, too.

If you’re looking for your next beach read or a page-turner to while away a rainy summer day, I hope you’ll enjoy this announcement. I’ve just released a revised and expanded second edition of Realms Unreel (Prequel to The Artifex and the Muse series), and I’m celebrating the release with free ebook giveaways of all three books in the series.

Follow the link below to grab your free ebooks on Amazon, and please help me spread the word by sharing with other readers you think would enjoy the series. My first free giveaway (for Realms Unreel) ends tomorrow, so if you’re interested, don’t wait!

Free eBook Giveaway

Happy summer reading,

AA

P.S. I’ve enclosed some snaphots of summer foraging fun here at the farm. Wondering what inspired the amanitai mushrooms in The Voice in All? Look no further.

The spring season of indie book awards is upon us, and I’m delighted to announce that The Voice in All (Book 1 of The Artifex and the Muse fantasy series) won this year’s IndieReader Discovery Award for New Adult fiction.

My heartfelt thanks to IndieReader’s panel of industry expert judges for their endorsement of The Voice in All, and for the recognition of several other independent publishing organizations and reviewers over the last two years, including:

• Top 10 Book for Young Adult Fiction — 2023 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards

• First Place Winner for Visionary Fiction — 2022 Speak Up Talk Radio Firebird Book Awards

• Gold Tier — The Review Curmudgeon Best of 2022 List

And above all, thanks to every one of you readers who have supported my work on this series for more than a decade. Your enthusiasm for Ava, Dom, and their epic romantic adventure drives me forward on the writing journey.

Ready to dive into series yourself? Learn more about The Voice in All, The Path of Mysteries, and The Many Worlds.

Happy reading!

AA

I’m pleased to announce that The Path of Mysteries (Book 2 in my epic fantasy series The Artifex and the Muse), is now available for purchase.

Buy The Path of Mysteries

I sincerely hope you enjoy the continuation of Ava and Dom’s journey together, which began with The Voice in All (Book 1).

Please help me spread the word about the series

Writing a book requires only an author’s love, but launching a book series requires the love of readers—lots of readers! If you love The Artifex and the Muse, here are the best ways to support the work.

1. Share your honest reviews of Book 1 and Book 2 on Amazon and Goodreads. Your public review is one of the biggest gifts you can give to an indie author like me. Most readers ignore books with small numbers of reviews, so every additional review of my books helps my marketing efforts massively!

2. Recommend the book to fellow readers. Your word-of-mouth recommendations and sharing on social media are one of the best ways for new readers to discover the book. For expert social media users, here are some tips and shareable content to maximize the impact of your posts on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter.

3. Join my reader review team. You can download a free reader review copy of Book 1 or Book 2 in exchange for your unbiased reader review on Amazon and Goodreads. Reviews are hugely influential to prospective readers, and many book promotion channels require books to have dozens or even hundreds of reviews before they will consider listing indie titles like mine.

4. Subscribe to my author newsletter here on Substack. Subscribers are the first to know any time there’s new content available in the The Artifex and the Muse story universe. In addition to updates on book releases and special promotions, the newsletter includes posts about the fun experiments I do with book-related art, music, and other media.

   Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

About the book

Yesterday, Ava and Dom risked everything to escape a life of servitude to the mysterious Voice in all. Unfortunately, their bid for freedom failed disastrously. The pharmaka-enhanced bond between Ava and Dom has become dangerously unstable as a result, and Ava's survival now depends on the help of the Mohirai. Ava and Dom seem to have no choice but to accept their callings from the Voice and begin the novice training that will lead to their initiation as Mohira and Artifex. The sisterhood of Mohirai and brotherhood of Artifexi seem wise and welcoming, but can anyone who serves the Voice really be trusted?

As Ava and Dom begin their journey along the path of mysteries, their friendship faces trials they never could have imagined. Did the Voice in all bind them together only to tear them apart?

Praise for The Voice in All (Book 1 of the series)

First Place Winner for Visionary Fiction — Speak Up Talk Radio 2022 Firebird Book Awards

Top 10 Book for Young Adult Fiction — The Bill Fisher Award for Best First Book, 2023 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards

Gold Tier — The Review Curmudgeon Best of 2022 List

Wow, this book was phenomenal! A five-star read, for sure! ... The main characters, Dom and Ava, are insightful, utterly human, apologetic, and open to change … I commend the author for writing an exceptional book that resists compartmentalization. It was brilliant, show-stopping, and spectacular, as Lady Gaga would say; and it was by far the best book I've read all year.

— The N in NYA reviews The Voice in All

Stay tuned …

I’ll be sharing more updates soon about the Book 2 launch. Thanks in advance for your support.

Sincerely,

AA

I’m delighted to share my personal playlist for The Path of Mysteries, with music by 30 amazing artists I love. I hope this soundtrack helps set the mood while you’re curled up reading.

You can stream the entire playlist from The Path of Mysteries soundtrack on Spotify.

I’ve enclosed the specific song-scene pairings below so you can identify where each song falls in your reading journey.

Happy listening!

AA

The Path of Mysteries scene-music pairings

Chapter 1, beginning of Scene 3 ⇔ Every Night by Jon and Roy

Chapter 2, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ My Little Darlin’ Knows My Nature by Kyle Morton

Chapter 3, beginning of Scene 3 ⇔ Train in Vain (Stand by Me) by The Clash

Chapter 4, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ Stubborn Love by The Lumineers

Chapter 4, beginning of Scene 2 ⇔ Furr by Blitzen Trapper

Chapter 5, end of Scene 1 ⇔ Television by You Won’t

Chapter 5, end of Scene 2 ⇔ Love the One You’re With by The Isley Brothers

Chapter 6, beginning of Scene 2 ⇔ Blue Lips by Regina Spektor

Chapter 6, beginning of Scene 3 ⇔ One of These Days by Sydney Wayser

Chapter 7, end of Scene 1 ⇔ Buster by The Unseen Strangers

Chapter 8, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ The Wild Mercury by Vandaveer

Chapter 9, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ With Resolve by Jacob Yoffee

Chapter 10, end of Scene 1 ⇔ Faith’s Hymn by Beautiful Chorus

Chapter 10, end of Scene 3 ⇔ Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day

Chapter 10, beginning of Scene 5 ⇔ Vagabond by Caamp

Chapter 11, beginning of Scene 4 ⇔ Orange Sky by Alexi Murdoch

Chapter 11, end of Scene 5 ⇔ People Change by Mipso

Chapter 12, end of Scene 2 ⇔ Look at the Stars by The Purple Stripe

Chapter 12, end of Scene 5 ⇔ The Promises of Children by Meg Hutchinson

Chapter 13, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ Tribal Connection by Gogol Bordello

Chapter 13, end of Scene 1 ⇔ Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 by Pink Floyd

Chapter 14, end of Scene 3 ⇔ No Matter What by Badfinger

Chapter 14, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ Amadeus by Family and Friends

Chapter 14, end of Scene 2 ⇔ Bad Reputation by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts

Chapter 15, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ I Will Remain by Matthew and the Atlas

Chapter 16, end of Scene 2 ⇔ Lovers’ Eyes by Mumford & Sons

Chapter 17, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ Every Mile by Layup

Chapter 17, end of Scene 2 ⇔ I Know the Way Home by Andrew Galucki

Chapter 18, beginning of Scene 3 ⇔ Oh, Mama by Aoife O’Donovan

Chapter 19, end of Scene 1 ⇔ Thinking About You by Ocie Elliott

1. Share your honest reviews of Book 1 and Book 2 on Amazon and Goodreads. Your public review is one of the biggest gifts you can give to an indie author like me. Most readers ignore books with small numbers of reviews, so every additional review of my books helps my marketing efforts massively!

2. Recommend the book to fellow readers. Your word-of-mouth recommendations and sharing on social media are one of the best ways for new readers to discover the book. For expert social media users, here are some tips and shareable content to maximize the impact of your posts on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter.

3. Join my reader review team. You can download a free reader review copy of the series books in exchange for your unbiased reader review on Amazon and Goodreads. Reviews are hugely influential to prospective readers, and many book promotion channels require books to have dozens or even hundreds of reviews before they will consider listing indie titles like mine.

   Thanks for reading The Artifex and the Muse! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

If you like sharing your personal book recommendations and reader reviews on social media, here are some tips to maximize the impact of your posts.

Include a link so readers know where to find my books

Here are some great links to consider using when sharing on social media:

• My author website: https://audreyauden.com

• The Voice in All book listing page on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4brjIgV

(Please note that the Amazon link above contains my own affiliate tracking identifier in the URL. This allows me to see that someone who read this page on my blog shared the link, and it also increases my royalty percentage on any book sale that occurs on Amazon after someone clicks this link. If you prefer a link without an affiliate code, here is an alternate link to use.)

Use hashtags or @-mentions in your post so readers know how to find me on social media

Here are some hashtags and @-mentions to consider using when sharing on social media:

• @audreyauden (on Instagram, Twitter, and Substack)

• @lovethatbook (on Tiktok)

• #TheVoiceInAll

• #ya #fantasy #romance #series

• #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booktok

• #TheArtifexAndTheMuse

Share an image of the book in your post

Here are some visuals you’re welcome to use in your posts to make them more eye-catching:

Happy Friday! A few fun book launch updates for you as you head into your weekend:

The Voice in All is now available from your local bookstore

I’m delighted to share that The Voice in All is now available for purchase from your local independent bookstore, in the United States and internationally. Author-signed copies can also be purchased from my own independent bookstore: the adorable Little Village Toy & Book Shop in Littleton, New Hampshire, USA.

Here’s how to order a copy from your independent bookstore.

You can join me (virtually) at the IBPA author booth at the BookyCon metaverse book festival tomorrow

As part of my book launch promotion activities, I’m joining a group of indie authors speaking at BookyCon tomorrow, November 12, 2022. The conference is free for readers to attend, and there are still a few tickets remaining. Grab your ticket here, if you’d like to attend. I’ll be speaking at the IBPA virtual booth between 3 and 3:30pm Eastern time and otherwise hanging out around the conference chatting with readers, authors, and publishers. Hope to see you there!

Lots of fun happening on the social media book tour

A group of lovely social media book promoters on Instagram and TikTok are helping me spread the word about The Voice in All over the next several weeks heading into the holiday season. I’ve been posting AI art inspired by the book as part of the promotion campaign. You can check out all of that by following me on Instagram @audreyauden and following the social media book tour at #TheVoiceInAll.

Here are some of the highlights for me from the past few weeks.

Advance reader reviews rolling in from all over the world!

THANK YOU to all of you on my ARC team for kickstarting the book review effort. Honest reader reviews, wherever you choose to share them, are essential for encouraging new readers to try out an indie title, and I so appreciate all your help getting my title listing pages on Goodreads and Amazon populated with your own experiences reading The Voice in All.

Here are some highlights from what readers have shared publicly over the last few weeks:

The Voice In All is a masterpiece, from the cover to the literary aspect. I started this book on November 1st, 2022 and finished it on November 1st, 2022. I absolutely devoured it in every sense of the word.

— Jade

… I also really loved seeing all of the strong female characters. The author did such a great job showing women in power and how fierce yet vulnerable they could be. Overall, I would definitely recommend this story. I could go on and on but this is a book you will want to experience for yourself.

— Rebecca

I love dual POV books and how the characters started out as friends, then felt like they were on opposing sides and eventually became lovers … There’s also queer representation which I love, I was really invested in the other girls.

— Spiri

I enjoyed the world building and the puzzling connection between our two main characters. Separate and yet inseparable. It was a fun exploration of the bounds of the self and the world, a kind of literal mindfulness.

— Amy

Ava and Dom and a small cast of supporting characters are so well written … that it's a delight to follow their story and discover their world together with them.

— Herbert

A brilliant and beautifully written page turner! The Voice in all tours you through a beautiful and dangerous new world and through the psyche of a young woman coming of age and learning that her world and her role in it are more complicated than she could have dreamed them to be … I loved it!

— Sophie

Be prepared for an action-packed climax … Add this book to your Book Club reading list.

— Pattie

The fun with DALL·E 2 continues

I can’t kick the AI doodling habit. You can check out all my DALL·E 2 collaborations on Instagram, but here are a few of my faves.

Thanks for reading, and for all your support on my indie author book launch!

AA

Dear reader,

While I was writing my first fantasy novel in 2011, the story world was so vivid in my mind that I couldn’t help daydreaming about illustrations to bring that world to life for readers. So, shortly after I self-published the novel in paperback, I approached my good friend and talented character artist Ian Steplowski to propose collaborating on an illustration project. Ian graciously agreed, and the color illustrated hardcover edition of Realms Unreel became a reality through a Kickstarter campaign in 2012, funded by 146 generous backers.

Illustrating Realms Unreel with Ian, and sharing the journey with my Kickstarter backers, was incredibly fun and rewarding. Ian utilized many innovative (for 2012) character modeling technologies in the illustration process, which was wonderfully interesting for me to observe and thematically appropriate considering the pervasive VR/AR technologies and virtual worlds that form the backdrop of Realms Unreel’s very-near-future world. Here are a few highlights of the end result.

Fast forward to August 2022. As I approached the end of writing The Voice in All (Book One of my new YA fantasy series The Artifex and the Muse), I once again found myself yearning for visual representations of the characters and scenes I’d spent so much time imagining over the last nine months of writing.

For me, writing a novel feels very much like traveling. By the time I’ve arrived at the final draft of a scene, I’ve visited that setting, those characters, their thoughts and speech and emotions so many times that the scene feels as real to me as my own memories. Unlike my “real” travel experiences, though, my writing travels are impossible to capture with a photo or video. Given my particular skillset as a writer, words are the only artifacts I can easily bring back from my solo journeys to imagined places.

Until now.

At just the moment I was most craving illustrations for The Voice in All, I received a very fortuitous email from the team at OpenAI. I was finally off the waitlist for DALL·E 2.

Imagine my delight, dear reader! At last, I (with a teensy bit of help from DALL·E 2 and the totality of all prior human-created art and technology) could paint using only my words.

So paint I did.

I’d been dabbling with AI-generated text, sound, and images prior to DALL·E 2, particularly enjoying AI illustration apps like Dream by Wombo and AI writing tools like Sudowrite. These—and many others—are amazing tools in their own right, and I’ve had so much fun playing with them over the last year and anticipating how much better they’ll all become in time.

However, until I tried DALL·E 2, I hadn’t experienced any AI collaboration that felt truly additive to my own creative process or worth incorporating into a finished product. Within hours of starting to play with DALL·E 2, I was producing beautiful images to represent characters, concepts, and scenes from my book. (Massive credit for this must be given to the free Dallery Gallery Prompt Book that distills learnings from the DALL·E 2 user community into helpful examples. I would have been completely lost without those example prompts and outputs.) I found collaborating with DALL·E 2 deeply satisfying and empowering as someone who is relatively unskilled in creating visual art.

My dear husband, who is a far more talented visual designer than I am, was surprised by the quality of the results I was getting from DALL·E 2. He expressed frustration with crafting prompts himself, saying he rarely found his own output images compelling. I thought this was fascinating, since DH is in every way more technologically adept than I am, as well as a much better visual thinker.

But then I started thinking more deeply about what’s happening when a writer collaborates with DALL·E 2, which could explain some of the differences between my results and DH’s. For me, writing isn’t a particularly visual process. Sure, there’s basic blocking and scene setting and character description going on in my head when I write a scene, but I spend a lot more time thinking in abstractions. What’s the mood of the scene, the key conflict, the pace of the action, the theme I’m developing, the mythic symbolism I’m using, the clue I’m planting for the next plot twist? Most of the work of writing is compressing all these sprawling abstractions into words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that get those ideas across as concretely and concisely as possible, in a sensible sequence, so that some human reader can later compile and render the scene in her own imagination with her own particular visual details, while still experiencing a near approximation of the story I meant to tell her. It’s a rather different skillset from painting. But it turns out, distilling abstract concepts into a few words is exactly the skill required to create good DALL·E 2 prompts. When I give DALL·E 2 a prompt, I’m telling the AI a little bit of a story. And unlike a human reader, DALL·E 2 can show me exactly what it’s imagining is going on in my story, so I can quickly recognize where my prompt is working, and where it needs work. I wish soliciting reader feedback from humans were this easy!

One of the images I produced while playing with DALL·E 2 this way was so eye-catching that I immediately started imagining what it might look like as part of my book’s cover art. Here’s the original tile that jumped out at me from a series of about 100 unique images I created with DALL·E 2 using a collection of 25 closely related text prompts. (I’ll be sharing much more detail on my prompts soon in a subsequent post.)

I continued to play with this image using DALL·E 2’s outpainting capability, correcting minor “defects” in the original image and eventually expanding outward into a mural image large enough to use as cover art for the ebook, paperback, and hardcover editions of The Voice in All.

Here’s the final front cover that’s gone to print for the first edition of The Voice in All. I’m personally delighted with the end result, and with the entire process of creating it with DALL·E 2.

Until now, I’ve been entirely reliant on visual artists to create illustrations and cover art for my books. I loved collaborating with dear friends on my prior cover art and illustrations, and as an indie author I could make the final call on every detail of what went to print. But it’s always been a little off-putting to me that every reader’s first impression of my book has nothing to do with the writing itself, but is instead a first impression of the work of another artist. (For traditionally published authors, the situation may be even worse, as many authors have minimal input on the final cover art that goes to print.)

I’ll allow that there are many good reasons writers aren’t usually responsible for creating their own covers. It’s a completely different art form, after all. However, there is something undeniably satisfying as the author to make your cover art a direct expression of your own vision for the book.

Still, as much as I personally love my cover, I had no idea what readers would think of it until I released the book into the wild. Does my book have a face that only a mother could love?

To my delight, I’ve discovered the answer (at least from fantasy readers) is a resounding no. Here’s just a sample of the dozens of comments I’ve received about the cover so far on my social media book tour.

@peschel_press: That is fabulous, wonderful cover art! So not generic and “I’ve seen this about 100 times.” … It isn’t easy to be genre-specific AND different AND attractive in its own right … A good cover is worth a thousand words.

@bearyintobooks: As soon as I saw the cover of this one I knew I had to read it. Like seriously, isn’t this cover beautiful??

@katieiscompletelyfine: this cover is really unique 😍

Over the course of working with DALL·E 2 on my cover, I’ve fallen in love with this way of illustrating. So much so that I decided to continue jamming with DALL·E 2 for my eight weeks of book promotion. To brighten up my previously un-loved social media presences for my social media book tour, I’ve been rapidly generating illustrations based on scenes from the book or recognitions the book is receiving. I’m tickled by what’s possible to produce in mere minutes (okay, occasionally more than mere minutes, but they’re fun minutes). I’m sharing some of these examples below, for your entertainment. Hope you enjoy!

Clearly we are entering a brave new world of content creation. A lot has been written and remains to be written on the legal, artistic, social, and many other implications of AI art. But I thought I’d share my personal story about the pure joy I’ve experienced playing with DALL·E 2 as part of my little indie writing project.

To all the talented thinkers, dreamers, and builders who’ve made DALL·E 2 possible, thank you!

And to all you indie authors out there who are eager to experiment with your own cover art, drop me a line! I’d love to see what you’re working on.

Happy reading,

AA

Below, you’ll find images, copy, and hashtags that you’re welcome to incorporate into your social media posts and stories about The Voice in All. If you’d like to request additional assets, please get in touch with me via email or social media DM, and I’ll do my best to provide what you need!

Thanks for all your great work helping me to build an audience for the book.

Sincerely

AA

Shareable images for The Voice in All

Suggested hashtags and @-mentions for The Voice in All

@audreyauden (on Instagram and Twitter)

@lovethatlabs (on Tiktok)

#TheVoiceInAll

#ya #fantasy #romance #series

#bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booktok

#TheArtifexAndTheMuse

Dear reader,

I’m excited to share that The Voice in All is now available for purchase on Amazon. Starting in November, the book will also be available for purchase from your local independent bookstore.

My social media book promotion tour and book launch events will take place over the next eight weeks, including at the 2022 BookyCon metaverse book festival (November 12). I’m delighted to be experimenting with many innovative book promotion strategies for my second book launch. I’ll be posting blog updates “from the road” of my virtual book tour to share what I’m learning, and I invite you all to join me on whatever platforms you enjoy (Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Reddit, or right here on my author blog).

A big THANK YOU to everyone who joined my advance review teams on Netgalley and Booksirens! I appreciate each and every one of your honest reviews, wherever you choose to share them (and I especially appreciate reviews posted on the book’s Amazon and Goodreads pages).

Your recommendations, whether you post them publicly or share them word of mouth, are essential to helping new readers discover the book. Here’s just a sampling of the heartwarming feedback you’ve shared publicly about your reading experience:

“A fascinating ‘small’ fantasy story without any heros setting out to defeat evil and save the world ... Ava and Dom and a small cast of supporting characters are so well written ... that it's a delight to follow their story and discover their world together with them.”

“I finished it in one sitting. Great world building and characters that will stay with me for a long time to come. Highly recommend.”

“I enjoyed the world building and the puzzling connection between our two main characters. Separate and yet inseparable. It was a fun exploration of the bounds of the self and the world, a kind of literal mindfulness. The switching of the viewpoints was also interesting. If you like fantasy/magic/other-world adventures this is a good book for you!”

“I thoroughly enjoyed The Voice in All and am excited to read the sequels! I typically enjoy utopian and dystopian type novels, so it was already right up my alley.”

“… a fantasy adventure that explores the nature of how people are connected to one another and to the forces that shape their consciousness. I loved it!”

I’m also delighted to share some pre-release recognition the book has received. The Review Curmudgeon included The Voice in All in his Best of 2022 Gold Tier. In addition, the book won First Place for Visionary Fiction in Speak Up Talk Radio’s 2022 Firebird Book Awards.

For those of you now beginning the read, I hope you enjoy the journey!

Sincerely,

AA

P.S. Audiobook format (read by yours truly) will be available right here on The Artifex and the Muse website beginning in December.

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If you’ve already joined the advance review team for The Voice in All, I hope you’re enjoying the read. (And if you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, it’s not too late! Head on over to BookSirens for your free copy of the ebook.)

As you start your weekend, I wanted to share a link to the book soundtrack, which includes an hour and twenty-seven minutes of music by 27 amazing artists and composers I love. Making mixtapes is an integral part of my writing process, and I’m delighted to share my personal mixtape for this story with you.

You can stream the entire playlist at The Voice in All soundtrack on Spotify.

I’ve enclosed the specific song-scene pairings below so you can identify where each song falls in your reading journey. You can also contact me to get a copy of the advance review manuscript that includes track listings inline with the text, if you prefer.

Happy listening!

AA

The Voice in All scene-music pairings

Chapter 1, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ All My Days by Alexi Murdoch

Chapter 2, beginning of Scene 2 ⇔ Changes by Langhorne Slim and The Law

Chapter 3, beginning of Scene 3 ⇔ Scar That Never Heals by Jeremy Fisher

Chapter 5, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash

Chapter 5, beginning of Scene 3 ⇔ Romanian Folk Dances, Sz. 56: No. 3, In One Spot, composed by Béla Bartók and performed by Dezsö Ranki

Chapter 6, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ You Really Got Me by The Kinks

Chapter 6, beginning of Scene 3 ⇔ We’re Going to Be Friends by The White Stripes

Chapter 6, end of final scene ⇔ I’ve Just Seen A Face by The Beatles

Chapter 7, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ My Silver Lining by First Aid Kit

Chapter 8, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ Emerge by East Forest

Chapter 9, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ Revolution by Van William and First Aid Kit

Chapter 9, end of final scene ⇔ Open Road by Roo Panes

Chapter 11, end of Scene 1 ⇔ Shelter from the Storm by Bob Dylan

Chapter 12, beginning of Scene 2 ⇔ Whiskey and Wine by The Show Ponies

Chapter 13, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ If I Needed You by The Broken Circle Breakdown Bluegrass Band

Chapter 15, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ Two of Us by Aimee Mann

Chapter 16, end of Scene 1 ⇔ If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out by Yusuf / Cat Stevens

Chapter 18, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ Hey Stranger by Watchhouse

Chapter 18, beginning of Scene 3 ⇔ Wild Child by The Black Keys

Chapter 18, beginning of Scene 5 ⇔ Never Going Back Again by Fleetwood Mac

Chapter 19, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ Two of Us On the Run by Lucius

Chapter 19, end of Scene 5 ⇔ Across The Universe by The Beatles

Chapter 19, end of Scene 8 ⇔ Moving by Eskimotion

Chapter 20, beginning of Scene 1 ⇔ Getting Ready to Get Down by Josh Ritter

Chapter 20, beginning of Scene 2 ⇔ I Could Make You So Happy by Bombadil

Chapter 20, beginning of Scene 4 ⇔ Fidelity by Regina Spektor

Chapter 20, end of Scene 4 ⇔ A Morning Song by Miner

Dear reader, I have some good news for you.

The book is on its way, and I’ve earmarked a free advance review copy just for you. Simply follow the link to grab your copy and join my advance review team on BookSirens. Thanks in advance for your help!

AA

P.S. Because The Voice in All is a prequel, there’s no need to re-read Realms Unreel before starting to read The Voice in All. In fact, I recommend waiting to revisit Realms Unreel, because I will be re-releasing it in 2023 with substantial content updates to help it fit more seamlessly into the larger series.

A girl chasing freedom. A boy bound by duty. A rebellion that will change their world forever.

Welcome to the world of The Artifex and the Muse—an award-winning fantasy series where myth, memory, and multiverse collide.

For a limited time, you can start reading or listening to the series absolutely free. Scroll down to grab your author-signed ebook of The Voice in All (Part One of the series) or listen to the series audiobooks using the ElevenReader app.

📚 Get your FREE author-signed ebook of The Voice in All (newsletter signup required)

🎧 Listen to the FREE series audiobooks (ElevenReader app signup required)

Want a little more info before you jump into the story?

🧭 Read what others are saying about the series

🎥 Watch the trailer below

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It has been three thousand seven hundred and thirty-three days since I released my debut novel Realms Unreel on November 22, 2011.

Realms Unreel reimagines the Persephone myth as a genre-bending epic set in the borderlands where mythic fantasy, cyberpunk, and manga meet. The plot unfolds largely in a very near future where virtual reality is at once pervasive, magical, and a bit /r/boringdystopia. The story universe incorporates many of my peculiar obsessions, from ancient mystery religions to the culture of tech companies to the process of creating art.

I spent a whirlwind twelve months writing. I spent another twelve months Kickstarting the color illustrated printing with the financial support of many generous backers and the collaboration of my dear friend and talented artist Ian Steplowski. For me, the experience was a magical journey, from drafting page 1 to at last holding the beautiful illustrated hardcover in my hands.

At the time I wrote Realms Unreel, I put an intentional timestamped stake in the ground: April 6, 2012. This is the birthday of our leading lady, Emerald Isidora Bridges, who is born in Oakland, California, a few months and a short bike ride away from the time and place where the book was written.

Since Emmie’s birthday, I’ve lived ten years in real time, like all mere mortals must. In the world of Realms Unreel, Emmie is about to turn ten years old, and she has another ten years of growing up ahead before the central events of the novel take place.

As an author, when you deliver a timestamped character into a speculative near-future universe, you have the dual pleasures of creating a future and witnessing what your own future delivers.

And wow, does the future deliver.

With ten years of hindsight, I’m indulging now in a little retrospective on what I got right.

As a reminder to readers, and as intro to prospective readers, some technological themes and entities important to the world of Realms Unreel include the metaverse, virtual and augmented reality, cryptocurrencies, the progression of socioeconomic inequality, tech backlash, the acceleration and deterioration of the news cycle, socioeconomic inequality, climate change, Anonymous, and government surveillance of citizens. I veil some of these themes with my own sci fi universe jargon (the alternet, domain currencies, immergers, smartcoms, etc.), in order to free up Realms Unreel from specific companies, protocols, and device terminology, but the parallels should be obvious to most readers.

Since the time I first set pen to paper in late 2010, here are just a small handful of relevant developments in my own timeline that echo the developments in Emmie’s:

• The launch of Instagram and the rapid progression of influencer culture

• The release of the first Oculus Rift prototype via a Kickstarter campaign and subsequent continuous improvement of many VR and AR hardware technologies

• The launch (and many collapses) of early Bitcoin exchanges, including the “dark web” Silk Road exchange, the explosion of cryptocurrencies into mainstream awareness, and the development of many blockchain-derived concepts like DAOs, ICOs, DeFi, NFTs, and so much more

• Edward Snowden’s revelations of the extent of illegal US government surveillance of its own citizens

• A new wave of buzz around the metaverse and commitment by tech industry titans to “own” this next phase of our collective technological future

• Spiking interest in Web 3, largely in backlash to the consolidation and growing power of centralized social media platforms associated with the Web 2.0 era

• Socioeconomic inequality careening toward its tipping point, and the increasingly violent reactions to it in our politics, monetary policy, social cohesion, and culture

• Dramatic mega-fires, droughts, floods, and storms across the globe, particularly acute in Emmie’s own neck of the woods in the Bay Area

These developments did not require much prophetic foresight. Many people saw most of these things coming. Still, it’s been thought-provoking for me to witness, and to experience their impact on my own life now after imagining their impact on Emmie’s.

I missed a lot of things, too, of course. I was completely blindsided by the Covid-19 pandemic, and I could not have imagined just how much fuel it would throw on the already raging dumpster fire of our civil (uncivil?) discourse. I purposefully put away my personal inclinations toward dystopian apocalyptic thinking as I was writing Realms Unreel, choosing to focus instead on the more fun, whimsical, and positive aspects of the tech culture that accompanied the emergence of the consumer internet during my own childhood and young adulthood. Realms Unreel has a mythic fantasy at its heart, after all, and I read and write to escape as much as to process what’s happening around me. The dystopian themes I felt required acknowledgement in Realms Unreel mostly remain in its background, just as many of us allow them to float in the background of our own lives until at last they can no longer be ignored.

Even ignoring all the things happening in the world around me, a lot happened in my own life during the last ten years. Significantly, I co-founded a tech startup, of which I am immensely proud. I experienced the exhilarating and heart-stopping rollercoaster of building a new company from scratch alongside beloved co-founders, amazingly talented teammates, and important customers. It has been quite an education. My knowledge of Bay Area tech culture has deepened immeasurably over the last ten years of my alter ego’s career.

So eight of my last ten years were completely consumed in the experience of company building. But all that time, the universe of Realms Unreel was percolating in the back of my mind. I always intended the novel to be the first in a series, but I found that the attention and time required to build a new company were incompatible with the attention and time required to write a novel. Thus the ten-year hiatus.

But now the time has come. I put that timestamped stake in the ground in 2012 to ensure I finished the series before 2032 rolls around, and 2032 is fast approaching. I find myself now in a very fortunate period of career sabbatical, which has given me the time and space to reflect on the action-packed last ten years. And to my delight, I discover that the universe of Realms Unreel is still calling to me, demanding to be finished.

So it is with great pleasure that I announce the tale now continues in the form of The Artifex and the Muse novel series, beginning with the 2022 release of The Voice in All. For readers and fans of the original Realms Unreel, I thank you for your patience. For new readers, welcome to my story universe!

Building readership in a world crowded with content happens one word-of-mouth recommendation, one book review, and one shared link at a time. Thank you for helping me spread the word! Writing these books is a labor of love for me, and connecting with readers who enjoy my stories is one of the greatest rewards of writing. If you’d like to keep in touch with me and be the first to know when there’s new content available, please consider subscribing here.

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AA