+ Loomwright
Cut episodes about a book you wrote here, once it has published.
A finished bookLitCaster
Contact for pricingProduces
A published podcast episode
LitCaster cuts a companion podcast from a book the studio has already read. Topics are proposed or grounded from a brief you wrote, the script is segmented with speakers and citations, personas speak it in voices you have cleared, and publication is a gate that validates every target before a single byte is uploaded.
Requires Aardvark Studio Core (free) · Release 1.0.0
- Who it is for
- An author or small press marketing a back catalogue, and the producer who has to answer for what went out under the show's name.
- What it takes from the Core
- An ingested book — the prose, the scenes, the cast and the citations the script quotes from. LitCaster grounds every clause against real rows rather than paraphrasing from memory.
- What you have to run
- The Aardvark Studio server · An Anthropic API key · A text-to-speech endpoint
The change
Before, and after
Today, without it
- A podcast plan in a document, and a script written from memory of the book.
- Voices used because they were available, with the consent question left open.
- A publish button that uploads first and validates when something breaks.
- No record of which episode said what about whom.
With LitCaster
- Every clause in the script is grounded against a real row in the book.
- A voice library where consent is a gate, not a note in a spreadsheet.
- Publishing validates every target before it uploads anything, then writes the feed.
- An audit trail, a retention policy and a rights hold that can stop a back catalogue.
How it goes
An episode belongs to a show, and the show is the unit that carries a voice across a back catalogue: its talent, its cleared voices, its formats and its feed. Within it, an episode moves through four steps and one stop. Topics proposes what the episode could be about, or grounds the brief you wrote, and somebody chooses (G1). Script turns that into a segmented script with speakers, quotes and citations, submitted at G3. Render synthesises every speech segment, assembles and masters it, and you approve the master at G4 after reading its QC report. Publish validates every target, uploads, verifies each enclosure and writes the feed (G5).
The stop is G2, the rights hold, and it is not a step because it does not have a place in the sequence. Compliance can raise one at any point, and while it is open nothing downstream of it moves — including episodes that have already been published.
Where it stops for you
5 gates, and who holds each
- 1
G1 — topic approval
Producer
The studio proposes what the episode could be about, or grounds a brief you wrote. Somebody chooses.
- 2
G2 — the rights hold
Rights & Compliance
Not a step but a stop. An open hold outranks everything downstream of it.
- 3
G3 — production submission
Producer
The segmented script, with its speakers, quotes and citations, is submitted for production.
- 4
G4 — render approval
Producer
Listen to the master, read its QC report, decide.
- 5
G5 — publication
Producer
Licence active, no hold open, master approved at G4, series metadata complete, and every enabled target's own validation passing.
A script that cannot make things up
Topics are proposed from the book or grounded from your brief. Development grounds every clause against real rows and prices the result against the episode's runtime band. Nothing is rewritten to fit a target length behind your back.
- Topic proposal, or a brief you wrote, grounded either way
- Segmented script with speakers, quotes and citations
- Runtime priced rather than promised
Screenshot slot
The episode lane — topics through publish, with each gate's state
A show, and the decisions it holds
An episode always belongs to a show, and the show is where the decisions that outlive any one episode live — the talent bound to it, the cleared voices, the format shelf, the disclosure wording and the feed itself. Making an episode asks five questions and no more: which show, which strand or format, which books it covers, a title and a number.
- A strand is a preset, not a container — format, cast, runtime band, spoiler boundary and ad-break policy
- A strand's values are copied onto the episode at creation, so editing it later rewrites no episode
- Personas and voices are bound per show, while consent and memory stay with the person
Screenshot slot
Persona roster with reading shelves
Personas, and what they have read
A persona is a speaker with a point of view and a reading shelf — the material it is allowed to have read. Depth is not free and the shelf is priced per entry against the assembled context, so a roster is a set of decisions rather than a pile of prompts.
- A roster of personas per show
- Reading shelves with an explicit floor and cost
- House personas, or your own
Screenshot slot
The publish confirmation, with every target's validation answered
Voices, with consent as a gate
The voice library is enrolled, not scraped. A licence may cap how many voices an organisation holds, and the cap is enforced when a voice is added. Consent gating is part of the product rather than a policy page.
- Enrolled voices with consent recorded against them
- An enforced voice-count cap where the licence sets one
- Per-episode voice assignment
Rights, disclosure and retention
Rights and Compliance is a separate role on purpose: the person who can re-point where a series publishes should not be the person who renders the episodes. A hold outranks every other state. Disclosure text travels with the publication, and retention is a policy the product enforces rather than a reminder.
- Holds that stop a back catalogue, not just the next episode
- Disclosure carried into the publication itself
- Retention and audit surfaces
Publishing in two phases
Pressing Publish does not publish. It opens a confirmation that runs every enabled target's own validation, and the button stays disabled until every answer has arrived. Then it uploads, verifies each enclosure, and writes the feed last — because the expensive half-done state is the one worth designing out.
- Validate → upload → verify enclosures → write the feed
- The gate reads the render's own run, not a column somebody could set
- Series metadata checked in feed vocabulary, not database vocabulary
Sample output
What comes out of it
These are slots. No sample from a real title has been cleared for publication yet, and a mock-up of one would be the exact thing this page is trying not to do.
Screenshot slot
The episode lane — topics through publish, with each gate's state
Screenshot slot
Persona roster with reading shelves
Screenshot slot
The publish confirmation, with every target's validation answered
What it needs
Be clear about the hardware
- required
The Aardvark Studio server
One container, deployed once. Every product needs it.
- required
An Anthropic API key
Topic proposal, script development and grounding all call it.
- required
A text-to-speech endpoint
Every speech segment is synthesised against it. You point the server at one; it is not bundled.
- optional
A ComfyUI render host
Not used by LitCaster. Audio only.
Roles it adds
Who can do what
LitCaster Operator
Runs the work — topics, script, render.
LitCaster Producer
Approves, and decides where a series publishes.
Rights & Compliance
Owns holds and disclosure. Separated from production on purpose.
Worth knowing
LitCaster is the one product that enforces a per-user seat today. A licence sells a number of them and a user without one is refused with a message saying so. There is no request-a-seat path in the app — an admin grants one out of band.
Worth knowing
A lapsed licence keeps every read and export surface and refuses new publications.
With the others
LitCaster on its own is complete
Nothing below is required. Each line is what happens if you already own the other one.
+ VisualBook
Independent of it. LitCaster needs the Core's reading of the book and nothing from the screen pipeline.
A long-form video storybook+ LookBook
Independent of LookBook. Neither needs the other.
A published casting styleQuestions
About LitCaster specifically
Ready to try it?
The Core is free and does not need this product. Start there, then ask us about a licence.
- Do I need any other product?
- No. The free Core reads the book; LitCaster cuts episodes from it. It is the add-on with the shortest path from install to a finished artifact.
- Where does it publish to?
- To the distribution targets you enable for the series, each validated before anything uploads, with the feed written after every enclosure is verified.
- Whose voices are these?
- Yours, enrolled with consent recorded, or house voices that ship with the product. The consent question is a gate in the product; clearing the rights for a real person's voice is still yours to do.
- Is it per seat?
- Today, yes — it is the only product whose routes and seats are actually enforced. What that costs is not settled; see Pricing.