After reading this hint on macosxhints about how to create an audio file from text, I figured the process could probably be streamlined a bit. So, I created a Service (that appears in the Services menu) that operates on selected text. Select the plain text in your source location (text file, web page, email, etc.) and then select Services » Speak to iTunes Audiobook to speak the text into a track that will appear in the Audiobooks section of iTunes. Just remember to set the encoder quality beforehand in iTunes, because it's not configurable through AppleScript (I recommend using 'Spoken podcast').
Package download [40KB]
For those curious few, the AppleScript within the service is as follows:
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