#as is making an audio drama!

[thelaurenshippen]

this is a genuine question not at all meant as a rude gotcha, but I feel like I've seen lots of people cite the relatively low barrier of entry as a huge advantage of podcasts as a medium, "if you have access to decent audio tech you can make a podcast" etc etc. So where does the need to sell a script come in? Is it a financial thing, and IP thing, something else?

this doesn't read like a rude gotcha at all, it's a really good question! there is a much lower barrier to entry when it comes to podcasts compared to tv, film, theater, etc. (though not as low as writing a book if we're talking about hard resources - you can technically write a book with just a laptop and a dream and then self publish! though as a writer who has written a lot of scripts and four books (3 published) writing a book is a much bigger psychological burden imo lol).

the need to sell a script, for me, is entirely a financial thing. if I had the money to produce podcasts at the level I want to entirely independently, I would! I know how to do it! but, unfortunately, I really only have the funds to produce something like @breakerwhiskey - a single narrator daily podcast that I make entirely on my own.

and that show is actually a great example of just how low the barrier is: I actually record the whole thing on a CB radio I got off of ebay for 30 bucks, my editing software is $50/month (I do a lot of editing, so this is an expense that isn't just for that show) and there are no hosting costs for it. the only thing it truly costs me is time and effort.

not every show I want to make is single narrator. a lot of the shows I've made involve large casts, full sound design, other writers, studio recording, scoring, and sometimes full cast albums (my first show, The Bright Sessions had all of those). I've worked on shows that have had budgets of 100 dollars and worked on shows that cost nearly half a million dollars. if anyone is curious about the nitty gritty of budgets, I made a huge amount of public, free resources about making audio drama earlier this year that has example budgets in these ranges!

back in the beginning of my career, I asked actors to work for free or sound designers to work for a tiny fee, because I was doing it all for free and we were all starting out. I don't like doing that anymore. so even if I'm making a show with only a few actors and a single sound designer...well, if you want an experienced sound designer and to pay everyone fairly (which I do!), it's going to cost you at least a few thousand dollars. when you're already writing something for free, it can be hard to justify spending that kind of money. I've sound designed in the past - and will be doing so again in the near future for another indie show of mine - but I'm not very good at it. that's usually the biggest expense that I want to have covered by an outside budget.

but if I'm being really honest, I want to be paid to write! while I do a lot of things - direct, produce, act, consult, etc. - writing is my main love and I want it to be the majority of my income. I'm really fortunate to be a full-time creative and I still do a lot of work independently for no money, but when I have a show that would be too expensive to produce on my own, ideally I want someone else footing the bill and paying me to write the scripts.

I love that audio fiction has the low barrier to entry it does, because I think hobbyists are incredible - it is a beautiful and generous thing to provide your labor freely to something creative and then share it with the world - but the barrier to being a professional audio drama writer is certainly higher. I'm very lucky to already be there, but, as every creative will tell you, even after you've had several successes and established yourself in the field, it can still be hard to make a living!

anyway, I hope this answers your question! I love talking about this stuff, so if anyone else is curious about this kind of thing, please ask away.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Let the revenge games begin.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[lucifer-kane]

Seeing audio drama creators be very on board with people making original characters for their thing is so very good and it makes me, a chronic oc maker, so very happy.

[boombox-fuckboy]

Hi!

I have been following this blog for a while now and I love using it to find new podcasts. I was wondering, if you have time, what you think is the scariest podcast you've listened to or what your favorite horror podcasts might be? Thank you, and I hope you have a great day :)

I'm so glad to have helped you find new shows!

I don't really get scared by horror podcasts (not sure why. It isn't some "I'm tough" thing, I get startled by the toaster, and it's not like I never feel unsettled or concerned or icked out at podcasts, just not scared) so I'm not sure I can give you a good answer on that one, but I'll gladly give you ten of my personal favourites instead:

Alice Isn't Dead: The podcast that got me into podcasts. A truck driver travels the USA looking for her wife, who until recently, she had thought was dead. Along the way she has all manner of strange encounters, and sees a side to the world that few truely comprehend.

Archive 81: A young archivist takes a job at a remote outpost organising and digitising a collection of tapes. On the tapes is a series of interviews and investigations made by a social worker in the 90s as she becomes familiar with a bizzare apartment building. The archivist, naturally, has an increasingly bad time. Each season is part of the same story, but they're all a bit different.

Ghost Wax: Recorded interviews conducted by the last surviving necromancer, and various people who died under seemingly otherworldly circumstances.

Hello From The Hallowoods: Supernatural and cosmic horror. A powerful and dramatic entity visits your nightmares to relay stories of the people (to varying degrees of both human and alive) who inhabit the beautiful and deadly Hallowoods. What start off as individual stories quickly connect to a larger narrative.

Hi Nay: A supernatural horror following a young woman named Mari, who's babaylan (shaman) family background draws her into helping people with various horrific supernatural problems around Toronto. Formatted as phone calls to her mother telling her what's happened.

I Am In Eskew: Often-horrific stories from a man living in something that very much wishes to be a city, and a private investigator who was, in her words, hired to kill a ghost. Many people seem to agree this one is scary.

Janus Descending: A xenoarcheologist and a xenopaleontologist are sent to investigate and sample the ruins of a long-dead alien city, and discover more than they anticipated. The format for this one is really clever: you hear her audio logs first to last, and his last to first, and the story is all the more heartbreaking for it. I'd recommend listening to the supercut.

The Lost Cat Podcast: A man befriends strange entities, loses bits of himself and drinks an awful lot of wine while looking for his cat. Soft and cosmic horror.

The Moon Crown: The shortest on this list, but also one of the most fascinating. A disgraced scribe living in a city of humans, beasts, and other bizzare entities, begins to recount recent happenings, and actions she has a hard time explaining, on broadcast. But the people she's hoping to reach might not be the ones listening.

The Silt Verses: In a modern world where gods are plentiful, both illicit and commercialised, two disciples of an outlawed river god go on a pilgrimage.

Although, maybe some other listeners can help me out and share what scared them?

[birdghosting]

he's loud and proud as he should be

[eerieechos]

“Are you two DRUNK right now??”

[fyeahaudiodrama]

been thinking about audio drama that works as horror and horror that works as audio drama

[224bbaker]

CROWDFUND UPDATE: 100% 🎉

Oh. Wow.

The team took a brief break yesterday to regroup a bit after a hectic week and came back this morning to see we are FULLY FUNDED! Thank you so much to everyone who supported the show in any way--we are beyond thankful, beyond touched, beyond--just all of it.

There will be a longer thank you post coming when we have more time, but again, thank you. We cannot WAIT to tell you this story, to hopefully make you laugh, gasp, yell, etc. We love this team, this show, the people who make it happen--and that so very much includes you. It's truly a dream come true.

There are still a few more days to support the show, and to get some stickers, in-character thank you notes, signed scripts, audio thanks, early access, etc! And we've got some script teases left to dole out! But for now, officially, and victoriously:

#ForAmbrosius

[jouxlskaard]

just finished the first season of Malevolent and this show is like TMA on fucking steroids. why are they already quarreling like an old married couple and why has Arthur nearly gotten himself killed every single episode. I love it

[hephaestuscrew]

I do think there's something special about the way that audio drama creators seem to love including cameos of voice actors from other popular audio dramas. Obviously, part of the reason why actors from one show might pop up in another is because the audio drama creator community is relatively small and interconnected, and also because those actors are very talented.

But there's also often such a sense that creators are having fun with these cameos. Like Greater Boston casting audio drama heavyweights Briggon Snow, Zach Valenti, and Felix Trench as famous film actors Matt Daemon, Ben Affleck, and Mark Wahlberg respectively. Or Faux and Stallion having Tom Crowley (who plays a Victorian detective in Victoriocity) pop up as Dr Watson. Or Unseen casting Beth Eyre and Felix Trench as characters who are twins. Or Arden getting Emma Sherr-Ziarko to play an actor impersonating a character played by her former Wolf 359 costar Michelle Agresti (with Michaela Swee also appearing as an actor impersonating the other main Arden lead).

In these cases, it's not just that there's a cameo, but that the cameo is given particular (often comedic) significance to those who are aware of the featured actor's other work. The vast majority of people wouldn't recognise any of these voices. But by doing these very intentional cameos, these creators show confidence that a fair chunk of their audience will know these actors and enjoy the link. There's an awareness that listeners of one audio drama are fairly likely to listen to (or at least be aware of) other fiction podcasts, even when the shows in question aren't of particularly similar genres. Recognising these cameos feels like being in on a secret. It feels like these shows are giving a little nod to listeners to say that we're part of the same club.

[annabelle--cane]

I must not stir the pot. stirring the pot is the pot stirrer. etc and so forth.

[thelaurenshippen]

I spent a chunk of yesterday making a bunch of these trope memes for atypical's shows and when I tell you I BLANKED on how to describe a show I spent the better part of my twenties writing...

I'm really curious, TBS listeners, what tropes/identifiers/hooks would you use to get someone to listen to the show?

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[thetrinitytest]

huge shoutout to Big Finish and GDL for tearing my heart out through my throat and wringing it out like a towel

[truetalesteam]

True Tales of the Illuminati needs YOUR help to fund a third season!

Big news! We just launched our indiegogo to crowdfund the third season of our show, True Tales of the Illuminati.

True Tales is our full-cast audio comedy about conspiracies gone wrong, where a group of illuminati goons bounce haplessly throughout history snatching defeat from the jaws of other, weirder defeats.

In our first season (which you can listen to here or on your podcatcher of choice) , our gang of Illuminauts failed to keep the pyramids a secret. In the second, they failed to fake the moon landing so hard that they had to actually land on the moon. In the third, Beck and the gang will be going up against their toughest foe yet - the Enlightenment.

That’s right, reason IS the font of goodness, and it’s back to the 18th century to deal with the likes of Denis Diderot, Johanne Weishaupt, and Wolfgang Goethe. Can they match their scintillating wit? Create an objective test of intellectual acumen? Kiss?

We've been acclaimed by the AV Club on their Podmass roundup and made it to the finalists in the 2020 and 2022 Audioverse awards.

We've also had the following very kind words said about us:

"True Tales of the Illuminati is the wackiest, most ridiculous fun. Get swept away into a witty, space-time spanning rollercoaster ride of Looney Tunes hijinks and cartoonish comedy. It reminds me of my favourite audio fiction comedies, from Victoriocity and Wooden Overcoats to Oblivity and The Amelia Project. If you want your ears full of laugh out loud audio mayhem, please help bring this project to life!"

Ella Watts, BBC Studios, Doctor Who Redacted

"One of the funniest scripted podcasts out there, with brilliant characters and a wildly imaginative world. We need more!"

Tom Crowley, Wooden Overcoats, Victoriocity, Crowley Time with me, Tom Crowley

"True Tales is a fantastic, hilarious workplace satire, perfect for the post-truth era."

Henry Galley, Less is Morgue co-creator

Pretty good, right? If you're intrigued, if you like the show, if you want to help us make more, please head over to our indiegogo and drop us a few dollars. If you drop us more than a few, we even have rewards, like early access, stickers, pins, and more!

Oh, and did we mention that we're releasing 15-30 minute standalone minisodes as we hit our funding goals? The first one is already out for your enjoyment here, and we’ll be releasing new ones for every $3k raised. If we hit our $9000 goal, we'll drop a minisode by very special guest writer and performer, Tom Crowley! That’s right, the one from the pull quote! Tom’s one of our favorite writers and performers and he’s given us an incredible minisode, so as you can imagine, we really want to share it with you. So help us do just that!

Making this show is a labor of love, but we also need to pay our actors, our sound designer and rent studio space to make this as great as we can. Thank you so much if you decide to be a part of that. If you decide to donate, head on over to truetalesteam.com/crowdfund. We hope to see you there.

Illuminati, Ollominoto, The True Tales Team

[aq2003]

ten is like oohhhh i will always have to come to terms with how everyone that i love will leave me behind (bc i'm a near immortal alien) and how they will always find someone else more important than me (bc i'm a near immortal alien) and i have trouble holding onto my connections with them bc the way i love them isn't enough/isn't the right kind of love for them (bc i'm a near immortal alien) and then he dies in 6 years so his storyline is like a metaphor for being aroace instead