🎨What Audio Dramas Can Learn from Nonfiction Podcasts🧠

Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point

Hi hello! Wil here!

Nonfiction podcasters, I am so sorry to break this to you — I assume it will be news because I know our readers are all sweethearts — but a lot of your people are really mean to fiction podcasters. Not just condescending or dismissive, like actually high school mean. Regina George mean. Regina George (2004) mean. I am not exaggerating.

But fiction podcasters, I am so sorry to break this to you as well — hopefully it won’t be news? But nonfiction podcasters by and large know so, so, so much more about marketing their podcasts and how the industry works. Not knowing these things should not be a badge of honor. So many fiction podcasters want to make their work their full-time job, and they should! But to make that happen, you do in fact need to learn from nonfiction podcasters are trying to tell you.

Let’s get keep going on our series about how nonfiction and fiction podcasters can learn from each other! ✨

📰Keep up with industry news

If you want podcasting to be your job, you will be working in the podcast industry. Ignoring industry news does not make that less true. It just makes you less savvy and less prepared.

Podcast industry news consistently undervalues and flat out ignores fiction, especially indie fiction, but that doesn’t mean that news about nonfiction doesn’t impact audio drama. The way the industry works impacts everyone who works in the industry. Trends in ads, sponsorships, and even pro-RSS vs. anti-RSS debates impact how the industry churns. You should know what it means when someone asks how many impressions you want to trade for cross-marketing.

Luckily, there’s a good ecosystem for how to stay in touch with podcasting news. First off, you’re here, yay! 🎉 We don’t typically cover much news — our sister newsletter, Podcast the Newsletter, is a better fit — but it means you’re already ahead of the game in terms of paying attention. But here’s a list of other sources for you to go check out:

• Hot Pod — but it’s currently on hiatus! 😭 We love you Ariel Shapiro!

• Podnews for, you know, what it says on the tin

• Sounds Profitable for business and money news

• The Squeeze for reported looks into audio workplace equity and more

• BlkPodNews for news on the Black podcast creators’ scene

  • I don’t need to tell you to subscribe even if you’re not Black, right? Right?

• Pod the North for Canadian podcasting news

  • See above but for being Canadian

• Sounds Like Impact for news on the activism space in audio

And that’s just a start! PLEASE share your favorite podcast news sources in the comments!

🏢Run your business like a business

I know many, many audio dramas are labors of love. I know many, many audio dramas run on volunteer labor. I promise I know this. But you do, really and truly, still need to look at them from a business perspective if you want them to someday be a business. And if you want to work in the industry, that means that your podcasts will be a business. This is not selling out. This is making a living as an artist under capitalism. I don’t like it either! But ignoring this will not make it untrue.

So, how do you do this? First, make sure you’ve got your paperwork in order (I know! I’m sorry!!!). Contracts don’t just protect you; they protect your cast and crew as well.

Next, make sure you’re acting professionally with your collaborators. You don’t have to be buttoned up, but you should be appropriate, reliable, and clear. You need to recognize the power you have over your cast and crew as a creator/showrunner, even if you don’t feel powerful.

🥛Remember that the cream doesn’t just rise to the top

Audio dramatists are typically well aware that there is really no such thing as a meritocracy, especially in the arts — but they often seem hesitant to let that inform their efforts to get their work seen. If anything, I’ve seen a lot of this discussion used as rationale for why their podcast isn’t getting the listenership they’ve liked . . . when they haven’t done anything to market their podcast using that awareness?

Griping about the nightmare working conditions and systemic oppression that dictates much of art’s visibility is important. Vital, even. Necessary if we ever want to see any change, and we should.

But it does not actually, like, help your podcast.

I’m not saying you should shut up and get to marketing. I’m saying you should keep talking about it and use it as a reminder that if you want to get your podcast heard, you have to be marketing it. You have to be putting it in front of people and asking them to please listen.

Marketing your own work, especially your own fiction, is really hard and weird and awkward and uncomfortable. But you don’t have to do it alone. Never forget that what audio drama lacks in exposure, it more than makes up for in community. Try out a trade: market someone else’s audio drama for them in return for them marketing for you. Just know that people will not just up and find your podcast. You have to put in the work here.

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⭐ More Magic

• Don’t forget, we have an upcoming Podcast Group Therapy session on promo swaps! Audio dramatists, this is one of THE most important and loveliest methods of marketing your show, with very little anguish involved in my experience.

🔎 From the Desk of Tink

When this edition of PMM goes out, I will be at the TED Conference in Vancouver! One of my favorite shows in the TED Audio Collective slate is TED Climate. I am climate anxious. I am climate terrified. I am climate trying not to be a nihilist. But TED Climate consistently brings me back down to earth. Each episode is quick, solid, and clear — and comforting, in a way, Despite It All™️. It’s a great antidote for feeling overwhelmed and hopeless, reminding us that we still have time.

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I’ll be back next week with more on why fiction and nonfiction need each other to thrive! ✨

<3 Wil 🦇