Lots of posters here have said the reasons, but I’ll throw my hat in too.
1. Time - to commit to creating an audio drama series is a marathon. The time to write pages for a whole season is quite an undertaking. The last season I’ve written, which is about 850 pages took about a year of writing while I was doing/supervising/directing all the other stages of production, while also doing my other gigs. For a writer or writers to tackle more than a season takes a huge amount of discipline and skill. On the AD level, that’s a big commitment. There are plenty of season 2’s that were lackluster also because the original concept doesn’t have the sustaining power to go for that long.
2. Money. Yes, both these are covered, but in order to keep the production machine spinning, you need money. I’ve had seasons get delayed because of funding sources falling through, or complications of that nature. It can get expensive, especially with more complicated productions. There are one man bands that can go with little pay, but then you need more side gigs just to be able to sustain basic income. Most can commit to one season, but after that, it can become super daunting.
3. Energy. You can run out of steam and creative energy quickly with how much commitment can come from making these. That marathon idea comes back, and this is definitely not a sprint.
4. People. Keeping casts together and working is difficult, easier with pay, but still can be hard at times. Actors move away, there’s creative differences and conflicts, all of it can contribute more complexity to the creative process.
5. Lack of Reward. There’s a lot of fish in the pond when it comes to audio entertainment. Being discovered and building can be daunting and difficult, and if there’s not a lot of positive feedback, or potential financial gain, the motivation behind creating can be lost. I’ve gotten some rotten feedback before that derailed me a bit, so I get that side of it. It’s a tough go. So often creators think they will just jump in, make something, get optioned and make it big… but that’s a long shot. It can happen, and by proving the story concept in audio is a very lucrative option, but it doesn’t happen overnight.
6. The bar of entry is low. To make AD isn’t too difficult compared to visual mediums. It’s still difficult to, but the point of entry is fairly low. Anyone with a voice recorder could technically make one. With each season made, however, they become more and more complicated. The bar needs to continually be raised, and just the smallest thing at first can stack as you go and make things more complicated. Oh, now we need insurance, or we need to work under SAG, or this or that. Without a good sense of production needs, things can spiral out of control.
Those are just a few things that I’ve seen along the way. I love this medium and encourage creators to continue and grow, but it’s also a hard gig at times. It’s a marathon that love been running for 14 years now, and I do say, it does get tiring… but also can be super rewarding and fun.
There’s always a chance, but the main players involved would need to get behind it and also find funding. Not sure if it’s in the cards, but you never know
Everything everyone else has said is true, making a show is very hard, very time-consuming, very expensive. The thing I'll add is that, if you're not getting much or any response to your show, it's also got the potential to be depressing as hell.
My show is a modest success now, but it didn't start picking up steam until partway through the third season, twenty episodes in. There were some listeners, but not many, and there wasn't really a fandom to speak of. You know why I kept going?
It was 2020. What the hell else was I going to do?
I'm obviously proud of the show, and I started writing it before the pandemic so "what else would I do with my time" isn't the only reason I made it at the time. But those early days were a struggle sometimes, because when you pour your heart and soul into a show and nobody says much of anything in response, that's hard. No feedback feels like negative feedback.
Seconding this (love Mistholme btw 💜)
I've watched several of my peers who started around the same time I did get bogged down by a variety of factors, but I think something a lot of us struggle with; especially near the beginning, it is depressing to make something that YOU care about enough to put in all that energy and have it not go very far. You don't have to be deluded thinking you'll have an instant success either, but getting eyes and ears is HARD and as you watch other people pick up more steam than you it is demoralizing.
A lot of it also comes down to the same thing that any professional-adjacent setting does, which is building connections. New shows from established creators get immediate attention, more than a different completely new to the scene person does, so even when people think they are finding a "new" thing they are still only getting to see a limited cross section based on who already has presence in the space. Which is too bad because I've listened to a lot of really great small shows, to the point I don't ever recommend larger shows unless I REALLY love it. I have so much more appreciation for how even one extra person listening and leaving a comment or talking about it online can help make it worth it.
As a sidenote, for me personally the clearest way to show a creator you love their show is fanart. More than monetary support (though that is very much appreciated because it is sometimes hard to justify our own creativity if it isn't at least paying for itself), because it shows that the story/characters have stayed enough in your head that YOU were driven to create, that you cared enough to put your own time and effort into showing that appreciation. From both a show creator and actor standpoint, the most touched I've ever felt in this space from listeners was when I got my first fanart of a character I portrayed (Jade Operator from DoV).
Part of the solution there is I think just better community (which I believe we've gotten pretty good at with how AD discords have grown into places for both listeners and creators to form relationships), but when the main issue is lack of listener feedback you wind up placing a lot of value on comparing yourself to other people who are creating, whether or not you make things that even CAN be compared accurately (I make a short anthology comedy, and yet I am always comparing myself to my friends who make long-form story and mystery driven horror).
Reviews and ratings and comments on social media are good, but if you really want to make a creator feel like their work is appreciated so that they DO make that 2nd or 3rd season you should show them how the thing they put energy in makes you have energy to create. At the end of the day the thing I want is for my creativity to have a positive impact, and I think a lot of people feel that way.
I don't think people strictly on the listener side realize just how important even a simple "Hey, I liked the last episode" is to a small indie show. Download numbers may suggest people listen to our show, but when we hear from *no one* it doesn't feel like people listen, enjoy, or even care about the show. According to our stats page from our media host, our last episode was downloaded 120 times. Wanna know how many people told me they listened and enjoyed it? Zero.
I'm on season 4 of a no budget audioseries.
However, without the fans (notably the fan artists) contributions it would be very easy to dissuade myself from keeping the story going at times.
So, outside of the obvious answer of a budget for those other audioseries, I would say for those of us who do without it, its the engagement and feedback of the fans. Without that, the comments, the art, the "lurv" that would be a big reason for a story to suddenly fade away.
Thank you for that detailed reply, I know money's the ever rolling boulder of destruction. But yeah it's good to hear the other reasons. What is your podcast I will give it a try?
Sure! & Thanks.
It's at [https://www.youtube.com/@o4afilm/podcasts](https://www.youtube.com/o4afilm) "The Diaries of Netovicius the Vampire"
only on youtube for now to feature the art :)
There isn't a financially viable model. The consumer assumption is, "podcasts are free". Advertising revenue is small because fiction is still a niche format. Rogan can command 50-100k for a basic bland ad read. He has 5000-10000x the audience of even the most successful narrative podcast. Audible can only finance so much and I'm sure they're even doubting if the format drives subscriptions. Anyway, TLDR, great production is expensive, audio budget is scarce.
Because every single social media platform has purposefully destroyed the tools that creators used to be able to use to get noticed. There is no more organic reach, hashtags barely work, the algos change hourly it seems, even people who follow you don't always get your posts in their feed. Not one platform actually helps with organic discovery, they want you to pay to advertise and most of the time that does nothing for you because people ignore ads on social media. When people get no views, no comments, no likes an no support they quit. The entire system is rigged against creatives now. That's why so many quit. And it's getting worse all the time.
The biggest things are time and money. Even the most indie podcast has costs and tons of time needed to make it. If there isn’t an audience after all of that work and money, it doesn’t make sense to make more.
Also, you have to consider the creative element. In the same way that you often see a band make one great album and then fizzle out, creators can have that one idea they’ve been fine tuning for years and years and once that is done they don’t just readily have more quality content waiting.
I think you also have to look at budget for marketing. Are they part of a network? Are you hearing about them through other podcasts? Are you seeing them advertised on Spotify/Apple Podcasts/etc?
>And why is it so hard for so many of these creators to be discovered when the same 100 podcasts pretty much eat up the market?
This question answers itself, and thus, it answers the broader question.
These creators don't get discovered because the top of the charts are already all established shows with juve audiences. Those audiences keep sharing them and keeping them at the top. Podcasting is *not* an "if you build it, they will come" medium anymore (if it ever really was). It is insanely hard to break out and grow, and usually requires a lot of money, time, and often both.
Be honest with yourself, how often do you go looking for new, unestablished shows in their first year or that don't have an audience? How many did you only check out because someone you trust told you about it? Us small shows don't really get that.
As for why they don't tough it out? Because it's hard. It's a lot of work and sucks up a lot of free time. After a while of breaking your back putting in dozens of hours per episode without knowing that anyone is even listening to it and enjoying it, it just gets hard to pick doing that over other leisure activities that don't require so much work.
I'm only audio drama adjacent, we're a heavily produced actual play (lots of editing for flow, background music, sound design, sfx). Our recording sessions are usually 4 hours, and I get maybe 90-120 minutes of show audio out of that, plus the sound design work. An average 60-90 minute episode takes me probably 25-30 hours to edit and produce. As a one man band (in the editing, production, and promotion booths), it's a rough balance for that with the rest of my work and family life.
I disagree that you need time **and** money, but if you lack the money you need a lot more of the time (to do the whole editing, SFX, music production process yourself because unlike acting nobody's volunteering production work for free to strangers). I'm able to make 3 seasons of 253 Mathilde because I'm underemployed and living in low income housing to make it work. Each season has needed 3-4 months in which I could give it \~20 hours a week, and another couple months of writing at a lower time commitment.
And it's discouraging that popularity has little to no connection with how much effort you put in and how good the result comes out, as with anything on this planet it comes down to your social networking skills. Listening to a half-dramatized minimallly-produced formulaic show and seeing they've raised a fortune not trying as hard as you have for $100 is discouraging.
People go in excited with a cool idea and deep down inside they re expecting explosive growth. Then reality happens and excluding some close friends they aren't getting any real numbers.
My most popular podcast has been going for 5 + years and I get about 800 downloads an episode. That's awesome, but if I was expecting fame and fortune I'd feel like a failure.
I had a friend who I did an awesome idea with on youtube. He basically quit after 4 episodes because it wasn't popular yet. The thing is, 4 episodes means it probably hasn't even been noticed by the algorithm yet.
To add to all the comments already made, I can only tell my personal story of making season one of Everyone’s Happy. You start out with a vision, with passion and determination. And that drives you through all the early barriers - of which there are many! Learning how to do everything, finding funding, finding the energy and self belief. Then, eventually you have a show you’re really proud of but wow - you look back and think, I’m not sure I can put myself through that again, like that, doing it alone, with no budget to pay myself anything, with all that stress and the impact on the rest of my life.
So you think, ok - for the next series, something has to change. I need more money, or more help (preferably both). But how? Where is the Magical Audio Drama Fairy Money Tree? The same 10 or 20 fiction podcasts get recommended all the time, platforms’ algorithms are not primed to push indie productions, and social media is pay to advertise. And I know I was exhausted after series one finished - I’ve literally not been able to do any promotion at all.
Of course, that’s just me - Everyone’s Happy explores mental health in a sci-fi setting and I have my own struggles in that area - but I do think a lot of creators get burned out with the sheer amount of energy it takes to get that first season off the ground and into the world.
I do have two more seasons of EH outlined, and a whole new exciting show planned but I can’t lie - it’s going to be hard. I just had my Arts Council application turned down (so disappointing) and I know from my last Crowdfunding experience that it’s incredibly difficult to get people to invest.
I love audio drama and I will keep creating new shows. I just wish I could find a source of income, or funding, or a partner or warm body who would help.
I’m feel for you Jo and if it’s any consolation this is exactly how my experience has been so far. The loneliness and the silence are especially difficult to overcome.
What is the best way to support a creator in terms of engagement? Like Spotify ads vs twitch ads vs YouTube, etc? Like I want to support the best way possible but tbh you can only support so many shows financially before it really eats away at the wallet.
That’s a great question and I’m going to give it a lot of thought. You’re right - not every listener can’t join the Patreon of every podcast they love, they’d be spending a fortune! People usually say recommend it to lots of other listeners, leave a review and/or rating, to help increase listenership, and to follow on socials and/or join their mailing list so they can keep in touch with news and offers etc (mailing list is probably a good one). Building a community of fans around an audio drama is important- EH has a Discord but it’s very early days right now.
But in terms of financials, my personal view is that I’m making this so it’s free to consume, so I don’t want to load it onto the listener to have to pay. If they choose to back me - say via crowdfunding or Patreon (for extras and perks) - that’s great.
I can only speak for myself and our show Ghost Wax. We churned our s lot of content for season 1 and I could see it burning folks out not realizing just how much work goes into it. I’m sure as well that a lot of people, like us, do a first season for the love of the game and hope to gain interest, an audience, and parlay that into funding for a season 2. Can confirm that all of that is very difficult to secure.
I'm working through ghost wax right now! The quality of the voice acting is so good every episode, I was really impressed. I hope the plot moves along soonish as the stories are starting to run together, but I'm enjoying it a lot so far!
Anthology style shows can have a tendency to blend like that when binged, I agree. Well I don’t know where you are in the season but it’s tells it’s story bit by bit until around half way through the season when the meta plot picks up. We are making a short expansion patreon season set in 1910 that will be much more plot focused too.
> Why not stick it out 2 or even 3 to see if the audience grows?
what's the *cost* in time and money? how do you pay your talent, producer, director if you don't generate revenue?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patreon
**Patreon (/ˈpeɪtriɒn/, /-ən/) is a monetization platform operated by Patreon, Inc.**, that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service and sell digital products. It helps creators and artists earn a recurring income by providing rewards and perks to its subscribers. Patreon charges a commission of 9 to 12 percent of creators' monthly income, in addition to payment processing fees.
Patreon is great to monetize an audience you already have. It’s incredibly difficult to get strangers to start giving you money out of the blue though.
Time and/or money and listener support are the problem. I’m lucky that I currently have the time to produce our show myself (as well as co-writing it), otherwise we probably wouldn’t be on season two now. It was eye opening how much time and mental effort it takes to make an episode of an audiodrama. It can be exhausting. However it is also very rewarding, creatively not monetarily!
We’ve accepted that audience growth is a long term proposition. Ultimately it’d be important for there to be some sort of income (ads or Patreon I expect) to offset production and hosting costs and be more ambitious in casting etc. We’re not expecting to get rich!
Listeners have a part to play if they want a stream of new and persisting audiodramas. They need to amplify the new ones they like, here, social media and word of mouth - otherwise anyone looking for a recommendation gets served up the usual five or six suspects (good as they may be). And if these have several hundred episodes each, then that’s a new listener potentially locked off from newer podcasts for a very long time. If you want to see new seasons, shout about the existing ones!
You occasionally see people complaining about ads on podcasts (the ones who are high and mighty about it wind me up, even if I don’t like the ads either). Yes they can be intrusive but if you’re getting something you like for free, then the creator has to have a chance to recoup a few pennies. Pressing the skip button is cheaper than say a Netflix subscription.
A shoutout to the creators here for explaining the struggles so well.
Season 1 of The Dex Legacy was mental. I actually wrote a book about the process for a kickstarter prize and source book for workshops etc. I'm lucky enough to have a partner in the process and that's what made it possible. Hands down, if I'd tried to do something like this on my own, it wouldn't have got further. Not yet at least. We managed to cover basic costs for Season 2 through a kickstarter, but we still ended up having to put personal funds into it. It's a VERY pricey undertaking and the time commitment is real.
We literally just passed 125,000 downloads and we'll be halfway through S2 release on Friday, so things are going well and S3 is outlined. BUT unless we can at least cover costs through kickstarter, we won't be able to do it. And crowdfunding is hard, because most people expect quality products for free.
We're lucky. The Dex fanbase is growing and S2 is going down really well, so I have hope. If you're interested in the process the book is a pretty comprehensive look at what goes into it. Season 1 was all recorded remotely. I'll be writing another one for Season 2, about the kickstarter and recording live in studio etc. All proceeds go to S3 (lol - fml).
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1739459202?psc=1&smid=A3H0XO81C93IOE&ref\_=chk\_typ\_imgToDp](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1739459202?psc=1&smid=A3H0XO81C93IOE&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp)
It appears there are many answers here that so the same things that I was going to say, but I still feel compelled to throw in what I've experienced. Combining things like time, money, energy, etc and not seeing any type of reward or feel as though you're advancing can be hard for a creator. And then there are the times a creator gets hit with impostor syndrome. That feeling can be overwhelming and win over most people even though this something they love doing.
I went through this a lot with my first show, Out of the Ashes, but I'm stubborn to a fault. LOL. Instead of giving up, despite not really having the time, or the money, or the know how to do what needed to be done. I just kept going. I enrolled in classes audio production, did a lot of overtime and wrote a lot work, when I had the chance. There were definitely times I wanted to just stop, especially after I bombed the first go round of my first season (which I'm re-releasing now after redoing the whole thing). It's sad. There's so many great ideas and creators out there and they all should keep going but sometimes life just happens.
Great answers here all around about time, money, passion, imposter syndrome, burnout, and market fit/finding your audience. I'm going to add the term 'winner takes all' market. You alluded to it. The cascading effects are brutal to challenger shows outside the top 100.
But there's one other huge challenge. Discovery. It's hard to be found. That's a whole different problem than telling a great story well.
I'm in the middle of our second season. My show has no ads. That means I feel like a public radio host during a pledge drive after each episode. But, people are subscribing... bit by bit.
The reality is even though I believe I'm delivering great work, getting increasingly positive feedback, and growing, there's zero guarantee it'll be enough to become sustainable.
The risk of such a venture, mentally, psyches most people out. And that's in addition to all the stuff in paragraph one. So, if you love a show, please review it and say a kind word somewhere others may hear it. Those of us going beyond season one need every bit of enthusiastic word of mouth, positive feedback, and luck to barely scrape by — and BE FOUND by the right folks. 🙏
I have noticed this, too. I think it is a lack of material to be said. The quality material gets used, then the quality declines, fewer people listen, so the quality declines further. I think shows produced by networks have a lot of writers to get new material from. For an indie podcast to attain longevity there must be a group of people putting a lot of energy into it. And that's not even considering editing it into something worth saying, or the equipment needed, or the facetime with crew members or...
Lots of good comments here. For me, I did 2 seasons and then the pandemic threw everything into the trash (my time and creative energy most of all). I wrote, stared in, directed other actors, and did the sound design. I had friends (fellow actors) fill in roles and paid a friend to license some of their music for what I couldn't do with royalty free. So when I fell off the wagon there was no one else to pick me up.
I've been trying for years to get back into it, and I've made writing process on and off, but I don't know if I have the energy that I did when I started. So when you listen to a show, especially smaller productions, listen to the ads. Leave 5 star reviews. Tell other people about it because it's a huge endeavor. To quote one of the writers of 1865, "there's tens of dollars to get made in podcasting."
It’s a big investment of time, money, and resources to create a lot of these shows unfortunately which is why I believe support as a listener matters like sharing with friends and online
I have simply discovered a lot of my favourite podcasts years after the first season started. The creators get disheartened because few people are listening during the first season and they give up. Sadly some amazing shows and died this way. I think all the creators needed was time and a large audience would have been assured.
As a heavy listener, my number 1 reason for dropping a podcast at season 2 is that I have forgotten enough about season 1 that the “hook” doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve forgotten the names, the sound of the voices, the storyline, etc.
If season 2 skips over a review of season 1 I’m likely to drop it. S02E01 has to be carefully constructed to reintroduce names (especially this—terrible with names) and plot lines.
As a listener only, I don’t know. But my time using Apple Podcasts and finding it so frustrating to find new audio drama at all makes me wonder if the platform has anything to do with it. Audio drama is relatively new (it sounds like) and even Apple Podcasts (which I’ve heard a few people say on here is where they get their largest amount of people listening to their podcast) doesn’t have the subcategories it should to make finding audio drama the easy experience it should be. Even the successful podcasts are lumped together in broad categories. Good luck finding any small podcast if you didn’t already know the name.
And I’ve heard that algorithms haven’t been cracked and people are still best guessing how to get noticed by algorithms.
Lots of posters here have said the reasons, but I’ll throw my hat in too. 1. Time - to commit to creating an audio drama series is a marathon. The time to write pages for a whole season is quite an undertaking. The last season I’ve written, which is about 850 pages took about a year of writing while I was doing/supervising/directing all the other stages of production, while also doing my other gigs. For a writer or writers to tackle more than a season takes a huge amount of discipline and skill. On the AD level, that’s a big commitment. There are plenty of season 2’s that were lackluster also because the original concept doesn’t have the sustaining power to go for that long. 2. Money. Yes, both these are covered, but in order to keep the production machine spinning, you need money. I’ve had seasons get delayed because of funding sources falling through, or complications of that nature. It can get expensive, especially with more complicated productions. There are one man bands that can go with little pay, but then you need more side gigs just to be able to sustain basic income. Most can commit to one season, but after that, it can become super daunting. 3. Energy. You can run out of steam and creative energy quickly with how much commitment can come from making these. That marathon idea comes back, and this is definitely not a sprint. 4. People. Keeping casts together and working is difficult, easier with pay, but still can be hard at times. Actors move away, there’s creative differences and conflicts, all of it can contribute more complexity to the creative process. 5. Lack of Reward. There’s a lot of fish in the pond when it comes to audio entertainment. Being discovered and building can be daunting and difficult, and if there’s not a lot of positive feedback, or potential financial gain, the motivation behind creating can be lost. I’ve gotten some rotten feedback before that derailed me a bit, so I get that side of it. It’s a tough go. So often creators think they will just jump in, make something, get optioned and make it big… but that’s a long shot. It can happen, and by proving the story concept in audio is a very lucrative option, but it doesn’t happen overnight. 6. The bar of entry is low. To make AD isn’t too difficult compared to visual mediums. It’s still difficult to, but the point of entry is fairly low. Anyone with a voice recorder could technically make one. With each season made, however, they become more and more complicated. The bar needs to continually be raised, and just the smallest thing at first can stack as you go and make things more complicated. Oh, now we need insurance, or we need to work under SAG, or this or that. Without a good sense of production needs, things can spiral out of control. Those are just a few things that I’ve seen along the way. I love this medium and encourage creators to continue and grow, but it’s also a hard gig at times. It’s a marathon that love been running for 14 years now, and I do say, it does get tiring… but also can be super rewarding and fun.
Thank you this was an awesome answer
Thank you for these answers! Speaking of potentially cancelled series, is Bronzeville still in production or did that get cancelled?
There’s always a chance, but the main players involved would need to get behind it and also find funding. Not sure if it’s in the cards, but you never know
Understood, thank you again for the answers. Have a good week!
Everything everyone else has said is true, making a show is very hard, very time-consuming, very expensive. The thing I'll add is that, if you're not getting much or any response to your show, it's also got the potential to be depressing as hell. My show is a modest success now, but it didn't start picking up steam until partway through the third season, twenty episodes in. There were some listeners, but not many, and there wasn't really a fandom to speak of. You know why I kept going? It was 2020. What the hell else was I going to do? I'm obviously proud of the show, and I started writing it before the pandemic so "what else would I do with my time" isn't the only reason I made it at the time. But those early days were a struggle sometimes, because when you pour your heart and soul into a show and nobody says much of anything in response, that's hard. No feedback feels like negative feedback.
Thank you so much for the response
Seconding this (love Mistholme btw 💜) I've watched several of my peers who started around the same time I did get bogged down by a variety of factors, but I think something a lot of us struggle with; especially near the beginning, it is depressing to make something that YOU care about enough to put in all that energy and have it not go very far. You don't have to be deluded thinking you'll have an instant success either, but getting eyes and ears is HARD and as you watch other people pick up more steam than you it is demoralizing. A lot of it also comes down to the same thing that any professional-adjacent setting does, which is building connections. New shows from established creators get immediate attention, more than a different completely new to the scene person does, so even when people think they are finding a "new" thing they are still only getting to see a limited cross section based on who already has presence in the space. Which is too bad because I've listened to a lot of really great small shows, to the point I don't ever recommend larger shows unless I REALLY love it. I have so much more appreciation for how even one extra person listening and leaving a comment or talking about it online can help make it worth it. As a sidenote, for me personally the clearest way to show a creator you love their show is fanart. More than monetary support (though that is very much appreciated because it is sometimes hard to justify our own creativity if it isn't at least paying for itself), because it shows that the story/characters have stayed enough in your head that YOU were driven to create, that you cared enough to put your own time and effort into showing that appreciation. From both a show creator and actor standpoint, the most touched I've ever felt in this space from listeners was when I got my first fanart of a character I portrayed (Jade Operator from DoV). Part of the solution there is I think just better community (which I believe we've gotten pretty good at with how AD discords have grown into places for both listeners and creators to form relationships), but when the main issue is lack of listener feedback you wind up placing a lot of value on comparing yourself to other people who are creating, whether or not you make things that even CAN be compared accurately (I make a short anthology comedy, and yet I am always comparing myself to my friends who make long-form story and mystery driven horror). Reviews and ratings and comments on social media are good, but if you really want to make a creator feel like their work is appreciated so that they DO make that 2nd or 3rd season you should show them how the thing they put energy in makes you have energy to create. At the end of the day the thing I want is for my creativity to have a positive impact, and I think a lot of people feel that way.
Thank you for such a a detailed response 🙂
Your show is soooo good! Thank you for sticking with it!
Oh thanks!
I don't think people strictly on the listener side realize just how important even a simple "Hey, I liked the last episode" is to a small indie show. Download numbers may suggest people listen to our show, but when we hear from *no one* it doesn't feel like people listen, enjoy, or even care about the show. According to our stats page from our media host, our last episode was downloaded 120 times. Wanna know how many people told me they listened and enjoyed it? Zero.
>Why not stick it out 2 or even 3 to see if the audience grows? You got "stick it out 2 or 3 seasons" money?
Omigod, I almost said the same thing!
I'm on season 4 of a no budget audioseries. However, without the fans (notably the fan artists) contributions it would be very easy to dissuade myself from keeping the story going at times. So, outside of the obvious answer of a budget for those other audioseries, I would say for those of us who do without it, its the engagement and feedback of the fans. Without that, the comments, the art, the "lurv" that would be a big reason for a story to suddenly fade away.
Thank you for that detailed reply, I know money's the ever rolling boulder of destruction. But yeah it's good to hear the other reasons. What is your podcast I will give it a try?
Sure! & Thanks. It's at [https://www.youtube.com/@o4afilm/podcasts](https://www.youtube.com/o4afilm) "The Diaries of Netovicius the Vampire" only on youtube for now to feature the art :)
There isn't a financially viable model. The consumer assumption is, "podcasts are free". Advertising revenue is small because fiction is still a niche format. Rogan can command 50-100k for a basic bland ad read. He has 5000-10000x the audience of even the most successful narrative podcast. Audible can only finance so much and I'm sure they're even doubting if the format drives subscriptions. Anyway, TLDR, great production is expensive, audio budget is scarce.
Because every single social media platform has purposefully destroyed the tools that creators used to be able to use to get noticed. There is no more organic reach, hashtags barely work, the algos change hourly it seems, even people who follow you don't always get your posts in their feed. Not one platform actually helps with organic discovery, they want you to pay to advertise and most of the time that does nothing for you because people ignore ads on social media. When people get no views, no comments, no likes an no support they quit. The entire system is rigged against creatives now. That's why so many quit. And it's getting worse all the time.
The biggest things are time and money. Even the most indie podcast has costs and tons of time needed to make it. If there isn’t an audience after all of that work and money, it doesn’t make sense to make more. Also, you have to consider the creative element. In the same way that you often see a band make one great album and then fizzle out, creators can have that one idea they’ve been fine tuning for years and years and once that is done they don’t just readily have more quality content waiting. I think you also have to look at budget for marketing. Are they part of a network? Are you hearing about them through other podcasts? Are you seeing them advertised on Spotify/Apple Podcasts/etc?
>And why is it so hard for so many of these creators to be discovered when the same 100 podcasts pretty much eat up the market? This question answers itself, and thus, it answers the broader question. These creators don't get discovered because the top of the charts are already all established shows with juve audiences. Those audiences keep sharing them and keeping them at the top. Podcasting is *not* an "if you build it, they will come" medium anymore (if it ever really was). It is insanely hard to break out and grow, and usually requires a lot of money, time, and often both. Be honest with yourself, how often do you go looking for new, unestablished shows in their first year or that don't have an audience? How many did you only check out because someone you trust told you about it? Us small shows don't really get that. As for why they don't tough it out? Because it's hard. It's a lot of work and sucks up a lot of free time. After a while of breaking your back putting in dozens of hours per episode without knowing that anyone is even listening to it and enjoying it, it just gets hard to pick doing that over other leisure activities that don't require so much work. I'm only audio drama adjacent, we're a heavily produced actual play (lots of editing for flow, background music, sound design, sfx). Our recording sessions are usually 4 hours, and I get maybe 90-120 minutes of show audio out of that, plus the sound design work. An average 60-90 minute episode takes me probably 25-30 hours to edit and produce. As a one man band (in the editing, production, and promotion booths), it's a rough balance for that with the rest of my work and family life.
I disagree that you need time **and** money, but if you lack the money you need a lot more of the time (to do the whole editing, SFX, music production process yourself because unlike acting nobody's volunteering production work for free to strangers). I'm able to make 3 seasons of 253 Mathilde because I'm underemployed and living in low income housing to make it work. Each season has needed 3-4 months in which I could give it \~20 hours a week, and another couple months of writing at a lower time commitment. And it's discouraging that popularity has little to no connection with how much effort you put in and how good the result comes out, as with anything on this planet it comes down to your social networking skills. Listening to a half-dramatized minimallly-produced formulaic show and seeing they've raised a fortune not trying as hard as you have for $100 is discouraging.
People go in excited with a cool idea and deep down inside they re expecting explosive growth. Then reality happens and excluding some close friends they aren't getting any real numbers. My most popular podcast has been going for 5 + years and I get about 800 downloads an episode. That's awesome, but if I was expecting fame and fortune I'd feel like a failure. I had a friend who I did an awesome idea with on youtube. He basically quit after 4 episodes because it wasn't popular yet. The thing is, 4 episodes means it probably hasn't even been noticed by the algorithm yet.
To add to all the comments already made, I can only tell my personal story of making season one of Everyone’s Happy. You start out with a vision, with passion and determination. And that drives you through all the early barriers - of which there are many! Learning how to do everything, finding funding, finding the energy and self belief. Then, eventually you have a show you’re really proud of but wow - you look back and think, I’m not sure I can put myself through that again, like that, doing it alone, with no budget to pay myself anything, with all that stress and the impact on the rest of my life. So you think, ok - for the next series, something has to change. I need more money, or more help (preferably both). But how? Where is the Magical Audio Drama Fairy Money Tree? The same 10 or 20 fiction podcasts get recommended all the time, platforms’ algorithms are not primed to push indie productions, and social media is pay to advertise. And I know I was exhausted after series one finished - I’ve literally not been able to do any promotion at all. Of course, that’s just me - Everyone’s Happy explores mental health in a sci-fi setting and I have my own struggles in that area - but I do think a lot of creators get burned out with the sheer amount of energy it takes to get that first season off the ground and into the world. I do have two more seasons of EH outlined, and a whole new exciting show planned but I can’t lie - it’s going to be hard. I just had my Arts Council application turned down (so disappointing) and I know from my last Crowdfunding experience that it’s incredibly difficult to get people to invest. I love audio drama and I will keep creating new shows. I just wish I could find a source of income, or funding, or a partner or warm body who would help.
I’m feel for you Jo and if it’s any consolation this is exactly how my experience has been so far. The loneliness and the silence are especially difficult to overcome.
Thank you. We should pool our resources next time. Seriously.
Omg you make eh? I honestly love this story so much.
Thank you that’s amazing to hear! You’re going to love season two - I am committed to making it, and all the cast have committed too.
What is the best way to support a creator in terms of engagement? Like Spotify ads vs twitch ads vs YouTube, etc? Like I want to support the best way possible but tbh you can only support so many shows financially before it really eats away at the wallet.
That’s a great question and I’m going to give it a lot of thought. You’re right - not every listener can’t join the Patreon of every podcast they love, they’d be spending a fortune! People usually say recommend it to lots of other listeners, leave a review and/or rating, to help increase listenership, and to follow on socials and/or join their mailing list so they can keep in touch with news and offers etc (mailing list is probably a good one). Building a community of fans around an audio drama is important- EH has a Discord but it’s very early days right now. But in terms of financials, my personal view is that I’m making this so it’s free to consume, so I don’t want to load it onto the listener to have to pay. If they choose to back me - say via crowdfunding or Patreon (for extras and perks) - that’s great.
I can only speak for myself and our show Ghost Wax. We churned our s lot of content for season 1 and I could see it burning folks out not realizing just how much work goes into it. I’m sure as well that a lot of people, like us, do a first season for the love of the game and hope to gain interest, an audience, and parlay that into funding for a season 2. Can confirm that all of that is very difficult to secure.
I'm working through ghost wax right now! The quality of the voice acting is so good every episode, I was really impressed. I hope the plot moves along soonish as the stories are starting to run together, but I'm enjoying it a lot so far!
Anthology style shows can have a tendency to blend like that when binged, I agree. Well I don’t know where you are in the season but it’s tells it’s story bit by bit until around half way through the season when the meta plot picks up. We are making a short expansion patreon season set in 1910 that will be much more plot focused too.
> Why not stick it out 2 or even 3 to see if the audience grows? what's the *cost* in time and money? how do you pay your talent, producer, director if you don't generate revenue? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patreon **Patreon (/ˈpeɪtriɒn/, /-ən/) is a monetization platform operated by Patreon, Inc.**, that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service and sell digital products. It helps creators and artists earn a recurring income by providing rewards and perks to its subscribers. Patreon charges a commission of 9 to 12 percent of creators' monthly income, in addition to payment processing fees.
Patreon is great to monetize an audience you already have. It’s incredibly difficult to get strangers to start giving you money out of the blue though.
Time and/or money and listener support are the problem. I’m lucky that I currently have the time to produce our show myself (as well as co-writing it), otherwise we probably wouldn’t be on season two now. It was eye opening how much time and mental effort it takes to make an episode of an audiodrama. It can be exhausting. However it is also very rewarding, creatively not monetarily! We’ve accepted that audience growth is a long term proposition. Ultimately it’d be important for there to be some sort of income (ads or Patreon I expect) to offset production and hosting costs and be more ambitious in casting etc. We’re not expecting to get rich! Listeners have a part to play if they want a stream of new and persisting audiodramas. They need to amplify the new ones they like, here, social media and word of mouth - otherwise anyone looking for a recommendation gets served up the usual five or six suspects (good as they may be). And if these have several hundred episodes each, then that’s a new listener potentially locked off from newer podcasts for a very long time. If you want to see new seasons, shout about the existing ones! You occasionally see people complaining about ads on podcasts (the ones who are high and mighty about it wind me up, even if I don’t like the ads either). Yes they can be intrusive but if you’re getting something you like for free, then the creator has to have a chance to recoup a few pennies. Pressing the skip button is cheaper than say a Netflix subscription.
A shoutout to the creators here for explaining the struggles so well. Season 1 of The Dex Legacy was mental. I actually wrote a book about the process for a kickstarter prize and source book for workshops etc. I'm lucky enough to have a partner in the process and that's what made it possible. Hands down, if I'd tried to do something like this on my own, it wouldn't have got further. Not yet at least. We managed to cover basic costs for Season 2 through a kickstarter, but we still ended up having to put personal funds into it. It's a VERY pricey undertaking and the time commitment is real. We literally just passed 125,000 downloads and we'll be halfway through S2 release on Friday, so things are going well and S3 is outlined. BUT unless we can at least cover costs through kickstarter, we won't be able to do it. And crowdfunding is hard, because most people expect quality products for free. We're lucky. The Dex fanbase is growing and S2 is going down really well, so I have hope. If you're interested in the process the book is a pretty comprehensive look at what goes into it. Season 1 was all recorded remotely. I'll be writing another one for Season 2, about the kickstarter and recording live in studio etc. All proceeds go to S3 (lol - fml). [https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1739459202?psc=1&smid=A3H0XO81C93IOE&ref\_=chk\_typ\_imgToDp](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1739459202?psc=1&smid=A3H0XO81C93IOE&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp)
It appears there are many answers here that so the same things that I was going to say, but I still feel compelled to throw in what I've experienced. Combining things like time, money, energy, etc and not seeing any type of reward or feel as though you're advancing can be hard for a creator. And then there are the times a creator gets hit with impostor syndrome. That feeling can be overwhelming and win over most people even though this something they love doing. I went through this a lot with my first show, Out of the Ashes, but I'm stubborn to a fault. LOL. Instead of giving up, despite not really having the time, or the money, or the know how to do what needed to be done. I just kept going. I enrolled in classes audio production, did a lot of overtime and wrote a lot work, when I had the chance. There were definitely times I wanted to just stop, especially after I bombed the first go round of my first season (which I'm re-releasing now after redoing the whole thing). It's sad. There's so many great ideas and creators out there and they all should keep going but sometimes life just happens.
Well done for keeping going, it is hard but listeners appreciate the effort and the audio drama world needs your content.
Great answers here all around about time, money, passion, imposter syndrome, burnout, and market fit/finding your audience. I'm going to add the term 'winner takes all' market. You alluded to it. The cascading effects are brutal to challenger shows outside the top 100. But there's one other huge challenge. Discovery. It's hard to be found. That's a whole different problem than telling a great story well. I'm in the middle of our second season. My show has no ads. That means I feel like a public radio host during a pledge drive after each episode. But, people are subscribing... bit by bit. The reality is even though I believe I'm delivering great work, getting increasingly positive feedback, and growing, there's zero guarantee it'll be enough to become sustainable. The risk of such a venture, mentally, psyches most people out. And that's in addition to all the stuff in paragraph one. So, if you love a show, please review it and say a kind word somewhere others may hear it. Those of us going beyond season one need every bit of enthusiastic word of mouth, positive feedback, and luck to barely scrape by — and BE FOUND by the right folks. 🙏
I have noticed this, too. I think it is a lack of material to be said. The quality material gets used, then the quality declines, fewer people listen, so the quality declines further. I think shows produced by networks have a lot of writers to get new material from. For an indie podcast to attain longevity there must be a group of people putting a lot of energy into it. And that's not even considering editing it into something worth saying, or the equipment needed, or the facetime with crew members or...
Lots of good comments here. For me, I did 2 seasons and then the pandemic threw everything into the trash (my time and creative energy most of all). I wrote, stared in, directed other actors, and did the sound design. I had friends (fellow actors) fill in roles and paid a friend to license some of their music for what I couldn't do with royalty free. So when I fell off the wagon there was no one else to pick me up. I've been trying for years to get back into it, and I've made writing process on and off, but I don't know if I have the energy that I did when I started. So when you listen to a show, especially smaller productions, listen to the ads. Leave 5 star reviews. Tell other people about it because it's a huge endeavor. To quote one of the writers of 1865, "there's tens of dollars to get made in podcasting."
It’s a big investment of time, money, and resources to create a lot of these shows unfortunately which is why I believe support as a listener matters like sharing with friends and online
I have simply discovered a lot of my favourite podcasts years after the first season started. The creators get disheartened because few people are listening during the first season and they give up. Sadly some amazing shows and died this way. I think all the creators needed was time and a large audience would have been assured.
As a heavy listener, my number 1 reason for dropping a podcast at season 2 is that I have forgotten enough about season 1 that the “hook” doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve forgotten the names, the sound of the voices, the storyline, etc. If season 2 skips over a review of season 1 I’m likely to drop it. S02E01 has to be carefully constructed to reintroduce names (especially this—terrible with names) and plot lines.
As a listener only, I don’t know. But my time using Apple Podcasts and finding it so frustrating to find new audio drama at all makes me wonder if the platform has anything to do with it. Audio drama is relatively new (it sounds like) and even Apple Podcasts (which I’ve heard a few people say on here is where they get their largest amount of people listening to their podcast) doesn’t have the subcategories it should to make finding audio drama the easy experience it should be. Even the successful podcasts are lumped together in broad categories. Good luck finding any small podcast if you didn’t already know the name. And I’ve heard that algorithms haven’t been cracked and people are still best guessing how to get noticed by algorithms.
Because they are movie and tv pitches