hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1683.txt

Episode: 1683
Title: HPR1683: Theater of the Imagination: Part 06
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1683/hpr1683.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 07:41:24

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This is HPR episode 1683 entitled Theatre of the Imagination, Part 6 and is part of the series interviews.
It is hosted by Lost Bronx and is about 46 minutes long.
The summary is Lost Bronx Interviews Julie Hoverson, a modern audio drama enthusiast.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by An Honesthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR-15. That's HPR-15.
Better web hosting that's Honest and Fair at An Honesthost.com.
Hello, this is Lost in Bronx and you're listening to Theatre of the Imagination, Part 6.
This is my series on dramatic audio media, old and new, including audio drama,
audio books and anything else I can think of.
Today's installment is a bit different from previous ones in that I've had the pleasure and
privilege to interview one Julie Hoverson. Julie is a living legend of the modern,
enthusiast audio drama movement. Now, she's a regular pistol at all times, but for this talk,
I had an agenda in mind, specifically a question. Why is it so darn hard to make a living in
audio drama today? The arts are always difficult, but audio drama seems nearly impossible,
at least in the United States. This has been mysterious to me for some time now, so I decided to
pick the brain of someone smarter and far more experienced than myself, and only one name came to mind.
Now, our language is a little free here, so be warned.
Talented, busy, and a true veteran of a thousand psychic wars, often against other worldly horrors
beyond the Ken of humankind, I'm proud to present this humble chat with the one and only
Julie Hoverson. You've done so much dramatic audio work of various kinds over so many years,
it might be best to start at the beginning. What got you into voice work of any kind or all kinds
to begin with? Well, I've always been an actor. I mean, ever since, I mean, when I was a child,
I just never grew out of make-believe. And I've read books to friends just by younger siblings,
everything, so I've always done voices. But also, I spent many years doing tabletop role-playing
games where I was the game master, and so I had to play all the characters that everybody came
across. And so I developed piles and piles of voices for every game we played.
What was kind of the trigger to actually start recording, you know, like getting involved,
did you start off making your own stuff, or did you start off working in other people's shows?
I was actually with American Radio Theatre, which is a local group of OTR
old-time radio fans who did recreations of shows, particularly of shows where the script was
existing, but the show itself was not. Okay. And the problem that I had there was, unfortunately,
there's just really not a lot of good roles for females. But I got little quirky parts, but I
didn't get anything particularly interesting. So I started writing my own. Then a friend, actually,
my friend, Renaud, who has been in a million of my episodes, he got cast in somebody else's
podcast audio drama, and they were still looking for a female lead. So he took me into audition.
I got it. And while we were recording that one day, one of the other actors was like, this is
fun. We should do more of this. And I'm like, I've got scripts. I've been writing my own scripts,
but, you know, hoping to do them with our ART, because we occasionally did new modern stuff,
but not very often. Okay. At first, I was recording at their studio, their basement, you know,
yeah, and then I started just doing satellite recording, which is taking recordings from various
places. As I developed more technique and was able to mesh voices better, I started recording
things separately and putting them together. Though you've switched gears a little bit lately,
which we'll get into in just a bit, could you describe to people the general procedure you
were following in order to produce your many projects when you were running at your peak?
I mean, the sheer volume of work you were doing at that time was staggering to most of us
whoever heard you talk about it on your audio blog or in other interviews. What were you going
through on a daily basis? This is going back now. What about two years? Something like that. Yeah.
Well, what I was usually what I had is I had my next six or eight episodes planned out. I already
had the scripts written. So I'd be casting so that by the time, you know, I got even close to
getting to, you know, the episode six and down the road, all the voices would be in. So I didn't
have to deal quite as much the way some people have to with the lack of voices getting in on time.
You know, I mean, I'd make sure that two episodes ahead, I had all the voices and I'd
clean them and set them aside while I was doing other stuff and I'd be listening to music.
And my desk at work, you know, because you do. And, you know, picking out music for shows and
setting it aside into folders for the next six shows, you know, all those sorts of things that you
just do constantly. But you were doing this all the time without fail. I mean, you were, you were,
you were like almost 80 episodes without a machine. It was astonishing. It really was astonishing.
I was convinced, you know, there was no such thing as Julie Hoverson. There was in fact a team
and they all took that nom de plume, right? They were all Julie Hoverson. And there was this
crew of people all working. And they just had one person who, you know, whenever you heard her speak,
that was that was portraying Julie Hoverson. But in point of fact, there was no such person,
right? And because it was, I mean, it was just amazing. It was just amazing. The amount of labor
you were doing. And that was on top of a day job. Yeah. Now all of that work that you just described.
So everyone knows this was unpaid, right? You weren't getting plenty out of it. No one else
was getting any money out of it. Nope. I got occasional donations. If I was lucky, I'd get enough
donations to pay for about a third of the cost of the of my actual website. And that, you know,
everything else came out of my pocket. You know, I had to pay for some things. And I had to flyers
and stuff. I mean, a podcast is virtually free to put out depending on how you do it. But I mean,
you have to have hosting. You have to have this and that. And I had a lot of really great help
volunteering from some of the artwork for the covers, particularly Brett Coolstock, who did
dozens of covers for me, I think, because he was a fan. And he just loved the show. And of course,
you know, it helps a lot once you know where to find music and Kevin McCloud of Incompetect.com
is the God of Internet. He should be sainted. Someone should put up a marble statue of that guy.
And we should all go and leave Laura leaves. And it's just the guy's amazing. Amazing. Yeah.
And he's just really nice too. I've emailed him a few times. I mean, he's been much more busy recently
than when I first started. But I mean, email him back and forth. He's always been so nice. It's
just awesome. So yeah, I mean, there's there's there's resources to make it easy to do free. But
there's always things that you have to buy. Yeah. And but anyway, yeah, no, it was it was
totally out of my own pocket, out of my own head all the time. So that was essentially a full-time
job or more like a full-time job with tons of overtime on top of your full-time job. Yeah,
basically. So okay, we're pinning that to the wall. We're not putting that one away. We're
remembering that you said that. Okay. Next question here. Okay. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Lately, you've been doing a lot of audiobook narration for other people that is to say you're
recording audiobooks. Yes. Um, I think I counted something like 13 titles on audible.com that
have your credit as the narrator. Is that right? Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now this
was paid work. Yes. It's royalty work, which means it could be paid if the book sells. Yes.
It's paid when the book says now several of those have sold very, very well. Okay. Those are only the
books under my name. I do a lot of stuff under a pseudonym because it because the stuff I do
under my pseudonym range from where will throw man's erotica to just plain smoke.
There's some of it is still very good. Don't get me wrong. It's just, it's a different category
and you know, the people who know me from 19 nocturn probably don't want to know that. Okay. How are
the royalties on that stuff? Is it pretty much the same some of it's good and some of it's not?
It is. It's hit or miss. Some things are just stunning when they actually sell. You're like,
really, that one is my best seller. Yeah. You know, um, who to thunk it? Yeah. But the thing is
it's that the really that oddly enough, the nice thing about the erotica market is that
it's the one place where super short stories sell. Oh. So my retirement investment of time can
be much higher because if I put three hours into doing a half hour story, crank it out, throw it
up. If it makes five dollars each month for a year, I'm well paid. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, so it's it's an odd thing because it's it's shorts. In every other genre, people are like,
oh, don't do short story, short stories, don't sell. But this is the exception.
Have you ever have you written your own novel or novels and if so, do you intend to record them?
Not novels necessarily right away, but I do actually I did actually my pseudonym
had a short story in a collection recently. Oh, okay. And yeah, I've actually got paid for the
short story. Very cool. And you narrated your your own. No, this was a this was a Kindle collection.
Okay. Okay. Don't know that it's going to be done for audio yet. I haven't heard anything about that.
Okay. But as and it's actually been getting really good reviews, the whole collection has.
But I'm but I'm going to be putting out some of that soon. I feel like the
shall we call it the modern enthusiast level audio drama scene, which you were, you know,
have been a big part of and which I've participated into some extent. I feel like it's changed
in the last maybe two years or so. Is that just me? I don't know. I would be more inclined to think
it goes in waves and we just happen to be on a wave, but I you know, I could be wrong. The problem
with it is is it is a hobby. I mean, and it people who get into it thinking they're going to make
money always appear to a couple episodes that are awesome. And they're like, hey, when can I start
charging for this? And we all laugh at them. And then they leave. Also, though, everyone
discovers that they don't have time enough eventually. And that's just the way it is with hobbies in
general. Yeah. So everything, there's a there's a shift, a tectonic shift in the personnel
every once in a while. You know, or if it's me, it's like I just had to get away from it for a while
because I was getting I was turning into a chore. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the unfortunate part is
people are like, when are you going to come back and do more? I'm like, when I feel like it. Yeah.
You know, and if you're belligerent about it, I won't feel like it.
Because when it turns into a chore and I'm not getting paid for it, then why am I doing it?
Well, exactly. Okay, exactly. That is the heart of basically all of my questions. You know,
I'm kind of dancing around the subject with a lot of these, but that is the heart of the question.
Let me ask you this. If there was a paid or a quote-unquote professional group,
or a company of players in your area looking for actors, voice actors specifically,
would you be interested in joining them or at least looking into joining them, seeing all the
details and the scheduling and all that? Okay. I thought so. You know, I thought so. Most of us would.
Most of us would. Okay. If there were such companies elsewhere, it would probably be safe to call
an industry, right? Even if it was a small one. You know, at one time, radio, radio drama,
that was an industry in the United States. It isn't anymore. Okay.
Elsewhere. Okay. In Germany. Yeah. Yeah. And the Philippines. And there are places. But, you know,
this is where I live. So this is where I'm interested in looking into. Do you think if even a small
industry existed right now, either still existed or started to grow, that it could attract good people
to it, like the kind of people you're talking about before, people that get into it and look around
and say, you know, and maybe produce some dynamite content, right? And look into it and say,
how do I make money on it? If you think if there was a way to do it, that they would stay, you know,
I mean, even if they weren't getting rich, it's possible that the problem is that the hugeest
difference between an audio drama and an audio book on that level is the fact that an audio book
is me talking into a mic. There's an author and there's me. And there's, of course, Amazon who takes
the lion's share. But for an audio drama, there's the producer and there's the writer and there's
the actors and there's the music and there's the sound effects and there's the and it's a huge
accounting hassle. Yeah. And I mean, even if you're making money for the episode, you know,
you have to have everything in place to pay everybody their fraction of that or pay them an upfront
fee. It's like, you know, I mean, sometimes it works on a stipend. It's like all the actors get
$10, you know, or something. Well, at that level, it's a business. It's an actual business and you have
employees or people who need regular payment and you have to account for all that. You have to pay
taxes. You have to do all of that stuff. Yeah. So that's one reason I always said I'd never wanted to
do audio drama for money because that made that would mean I would also have to be the accountant.
So let me ask you this. This is kind of a follow up. If back in 19, not turn when it was in full swing,
if you were making a couple of grand a month back from 19, not turn, not from another source,
but directly back from the work that you're doing. Okay. Imagine that. Okay. It was up on
iTunes or whatever. And that was that money was coming in. Do you think you would still be doing it?
Probably. But it would also have affected a lot of the choices I made. Oh, of course. Of course.
Do you think the show would be better or worse? I don't know. There would be better or worse.
It would have been different. If I was actually pocketing a couple thousand after paying all the
actors and everything else, but with audiobooks, I don't have to deal with any of those
extraneous. It's so much faster to get done. Okay. Going back to audio drama. Do you know of any
groups or companies of players in this country doing paid audio drama on a regular basis?
Well, there's right up in my area. There's a group called Jim French and they've been around forever
and they are actually on the radio still. Okay. But they have like this long standing audience for,
I mean, I'm assuming they're still around. They were still around last time I checked. I haven't
been following anything for a couple of years. But they had a long standing Sherlock home series
and a Harry Nile was theirs and they're absolutely professional. I mean, they are, you know,
sag after everything. Okay. Okay. But yeah, they have been doing this for a long, long time.
I've heard of others that are in like the regional. They're like, you know, they're,
they may be extremely well known in their area, but outside of that area, they don't seem to break
into a larger audience. Or am I wrong? I think you're right. I mean, because I'm not sure if like
chatterbox has charged for some of their productions or something. There's a number of groups that
have tried to and have not seemed to pull it off or who have tried to offer like a premium thing.
Like we'll put it out at, you know, this lower broad rate. And if you wanted a higher rate,
you can buy the CD and the CD. You know, because people just want to listen. They don't always really
care about high fire, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. They're looking for a story. Yeah. But I think also, well,
I mean, Blackjack Justice and the Red Panda, they're actually out of Canada. Yeah. Yeah. I think
they have more of an enthusiastic customer base that contributes rather than they're actually
charging. Yeah. I know. Well, the shows themselves are free for download. Yeah. But they also
have merchandising surrounding decorator as well. You know, they produced novels related to their
stories and their characters. They've, you know, of course, they have the usual t-shirts and all of
that stuff. And I think I think a lot of that actually pays for them. I think a lot of that
goes a long way towards paying the bills, you know, whether or not the actors are getting
anything out of it. I don't know. But, um, it's been running for so long. I mean, and that's,
that's a big part of it is, you know, nobody makes money right off the bat because nobody believes
you're going to be here again next week. I mean, how many shows have you seen that? It's like,
oh, that looks really good. One's the next episode coming out. Never. Yeah. You never get anything,
anything more out of them. Yeah. Um, and that, I mean, that's probably the norm. I would even go
so far and say that's normal and the exceptions are the ones that, that stay around.
But, uh, yeah, back to paid groups, the only other thing I can think of would be something like
big finish, but that's out of England. Yeah. Wireless theater company is out of the UK as well,
and they're paid. Um, and they have a subscription service. That's how they,
that's how they go about it. So you, they have different plans, but you subscribe to, you know,
for maybe for, I forget exactly what they are, but I, you know, I, I did a year myself because I
really liked their content, but, um, you could do for a couple of months or things like that. And
then you have unlimited downloads during the time period. They have another plan where it's like
limited downloads. It's kind of complex. I would, if I was doing it personally, it's simplified,
but they, you know, it seems to be working. They just had a major overhaul of their website
recently. And that, you know, that's not free generally. So they, they have to be doing something
with, you know, something really well. They do produce really good stuff. And I'm, there's
also, I'm apparently very thriving audio drama in Germany. I know this is weird to bring up,
but I'm segueing into something just for a second. Okay. So for three years in a row,
I've had, I've had, um, episodes of my show be finalists at the Horsfield Summer Life
State in Germany, which is an audio festival, an open-air audio festival in July. And they have
an outside amateur drama, amateur audio drama contest. This last year, my episode at the
sound of the beep, which is excruciatingly dark, if you've listened to it, was there and it was the
only English one? Is the only English one to make the finals this year? Now, did you submit it,
or was it submitted by other people? How did that work? I submit. You submit your own work to this
contest. Okay. And fully available at 19nocturnbullivar.com. So, or 19nocturnbullivar.com, but sadly,
the site wasn't updated since that episode came out. So it's not actually there. It's in the
RSS feed though. It's in the RSS feed. Yes, the RSS feed is 19nocturnbullivar.com. Okay.
Have you go there and search for beep? I'm sure it will come up. Yeah, unfortunately, because I'm
also the webmaster and I hate doing it. Mm-hmm. And it's on an old laptop that I actually have to
power up and then remember how to use. Oh, I fully understand. I had to build my own site. It's a
pain in the ass. It's horrible. Yeah. It's just horrible. I can learn how to do a website, but I don't
want to. I've got other stuff to do. Well, that's the problem. That's the problem. There was nobody
else to do it. So I had to do it. And you know, that's like, when are you going to update the website?
I'm like, I don't know. When do you not want to have an episode? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that comes
back to being when it's your baby, you're the only one there and you're not getting paid. So you
can't even hire somebody else to do it for you. Yeah, exactly. And people will volunteer, but I'm like
so blurry. Yeah. Yeah. You get really to the website. I'm like, sure, you will.
You get burned. You get burned. And you get very, very reticent to to trust people like the
with good reason, with good reason. I've been that it's not and it's not even because they're
they're being mean or anything. It's just good intentions that run out. Well, of course,
that's the worst part because you know, you want to scream at them. Why isn't, you know,
why haven't you gotten to, you know, why haven't you helped me? Like you said, you were going
to do, why didn't you do this thing? And they're like, oh, I got diagnosed with cancer and my,
you know, my dog died. And they have all these terrible things that are happening in their lives.
And you can't even scream at them, right? Because they were a volunteer in the first
year and the first year. Or do you have a favor to begin with? But it turns out that their big
favor wasn't much of a favor, as it, as it, uh, as it be. And it happens. It happens all the time
with volunteer work. Because it's worked out. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Oh, that the upside of doing
audio book is, you know, it's one voice, you know, even though it's many voices, but you know what I
mean? Yeah. One voice, no sound effects, no music, no nothing. It's easy to do, right? But if you
screw up, you got no sound effects, no music, don't cover it up. Well, the onus is unused as an actor
at that stage, but well, it's also on you as an editor. Because with the way with through ACX,
you're your own producer. Okay. And so, I mean, I have two short stories that I have to re-record
because I can hear too much noise in them. I have a tendency to be a little overconfident
and I, in fact, am behind right now because I have so many contracts. I took on a lot of them
when this contract change went into play and then I got behind. Okay. And then I started paying
editors to help me and was just starting to maybe see light again when I got laid off two weeks
ago. So it's like, yay, now I can't afford editors. Now I have to edit, which I don't want to do
anymore. And that's laid off from your day job, right? Just to clarify that for other people. So,
um, that means I have more time, but at the same time, you know, I have to, you know,
you have to budget closer and you have to look at the things that you can afford to do as
opposed to afford to farm out to someone else. Exactly. But, you know, it's, it's, it's a cost-benefit
analysis really because it is a business expense. And it is worth it if the person is doing a job
that you could just like do one last listen through and then throw it up on the site. That's great.
But too many things because I wasn't, you know, too many times I'd get it back and I have to
listen through it and fix things because I'd hear things they didn't. And, you know, it's,
it's always a problem. I mean, she has the same problem with the website and the same problem with
audio drama. Why do you do it all yourself? Because I can't really trust anybody asking. Well,
that's part of it. But you can't trust them. First off, you can't trust them to do what you want
them to do when you, the way you want them to do it. But sometimes, I mean, on the other end of it,
you can't always even trust them to do it at all. And that is why you end up doing it yourself.
Or, if you can trust them to do it, they're not going to do it on your schedule. Now,
you've been a director and a producer. You've worked with actors both in person,
directing them while they're standing in front of you. And you've also done a lot of
satellite recording with them where they'll record something and send it into you.
Okay. Now, satellite recording, which you've already explained, that's when someone else
records locally and they send it to whoever is in charge of the project. Can you describe
the strengths and weaknesses of both of these approaches? Well, I mean, obviously having somebody
in studio gives you a lot more control over the performance. Obviously, one, I mean, if someone's
in work, if you have a studio that you're bringing people into, that requires them to show up at
the studio at a particular time. And if you want multiple people in the studio at the same time,
they all have to commit to be there at the same time. That isn't always easy. That is not
always easy to get people to do, especially if they're not getting paid.
Right. Well, and so working in a satellite situation, one of the huge benefits of that is
being able to work with actors from all over the world. I mean, if I want to do something where
it's, you know, all British characters, and I actually know all British actors that I can tap
for that, why not? Yes, especially with the workflow that you had going on at that time,
they had, on their own, they had the time to produce their stuff and get it in. And you didn't
need to coordinate all these people getting to your, you know, your studio at a particular time,
you know, how do I get here? When are you showing up? Oh, I'm sorry. I can't make it. And the entire
recording thing is shot. Now then, wrapping this all into one thing. A lot of audiobooks these days,
especially big epic audiobooks with tons and tons of characters, they have multicast audiobooks.
Okay. And with multiple actors playing, taking on character voices. And then you have the narrator
who's a separate character, essentially. That is like one step away from audio drama. All right.
That's the only way I'll do it behind the night. Maybe two steps away from audio drama. But those
things are popular. They're big. And there are people that they prefer that kind of audiobook.
Right? I've spoken to many people and say, oh, there's multiple cast. There was great. And it's
it sounded awesome. And it's just like, it's like a hair away from what you and I would consider
audio drama. Yet, none of the major producers of this kind of content have gone in that direction.
Why do you think that is? I think, well, doing the book straight is safe. I mean,
because it's it's the book. And the book already has an audience because you don't see them
making those books. That is something that didn't already wasn't already a ginormous bestseller
with a movie contract. But taking it all the way into an audio drama is something else.
You know, I mean, their idea would be if we have to get somebody to adapt that, why don't we
just make another movie? Except that it costs a fraction of a film. A fraction. A tiniest,
tiniest fraction of the film, yet it could make millions. If it was popular, it could make millions
a dollar. So, you know, the other problem that with that then is the same problem that you see
everywhere with anything electronic, which is boot lagging. Well, I'm not convinced that that's
an issue, though. I really am not, you know, it doesn't matter whether there's really an issue
with boot lagging. What matters is whether there's a perception of an issue with boot lagging.
And so, one of the reasons that some of these people aren't stepping into something like audio
drama is it's something that's way too easy that once you put it out, you know, it gets away from
you. But they're on half control. They're already doing the audio book versions, right? And you
think it's because there's a lower barrier to entry on that that it's easier for them or it could
be that there's a just a perception of audio drama as being a dead art there. Okay, there it is.
Do you think that can be changed? I think it would take somebody big name to do it. I mean,
even Stephen King has had audio dramas done and still hasn't broken that. So it would have to be
somebody really big to suddenly pull out an audio drama that made anybody who didn't listen to
NPR stand up and take listen. See, I'm not I don't necessarily believe that it is it would require
a personality. I think it would require very, very easy access and very, very easy consumption on
the part of the consumer, right? They would need to be able to get their audio drama as easily.
Be able to find it and be able to discern what it is as easily as they can with any other podcast.
And already now we can say, well, it already is. I mean, there's all this content that you've
produced. Some of the stuff I've done, some of the stuff that all these other people have done,
it's so easy to find. It is not easy to find it. It is very, very hard to sell that stuff to people
when they've never, ever heard of it before, you know? Right. Yeah, it's not this thing as much as
anything else, but that's why a big name, somebody who could actually get the attention of media
could make a difference or not. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And you know, it's it's also sort of the,
you know, red-headed stepchild, you go to iTunes, you search for audio drama, it's hit or miss
what you find because it's not a category. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's not a category there. It's
not a category anywhere. Yeah. And you know, best you're like, when you go there and you're like,
oh, I don't know what am I entertainment or fiction. I don't know. Am I dramatic arts? I don't know.
You know, I mean, there's no clear place for it to be where it can be found. Like you said,
it's just not being found. And that's, I think it's because there's no perceived market for it.
So there's no industry around it. Yeah. And it's really neat. But all of that, you know, all of that
is absolutely fixable. But what it needs is a giant marketing campaign. It needs money. It needs money.
You know, um, let's start a Kickstarter. No, I'm kidding. Well, I'm not going that far just yet.
But let me ask you this. Okay. Let me ask you this. All right. Considering the technology that's
available today, home studios and video careers are becoming more and more common. Okay.
There are a lot of people not just doing audio books. They're doing tons of video work at home.
Okay. And they're starting. These are not necessarily seasoned pros. These are people just
getting into it. Do you think that it would be a viable way forward for a quote-unquote professional
that is people making money, audio drama production company to come to pass using that satellite
type of technology today that's available today. Very, very high quality stuff that can be done
because you can actually say you're the director, right? You can actually direct them live
as they're doing their lines. Oh, yeah. You could get on Skype or something. Well, they have,
they have these all-in-one solutions now that are very, very good. And um, that, you know, you're
on one line going in and you hear them and they can hear you back and forth as you're going. It's
all done very seamlessly, you know, and it's not ISDN, which is, you know, ridiculously expensive.
It's, you know, there are software solutions to it now. Right. And it's a growing segment of
the VO industry. Uh-huh. Do you think, at least in theory, do you think that would be a viable
choice for a for-profit company? I think that part of it is not going to be the part you need to
worry about for a for-profit company. Okay. I think that platform and the way it's sold or
distributed is where the money is going to be. Okay. And, and for that, I mean, I've always,
I've held for a while that if somebody could create a platform that could support all these
different audio dramas, you know, and anybody could contribute. And, you know, the platform itself,
you'd, you'd either get a subscription or credits and each show would be designated as zero credits
or one credit or ten credits or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that would allow you to download.
You know, ultimately, what I'd love to do is, is find some way to, because, because what I feel
would be the best way to monetize something like what I was doing would be to have micro cost,
would be like a credit is a quarter. Okay. And sell it episode for a quarter. Because if people
were paying a quarter for it, they would pay it. Okay. The thing is though, you can't adequately
bill anybody for an amount that small. I mean, a platform where they can pay, you know, they can
buy ten dollars worth of credits. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then use them over time to buy whatever
they want to distribute that amongst. Okay. I mean, because, because micro payments, I think,
because you make it up in bulk. And because then nobody basically, I mean, even up to a dollar,
but once you had a dollar, people are starting to see it as like food. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean,
that's a candy bar. But, you know, it depends on the content though. You know, it really does depend
on the, I mean, you know, some of these people that are used to buying apps for, you know, their
iPhone and stuff like that, they think nothing of dropping five dollars on something they may,
they don't even know what it is that, you know, they might. Yes. Yes. But, but, you know, it's,
it's as some things that would work for, but other things, you know, if you can get, I would rather
have a hundred thousand downloads at 50 cents, then five thousand downloads at a dollar. Oh,
I agree. I agree. Yeah. I, I believe that it's, you know, it's definitely a volume business.
It would have to be a volume business and it would have to be very, very low cost to the consumer.
And that's why, and that's why you, you'd have to have a platform because then you could
conglomerate all the different groups who wanted to participate. Yeah. Yeah. And, but, because no,
none of the groups would have to be the accountant would have to have the, the funding and stuff.
It would, the platform would do that. The platform would pay everybody their royalties every
month, and they wouldn't have to think about that part of it. Well, that's assuming, though, you're,
you're talking, I mean, you're, what you're, what you're talking about is, is essentially a,
a supermarket where you can go in and get every kind of audio drama you can imagine, you're
going to find it here, you know, or audio, dramatic audio media. Let's put it that way. Yeah.
You're going to find it here on a smaller scale, like, say, a, an audio theater company.
That would have to take a very different approach, right? Because it's not a supermarket.
You, they're only going to be, you know, offering what they do, right? So now you're talking
like a boutique store of some kind. That would take a very different approach. And it all,
I guess it all real, I'm not sure I even have a question here, but I think what I'm saying is
that I think there are viable business models that can be either emulated or adapted to this
product line. And they're not being done. And I don't understand why. Yeah. The reason why is
that the person producing it is an enthusiast, not a business person. I mean, one of the reasons
I never did is I didn't want to be a business person. I didn't want to be the accountant.
Because whoever's producing it wants to produce shows, they don't want to do that part.
Well, just like I didn't want to do the website. And I didn't, I didn't want to be the web master.
And I didn't want to, I wanted to just produce shows. Of course he did. But if the money was coming in,
you'd have made an effort, wouldn't you? Because I sure as L would, you know,
that's the thing. But I think this platform idea would work because that removes all of the daily
in and out of money from, I mean, and the platform obviously would have to have operating costs come
out of it because that takes a chunk off of the shoulders of the producer person so that they're
just seeing money come in for X amount of shows and you get a breakdown and whatever. And it's royalties
you know, or whatever. And they don't have to necessarily handle all of that, all the minutia
of that themselves because that's part of the intimidating part. I mean, unless you're a group
and somebody in your group has business skills, not everybody wants to learn business skills.
No, just so that they can have a business model and make it work.
No, of course not. But assuming you had starting costs covered, right?
Part of those costs can be siphoned off to a third party who is an accountant. That's all they do.
Right? And there's a lot of online accountants now, like people doing it out of their home,
just like you would be doing, you know. Um, I mean, I'm not saying that that's,
I'm not saying that that's the answer. I'm just saying that there are
options out there that I think are not being a pro.
No, I just, I'm just telling you why I see it not happening because it's just like when I did
a stint in burlesque years ago, we put on good shows, but we had no audience because we had nobody
who could do marketing. If all you have is actors, you don't have a business. Yeah, yeah.
And also, micro payments aren't going to happen unless they're on a big scale.
No, of course not. But you're not going to have a platform without a market, right?
You're not going to have a platform without an industry, right?
No one is going to put, however much money would cost to build a market of some sort or to build a
platform to, to become the, you know, the iTunes of, you know, the Amazon of audio drama,
whatever you want to, you know, whatever you call it. No one's going to put that kind of money in
there unless they think they can make money out of it, right? And you're certainly not going to
get any seed money from anybody unless they think they can turn and run and sell it for millions
and millions of dollars in about three years, right? Amazon, you know, to Amazon or yeah, probably
Amazon. And they're just never going to go in that direction unless they see a market.
So how do you build a market? That's the question. I guess ultimately that's the question I have.
Yeah, it's a good question. Yeah. And no one's got the answer and I don't know why.
I don't know why because the content is fantastic or a lot of it is, a lot of it's shit,
but a lot of it's fantastic. The great thing about audio drama, being able to do audio drama so
easily on the computer is the same great thing about being able to publish for the Kindle.
It means anybody can make audio drama or publish for the Kindle. And the horrible thing about it
is that anybody can make audio drama or publish for the Kindle. Of course. That's true of music,
though. And people still have music careers. Oh, yeah. So I don't know. I don't know. It's yeah,
I mean, if somebody could establish an audience enough to get, yeah, something, I don't know.
You and I could talk for an hour about the fabulous shows out there that should be making money
and they're not. These are people that are working really hard or have worked in the past really,
really hard and maybe walked away from it because they couldn't afford to keep doing it.
Yeah, that's always possible. Well, anyway, that on that wonderful happy
note, I want to thank you, Julie, so much for taking the time out to chat about this, that,
and everything. And to speculate on the future or lack thereof of audio drama with me today.
Thank you. Earlier, I said I approached Julie with a particular agenda, but in point of fact,
our conversation ranged all over the place. And I had a mighty challenge trimming it for time
and clarity. We didn't often remain on topic, actually, but I think we did cover the area I was
most curious about, not that we came to any conclusions. Please add your own comments, though,
over on hackerpublicradio.org. I'd be very interested in your thoughts on this topic since I'm
still wrestling with my own. You can also contact me directly at lostinbronksatgmail.com.
That's L-O-S-T-N-B-R-O-N-X at Gmail. I want to thank my guest, the always excellent Julie
Hoverson, for her time and her insight. Please check out her content at 19nocturn.libson.com.
That's 19 spelled out, not the numerals. Check the show notes for links. That'd be easier.
I also want to thank you, dear listener, for joining me today. If I'm not always edifying or
entertaining, at least I'm making noise. This has been Lost in Bronx. Take care.
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