The Podcast Envy

Jen & Chris discuss, "The Podcast Envy" - How it feels to listen to and compare their scripted podcast, THE STRANGE CHRONICLES, to better funded scripted podcasts with more recourses.

In their recurring segments, they cover "Technical magics or mishaps," "How the writing is going," and provide a "Podcast tip," something to help you along your journey in making your own fiction podcast.

Email us at info@thestrangechronicles.com

Sign-up for our mailing list at https://thestrangechronicles.com

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

00;00;10;29 - 00;00;23;22
Jennifer
Hi and welcome to Making The Strange a podcast about how we made our fiction podcast will take you along in real time as we create our fiction podcast. I'm Jennifer, the writer and creator of The Strange Chronicles.

00;00;23;26 - 00;00;37;09
Chris
And I'm Chris, the producer of the Strange Chronicles, a sci fi noir detective podcast.

00;00;38;12 - 00;00;56;23
Jennifer
In today's episode, we're going to talk about the podcast Envy. This one is about self-doubt, about how we deal with presenting our work into a pool of projects with significant financial backing and production values. We'll talk about the emotions of putting your workout into a world with a competitive marketplace.

00;00;56;23 - 00;01;07;06
Chris
We'll also discuss a technical mishap that happened along the way, something we hope can help you in an hour. How's the writing going segment, Jennifer? We'll discuss how the writing is going.

00;01;07;11 - 00;01;19;16
Jennifer
And finally, we'll provide a podcast tip, something that you can use as a strategy for your own podcast. Making the strange is a bit of an experiment. We will fill you in on our experience of making a fiction podcast.

00;01;19;21 - 00;01;28;20
Chris
The experiment is partly to keep us on task to make sure we complete the season and also to share what the experiences like for others who might have an interest in telling a fiction story through a podcast.

00;01;28;26 - 00;01;44;27
Jennifer
So if you happen to be one of those people, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at info at the Strange Chronicles dot com and we're going to have a Q&A episode coming up soon. Okay. Now it's time for our technical magic. Chris, tell us something magical that happened with the tech.

00;01;45;02 - 00;01;47;09
Chris
So much magic.

00;01;47;15 - 00;01;48;21
Jennifer
This really is magical.

00;01;48;21 - 00;01;57;11
Chris
This one. It's kind of fun. It was a fun little thing. So if you get our newsletter, you'll know we've been dabbling in a little bit of a collaborative.

00;01;57;11 - 00;01;59;13
Jennifer
Art that's A.I. as an.

00;01;59;16 - 00;02;00;12
Chris
Artificial.

00;02;00;12 - 00;02;02;02
Jennifer
Intelligence software.

00;02;02;04 - 00;02;19;20
Chris
Yeah, software. So this sort of leads into the whole podcast and the episode in that they have all the money to do all the marketing and pay people to create really amazing artwork. And I think we could create our own amazing artwork. We have created some of our own amazing artwork. We have that skill set, but we don't necessarily have the time.

00;02;19;25 - 00;02;20;11
Jennifer
Yes.

00;02;20;12 - 00;02;48;24
Chris
So I came across some AI art creators recently. One of them is Dali. I don't have that one yet. I'm on the waiting list, eagerly anticipating getting my confirmation email. But I did get into mid-thirty, which is a bot that's run through Discord Server. So what you can do is you go in, you open the Discord app, log in with mid journey, and you basically type slash imagine and just get descriptive.

00;02;48;24 - 00;02;57;03
Chris
And within minutes this A.I. will kick out a beautiful series of four images based on what you described.

00;02;57;06 - 00;03;02;25
Jennifer
So we use this for The Strange Chronicles. So we took the characters of The Strange Chronicles. That was the first one you tried, right?

00;03;02;25 - 00;03;17;27
Chris
Yeah. Yeah. I went and put in, you know, our parameters for what Gray Cooper might look like. And it was really generic to start. Like, I didn't want to get very specific because you really haven't given too much of a visual description of what she looks like. Right. We know she kind of do. We know she drives a nova.

00;03;17;27 - 00;03;18;24
Chris
Yes, we know she's.

00;03;18;24 - 00;03;20;28
Jennifer
Oh, I don't know if we know in the podcast.

00;03;20;28 - 00;03;21;23
Chris
Yeah, it's in the book.

00;03;21;24 - 00;03;27;22
Jennifer
Right. So The Strange Chronicles is going to have a book series going along with it. But we know she wears a trench coat.

00;03;27;22 - 00;03;32;01
Chris
And I like the idea of, you know, the detective trope of her wearing a fedora.

00;03;32;02 - 00;03;36;17
Jennifer
Yes, I know. She's like a little bit Carmen, San Diego when it comes to her style.

00;03;36;17 - 00;03;36;25
Chris
In the.

00;03;36;25 - 00;03;38;11
Jennifer
Future. Yeah, futuristic.

00;03;38;12 - 00;03;42;26
Chris
So I basically just put it in, you know, I typed in female thirties trenchcoat fedora.

00;03;42;26 - 00;03;43;26
Jennifer
Dystopia.

00;03;43;26 - 00;03;46;10
Chris
Dystopia, sci fi, future nighttime.

00;03;46;14 - 00;03;47;00
Jennifer
Noir.

00;03;47;01 - 00;03;48;19
Chris
I did not I don't think I use nor.

00;03;48;24 - 00;03;48;29
Jennifer
Yeah.

00;03;49;06 - 00;04;06;18
Chris
I only use a few words and then yeah a couple of minutes later I had four options of what that could be kind of cool. And from there you can basically go in and you can oppress them or you can do more variations on an image. And from there you grow and grow and grow. And each time you can, you're sort of honing it and telling it what you like and don't like.

00;04;06;18 - 00;04;10;09
Chris
And eventually you come to this final image that it has created.

00;04;10;10 - 00;04;11;22
Jennifer
It's a really cool.

00;04;11;22 - 00;04;12;19
Chris
It's really, really.

00;04;12;24 - 00;04;13;20
Jennifer
Really trippy.

00;04;13;20 - 00;04;14;26
Chris
It's terrifying.

00;04;14;26 - 00;04;21;02
Jennifer
It's very terrifying, especially what, you know, some of the more human descriptions come out of their software.

00;04;21;21 - 00;04;40;10
Chris
Yeah, yeah. No, it's it's really terrifying. But for people like us who are independently creating our art, it's a useful tool. We never want to say or never want anyone to think that we don't think human art is the way to go because it's 1,000% ready to go, of course. But I look at this as another tool like Photoshop that just helps speeds up the process.

00;04;40;10 - 00;04;55;06
Chris
Yeah. And I think down the road it will be really helpful when you're trying to create things like mood boards or, you know, put a Bible together and you just need some quick imagery and Google isn't working out for you, you know, like you don't want to worry about pulling someone's license work and you just want to create something original.

00;04;55;06 - 00;05;14;02
Jennifer
Yes. And the images are truly amazing. So if you want to take a look at those and you don't. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's just an email list. You can go to the Strange Chronicles dot com and join our list. We don't spam or anything and it's just, you know, only things about the podcast or things related to it like this.

00;05;14;02 - 00;05;22;15
Jennifer
And we'll also post some of the images on social media so at making the Strange and at the Strange Chronicles podcast on Instagram and.

00;05;22;15 - 00;05;24;20
Chris
At Kings of Content on Twitter.

00;05;24;21 - 00;05;28;10
Jennifer
Yeah, we'll post some of these images because they are really, really cool.

00;05;28;11 - 00;05;44;13
Chris
Yeah, I've gone a little deeper down the rabbit hole with this and you've given me all the episode titles, right, and who the main antagonists are in each of the episodes. And I've gone in and I've started to run those through the machine just to see what it comes up with. So I'm going to share those with you later and see if it, you know, they're.

00;05;44;13 - 00;05;45;14
Jennifer
Pretty cool, I think.

00;05;45;14 - 00;05;46;19
Chris
Set the mood for writing.

00;05;46;21 - 00;06;00;10
Jennifer
Yeah, I think we're going to choose an image per episode to help promote the podcast, so we'll definitely be using some robot tech in our future episodes. That was definitely a magic technical magic, for sure.

00;06;00;11 - 00;06;08;05
Chris
Yeah, it's fun. All right. Next up, we are going to discuss how the writing is going. So, Jen, how is the writing going?

00;06;08;08 - 00;06;15;26
Jennifer
The writing is full of hope and promise. Well, actually, I just completed a huge writing project.

00;06;15;26 - 00;06;16;19
Chris
The novel?

00;06;16;22 - 00;06;41;13
Jennifer
Yes, the novel. I have a big novel coming out in February of 2023, and it just went to the copy editor, which I'm so proud and excited that it's moved to the stage. But now I can come back to the podcast as far as writing is concerned and I can focus solely on the Strange Chronicles. So we did a quick rundown of episodes and I have a lot of ideas and I'm so ready to go.

00;06;41;13 - 00;06;45;18
Jennifer
So my verdict on the writing today is I'm set up for success.

00;06;45;24 - 00;07;02;21
Chris
Yay! I love that. All right. Next up, we're going to get into the subject of this podcast. As we were doing the marketing, we were listening to a lot of other podcasts and seeing what else was out there and how they were marketing their materials. And that sort of led us to some podcast envy.

00;07;03;27 - 00;07;12;28
Jennifer
Yes, this is the point in our journey where we've been researching the other podcasts and figuring out how to get listeners and where their production values are, etc..

00;07;12;29 - 00;07;24;10
Chris
But a lot of this research was set up in how to attract listeners, how to get people to listen to this podcast and tune in and subscribe and keep coming back week after week. So we want to see what other podcasts were doing.

00;07;24;15 - 00;07;42;21
Jennifer
Yeah, and what other people are listening to and loving. So as our title of the podcast is podcast and B, it's because some of the other fiction podcasts are pretty aspirational. They have name actors, A-list actors, and a giant cast and amazing production value.

00;07;42;21 - 00;07;48;13
Chris
Yeah, just huge production companies funneling money into these things that. Just gobs and gobs of money.

00;07;48;21 - 00;08;07;20
Jennifer
Yes. And so this gives way to some of the bigger conversations we've been having as of late as artists. Should we be trying to sell our stuff to big companies or do we create it as indies? And how do we compete with the big stuff? You know, we're just trying to figure out where we fit in this giant field.

00;08;07;20 - 00;08;22;22
Chris
We've just got teams of people doing everything we're trying to do as two people. They've got multiple actors, they've got professional editors, they've got writers, they've got people doing sound design, they've got people doing music, they've got people, you.

00;08;22;22 - 00;08;41;23
Jennifer
Know, yeah, when they list their credits at the end, they're like 25 people on and we're just like, Whoa, how are all those people participating in this one project? I mean, we're looking at them like, Oh, these are great stories and it's really cool, but we just want to see, you know, like kind of where we fit in in this, this bigger pool.

00;08;41;24 - 00;08;58;24
Chris
Yeah, it's how do we get discovered in that market? There's a there's a temptation to want to sell your work to a big production company and get that institution that I was just talking about behind you and help get your work out there to a larger audience. But then when you do that, you risk. You don't risk, you do lose full control.

00;08;58;24 - 00;09;03;26
Chris
You lose autonomy over your work. You lose that creative force. You lose your creative voice a bit.

00;09;03;27 - 00;09;22;23
Jennifer
Right. And for me, this question comes up a lot. And you think to yourself as an artist, why do I need the bigger company to have my work? Is it due to validation? Is it money? Is it an audience? And all of those things are completely valid reasons, right? We all want to make a living. We all want to feel seen and feel validated.

00;09;22;23 - 00;09;24;03
Jennifer
And then we want to share our work.

00;09;24;06 - 00;09;25;01
Chris
Or hear our work.

00;09;25;07 - 00;09;44;07
Jennifer
Yeah, exactly. When I've asked that question to myself, the why, I realize sometimes that the why isn't aligned with my values or what I really want. If you really get down to it, sometimes it's just due to validation, right? Like it's just ego. That's another thing that you have to consider. Is your ego high on the priority list of things?

00;09;44;07 - 00;10;06;04
Jennifer
The other things like money and market, those things are very important. I would say you need to make money to live and you need to put it out there to a bigger market so that you can make money. So, you know, these are all questions that I feel like have come up. And I just think we should try to remain aligned to our values as well as trying to get our work out there to the most people that we can.

00;10;06;04 - 00;10;33;17
Jennifer
Whether your goal is to make a podcast as part of a business or as a creative outlet, just check in with what your why is because it might help you in making those decisions. Some people are doing it for their business and some people are doing it as just a creative outlet to tell a story. So just knowing those answers is very helpful and making like the bigger decisions and also is kind of comforting when you're looking at these amazing podcasts that are full of celebrities and lots of money.

00;10;33;17 - 00;10;48;23
Chris
Yeah, I think that's kind of the thing. You know, you get out there and you see these big names producing podcasts and you look at your own little podcast that could and it can feel overwhelming. And then those emotions are really strong and you sometimes think like, Why am I doing this?

00;10;48;25 - 00;10;53;22
Jennifer
Yeah, if only three people are going to listen to it. You, me and our mom. Yeah. You know.

00;10;53;23 - 00;11;14;20
Chris
Yeah, I think it can be. It's a big emotional experience producing anything podcasts, TV, film, music, any kind of art. You got a lot of emotion behind it as a creator. And when you start seeing these big names out there producing something you're trying to do as well, I mean, there's not only are there big names out there, there's like 5 million other products out there because there's people like us who are producing independently.

00;11;14;20 - 00;11;26;24
Chris
And you just sort of it can feel a little overwhelming and you don't want to get defeated. You want to make sure your work is found among all the greatness that's out there around among all the volume of work that's out there.

00;11;26;25 - 00;11;27;29
Jennifer
Yeah, it can be overwhelming.

00;11;27;29 - 00;11;39;26
Chris
It can really be overwhelming. You really just have to dig deep and keep pushing through and realizing that, like, hey, I can do this. It might take me a lot longer than those well-financed projects that are.

00;11;40;10 - 00;11;40;18
Jennifer
Really.

00;11;40;18 - 00;11;41;20
Chris
Just churning it through.

00;11;41;22 - 00;12;04;15
Jennifer
Yeah, I think too is not to let it. This is a little bit bleeding into perfectionism, if you think about it. That thing that we talked about when we were saying how we need to push through and finish no matter what, because these little seeds of self-doubt like, oh, there there are all these amazing fiction podcasts out there now that we're competing with that can be a big obstacle to make you reconsider.

00;12;04;15 - 00;12;25;12
Jennifer
Maybe not feel as confident about putting your work out there. But I think that this is the time that we say keep going. Finish. One of the great things about podcasts and audio right now, at least, is that once your podcast is made and it's up and it's posted, that can be there for someone to find later. So maybe we don't find our audience right away.

00;12;25;13 - 00;12;46;01
Jennifer
Maybe it takes some time for people because there are so many awesome podcasts. It might take a little while to build that audience, but you have we have time. It's not like there's some big time limit in getting your audience, but I would say that, yeah, it can be overwhelming seeing everything that's out there that you're kind of swimming in the pool with, but at the same time, like, don't get defeated.

00;12;46;02 - 00;12;48;18
Jennifer
Yeah, keep going. If you're started, finish it.

00;12;48;21 - 00;13;09;27
Chris
I think something that's helped me when sometimes I just want to stop and put it all down and say, what's the point? That's when I break away and do those other fun little side projects like the artwork or even making the music. Just something to get the creative juices flowing again and get me excited again. It really just helps me refocus and take that energy back into working on the pod.

00;13;09;27 - 00;13;19;02
Jennifer
That's a good bonus tip. Sorry if you're feeling overwhelmed to maybe change lanes a little bit, do something, work on some other aspect of the podcast.

00;13;19;06 - 00;13;28;00
Chris
All right. That finishes up the podcast envy bit of this episode. And now it's time for our podcast tip, our real podcast tip, something that we learned to help make your journey easier.

00;13;28;02 - 00;13;39;24
Jennifer
And the podcast tip for today is to complete a promo or an episode and launch it before your official podcast launch. This is to see how long it takes the episode to post so that you can schedule the rest.

00;13;39;27 - 00;13;59;15
Chris
Yeah, we talked about this a little bit, but we launched a promo for this series to sort of give it a test run and see how long it would take to get up on all the various services. And fortunately, most of them, as we said, were really, really quick. There were a few that were slower. But all in all, by the time we wanted to launch the series, everything was up and ready and running smoothly.

00;13;59;15 - 00;14;07;12
Chris
And then every time we've been we wanted to upload the next episode, it's there and ready when we say and we tell the audience that it's going to launch, right?

00;14;07;12 - 00;14;25;21
Jennifer
So that's the tip post. One thing, whether it's a teaser, a promo or even the first episode early before your projected launch, this will give you a solid way to schedule going forward. So even if you aren't planning to launch until a certain specific date, maybe launch it a week or two early just to make sure it goes through.

00;14;25;22 - 00;14;28;09
Chris
Hey, you don't want to tell everybody it's up there and just no one will look for.

00;14;28;09 - 00;14;31;00
Jennifer
It. Exactly. That will give you a little more control.

00;14;31;00 - 00;14;39;11
Chris
And that control is good because it keeps you on schedule and manages expectations. So so that's it for this episode of Making The Strange.

00;14;39;12 - 00;14;53;21
Jennifer
We want to thank you for tuning in to our journey into making a fiction podcast and hope that we can inspire you to create your own story because we believe that everyone has a story to tell.

00;14;53;21 - 00;14;59;06
Chris
Please email us with any podcast tips or questions you may have info at the Strange Chronicles dot com.

00;14;59;06 - 00;15;14;29
Jennifer
Thanks for listening. You can follow us on Instagram at making the Strange and at the Strange Chronicles podcast and be on the lookout for the Strange Chronicles, a sci fi detective fiction podcast launching Halloween 2022 until our next episode. I'm Jennifer.

00;15;15;01 - 00;15;24;03
Chris
And I'm Chris. Keep it strange.

00;15;24;03 - 00;15;26;02
Jennifer
This has been a kings of content production.