The first question I like to ask everybody, Lauren, is who is Lauren Shippen?
Well, I don't ask them that, but I'll ask you that.
Oh, gosh.
What a question.
I would say a writer, creator working mostly in audio.
Now how did you get involved in podcasting?
So about four years ago, I was living in LA and acting and trying to forge my path as
a creative person and just really wanted to make something that I could control every
aspect of and that I could make myself and not have to rely on other people's expertise
or funding or whatever.
And I was really enjoying a couple of fiction podcasts at the time and just thought it'd
be fun to try my hand at it.
And I had this idea for this character who was a time traveler and only time traveling
between panic attacks and started to think about who I could put her into conversation
with and then I realized it would be interesting to put her in therapy and the whole story
kind of grew from there.
But it was really just a desire to make something and have a creative project that was entirely
on my own.
So which fiction podcast were you listening to?
I'm curious.
I was listening to Welcome Tonight, Bill, of course, which I feel like is a lot of people's
very first fiction podcast.
And actually, it's not a podcast, but I was also listening to a lot of Cabin Pressure,
which is a BBC Radio 4 sitcom.
Got you.
Now, how did you decide you want to get into podcasting or audio?
What steps did you take?
I mean, the first step was writing the scripts.
I wrote nine episodes and reached out to a couple of friends of mine who had been in
acting class with and asked if they would be willing to kind of hop in and try this
thing just for free as an experiment.
And I borrowed my friend's Blue Yeti mic and kind of figured out how to use it and
got Adobe Audition and figured out how to edit.
And just, I mean, really, it was just a trial and error and watching lots of YouTube tutorials
and Googling lots of things about what's the best RSS feed host and things like that.
But yeah, the first step was just writing essentially, the first season especially is
just scenes.
They're just long scenes of therapy sessions.
And so I was just sitting down and writing those scripts and then roping some actors
into it.
So what's it like to sit down and write nine episodes of a show?
It was pretty gradual and then sort of all at once, if that makes sense.
So I wrote the first episode actually back in 2014.
And very little actually changed from that initial script and what ended up in the podcast.
But I wrote it and I sent it to some friends and sort of like started tossing around some
other ideas and then I just sat on it for a year because I was really busy with other
things and I was just hustling and working at a restaurant and acting and all this kind
of stuff.
And I didn't really think that I could write.
I didn't think it was something I could do because I'd never really done it before.
I wrote short stories and half finished novels when I was growing up but never anything I
shared with anybody and I never took a creative writing class or anything like that.
So I think I just sort of got a little bit of imposter syndrome about it.
And then finally, about a year later, I was just very creatively unfulfilled and just
decided to revisit it because it had just been on my mind.
In the interim year, all these other characters had kind of come up and Dr. Bright was really
beginning to take form in my head.
And so I figured out, okay, here's the two characters that I've been thinking of that
interest me most other than Sam and Dr. Bright.
It's Chloe, this mind reader, and Caleb, this empath.
And I'm just going to sit down and write their first episode.
And so I did that and I realized, okay, well, this kind of set of three is nice.
So I'll do three sets of three.
So nine episodes, three patients, three sessions each.
And then just sort of thinking about what arc for each character I wanted and little
seeds I wanted to plant for this mystery that had been building in my own head of who Dr.
Bright is and what our motivations are.
And then from there, after I sort of had those first three written, it went pretty quickly.
I think I wrote the first nine scripts in about two months, which in retrospect actually
isn't that quickly because they're pretty short scripts.
But for me at the time, definitely felt like writing a lot very, very quickly.
So tell us about the conversations you have with people that you want to be in your podcast.
So one of them, Anna Laurie, who also did all of our graphic design for the Bright Sessions
is one of my best friends.
And so she was kind of hearing about the process as I was going through it.
And I wrote the character of Chloe really specifically for her.
And so that was just an easy kind of organic thing because we love making stuff together.
We met in a UCB improv class and just it was sort of a no brainer.
And then for Brighen and Julia, Caleb and Dr. Bright respectively, I had been in acting
class with them for maybe a year, year and a half at that point and just really admired
their work and thought they were really cool, but didn't really know them that well, which
is really funny to think about now because they're two of my closest friends.
But I just reached out to them over Facebook message and like a joint Facebook message
and was like, hey, like I'm writing this thing right now and I've been thinking about
you guys and writing these characters.
And I don't know if you would be interested.
I can't pay you, but it'll be really quick and I'll do everything else kind of like
very kind of hat in hand message.
They like to make fun of me for that now.
Like you were so uncertain.
But yeah, I just reached out and kind of asked if they would be willing to kind of come in
and read.
And then they said yes, because they were just so willing to try what was in a lot of
ways a new medium for them and a new way of jumping into an acting role.
And the four of us had a table read where we read all nine episodes in one sitting and
just sort of went through it, which was exhausting.
And then we recorded the first episode of each patient sort of by themselves.
And then once we got through that first session, I was like, okay, we can probably do both
the remaining episodes for this character in one recording session.
So other than Julia, who obviously was in every recording session, each actor only had
two recording sessions for that first season.
Okay.
So where does the story come from?
It comes from Sam was really the first step.
So she's the character by the time traveler.
And she was just rolling around in my head because I was thinking about it's a bit of
a chicken and egg thing where I can't quite remember if I was trying to think about stories
to tell in audio or if I was thinking about her and thought that she would work well in
audio because I think they sort of happen simultaneously.
But I was just spending a lot of time in LA traffic and listening to these audio dramas
and thinking about sort of my own struggles with anxiety and the sensation of having a
panic attack and how interesting it would be if that manifested in some sort of supernatural
sci fi way.
And so there were a couple different iterations of Sam as a character.
I knew I wanted her to be an isolated person who kind of travels into these different universes
and that sort of had taken a couple different forms.
At first she was traveling into novels and things like that.
And then as I started to think about my own anxiety and was struggling with panic attacks
myself, all of the various threads of ideas that I'd been having kind of formed into
that character, there's been a lot of time just thinking about how I would tell her story
in audio.
And eventually I realized like, okay, I don't want to listen to my voice the whole time.
I don't want to edit my voice the whole time.
I want there to be another person in there.
And that's when I thought of, well, maybe she's talking to a therapist.
And then that kind of opened the floodgates because then it all became about who's the
therapist?
Or a client who can time travel who are her other clients?
It just sort of spun out from there.
Now storytelling podcasts are not easy.
It's not as easy as me just calling you up and we're doing a question answer podcast.
So you get all these voices together, you do the recording, then you're going into the
studio to edit it, right?
And right now it's an idea.
You're not making money from it.
And so kind of take us through the process of how difficult that is from you're writing
scripts and then you're asking people to help you out and now you're editing.
It's a long process.
It's some of the storyteller podcasters that we spoke to in the past, you have a huge staff
that are helping them do this.
Yes.
And now I have a staff, which is very nice.
But I think, despite the fact that I knew nothing about making a podcast when I first
started, I knew a little bit about sounds.
I was a music major in college and I had a radio show and the college radio that I had
turned into an mp3 that I uploaded to Mixcloud.
It's probably still out there somewhere, honestly.
And so I knew a little bit about some things.
But despite the fact that I knew nothing about podcasting, I think the one thing that I will
credit myself with making a smart choice was that I knew I didn't know that much.
And so I knew to keep it simple.
And so I knew to, I made it specifically so that the format of the show is that you're
hearing these recordings that this therapist is taking because that would justify in-world
a crappy sound quality.
I thought that people, the audience might be more willing to have the sound be a little
bit shoddy if it was for narrative purposes.
And then I also kept it just very simple script-wise.
Two people in a room, it's one scene.
They're ultimately very easy to cut together.
And I also, I think just my experience as an actor and working with actors and working
with directors and all that kind of stuff, I sort of knew I could hear the final product
as we were in recording.
And so it wasn't a thing where we were spending seven, eight takes trying to just trying to
get everything.
It's like we would do three or four takes and that's the way I've always done things.
And now with some of the actors that I've been working with for years, we'll do two
takes of something.
Because I also like that's a skill that I've just gotten better at of hearing like, okay,
yep, that's how I'm going to cut that together.
I just need this one line this way because I know how it's going to come out in the
final edit.
But I think even back then I sort of knew not to give myself too much work in the post
production.
Now, of course, I still had everything to learn about like cleaning up files and doing
sound design.
But even that, like I kept the sound design very minimal where it's like the click of
a recorder, people walking in, knocking on doors, sitting down, stuff like that, stuff
that I could recreate.
And that was something that with the exception of like, actually, no, the door sound I think
actually is a combination of a couple of different sounds.
But basically everything in the first season of the podcast is stuff that I recorded myself.
I did all the foley because I was just like, you know what, instead of trying to Google
for a specific sound, I'm just going to record the sound.
So I went around my parents' house because I was visiting them in New York and just like
opened cabinets and doors and the clock in the Bright Sessions in Dr. Bright's office
is my parents' grandfather clock.
And Sam's time travel sound was like the one sound that I was like, well, I can't record
that.
Right.
So what am I going to do?
And so I got just a bunch of like weird sounds just kind of around my parents' house.
And then I literally that Misha, my sound designer has since taken the base of that
sound and recreated it and you know, actual software.
But the initial sound that you hear in the first 16 episodes anytime Sam time travels
is literally me going to a mic, just like sucking in air.
And it's all free and all those sound effects didn't cost you anything.
And I just put I just like slap some distortion on it, you know, that original sound actually
also has some like some piano strings scraping really, really buried underneath the sound.
Experimented, right?
But yeah, so that was the stuff that took the longest in post production just because
like I didn't know with, you know, editing and the dialogue edit and stuff like that,
I kind of knew.
Yeah.
I know how to structure a performance.
I know how to structure a scene, whereas I just didn't know what I didn't know about
sound design.
And I and you know, I stopped learning anything about sound design once Misha came on board
because they're much better than I am.
They're professional.
And so I've been I've had the luxury of sort of capping out it back in 2015.
So did you do did you finish all nine episodes before you decided to upload them?
Pretty much.
OK, we had made the schedule.
It was going to be, you know, three weeks weekly and then one week off and then three
weeks weekly.
You know, again, that's a three episode structure starting November 1st.
And we started recording in September and I was giving myself enough of a runway.
And I think by the time the second episode came out, we had recorded everything.
And by the time the third episode came out, pretty much everything was edited.
But I didn't have I gave myself enough of a runway, but I didn't have everything completely
done.
And were you working at the time?
Yes.
Yeah.
So this is your part time thing while you're working on the side or full time or something.
Oh, yeah.
I was working.
I was working a part time job and I was working a part time job until August of 2018.
Gotcha.
So the entire time that I was making the Bright Sessions, I was also working part time.
So you upload the the first few episodes.
And what is it like when you did all this work?
It took all this time.
You upload them.
And now are you just waiting and watching like everybody else does that has a podcast?
Who is going to listen?
Yeah, it was the most anticlimactic thing in the world.
You know, because it's like because I uploaded it.
I remember I uploaded it on October 27th because I, you know, wanted to submit the RSS feed
to iTunes and make sure that there were enough and I had enough time to actually release
everything on November 1st.
But I remember I was just like sitting in my apartment.
I just uploaded it.
It was done.
And I was like, oh, and now nothing happens, which is very, you know, very different from
from other things.
And then, you know, November 1st was actually like our release day.
So that's when we started tweeting.
And I've been like teasing it on my social media.
But like, I didn't have that many followers on social media at that point.
Maybe like a couple hundred.
And I had a I had a YouTube channel, which is now defunct.
But that had like maybe, you know, eight or nine thousand subscribers on it.
And so I, you know, had had mentioned it on that.
I did an announcement on that.
So I was hoping to get some of the people from there over there.
But mostly it was just like Facebook friends.
Right.
And yeah, that first I think by the end of that first day, I mean, I would have to like
actually go back and look.
But we had maybe, you know, 15 downloads.
So when and how does it start catching on?
So yeah, this is a question that a lot of people ask me because I want to know like
what I what I did to sort of make it catch on.
Honestly, like it was there was no one big thing that I think made it catch on.
It was sort of a cascading effect and also, I think, like with anything in any kind of
creative career and really life in general, so much of it was just luck and timing.
You know, the fact that the fall of 2015 is when Limetown came out, Black Tapes came out,
like all of these fiction podcasts were coming out and, you know, Limetown and Black Tapes
were much, much more popular than we were.
But it was we were able to kind of ride the wave of fiction podcasts that started in like
mid 2015, which was really, really great.
And it also it was it was a rising tide, but it wasn't super overcrowded.
And, you know, there weren't so many fiction podcasts to choose from.
So we were able to kind of to find an audience for the people that were listening to the
Black Tapes and Limetown and stuff like that.
But what I did, honestly, was I just spent a ton of time just guerrilla marketing, essentially.
So I would go onto Tumblr and Reddit were the biggest places.
I've been on Tumblr for over a decade, which is a horrifying thing to say.
And it's a it's a social media platform that I would say.
Unless you are like me and you've sort of been entrenched in fandom for many, many years,
Tumblr is completely opaque as a platform.
It's very hard to use and promote on because the typical sort of promotional strategies
don't work because you have people who are incredibly skeptical of sort of, you know,
corporate promotion or self promotion or anything like that.
So it was about, you know, speaking the language of Tumblr, which thankfully I already did
just like natively having been on it for so many years.
And so I was able to sort of find the audience there.
And I knew that Tumblr was how I personally found Welcome Tonight Vale.
And so it's like I knew that there was an audio drama audience there.
And then a friend recommended Reddit to me and I was very scared of Reddit.
But I just went on and and started having conversations with people in the podcast I
read about audio drama.
And I was finding I would look for posts of people looking for audio drama recommendations,
you know, the posts that were like, I love Welcome Tonight Vale and we're alive.
What else should I listen to?
And I think the thing that I learned very quickly is it's just like the way that I
tend to go into spaces.
And then I found it to be very effective is that always doing promotion as a community
minded person versus self motion person.
So I would go in and say, you know, if somebody posted like, I love Welcome Tonight Vale,
what other fiction podcast could I listen to?
I'd go in and say like, oh my gosh, I'm obsessed with Lime Town right now.
It's really spooky.
And like, you know, like it's but it's genuinely scary, which I know like Night Vale isn't.
So keep that in mind if you know.
But if you want something that's like a little bit less scary, but still really spooky, Black
Tapes is so great.
Also, I do a podcast, you know, and sort of like genuinely recommend and be enthusiastic
about shows that I genuinely was enthusiastic about, and then mentioned that I also had
a show.
Right.
And people, you know, are more are more trusting than if I just gone in and been like, oh,
listen to my show.
And so and then, you know, eventually I found other audio drama creators like, you know,
Ars Purae Dacusica and the whole Whisperforge, Wolf for 59, Archive 81, all of these these
podcasts that were kind of being released at the same time.
And we started to build a community and and promote each other on Twitter and stuff.
Eventually Jeffrey Kraner of Night Vale tweeted about us and that kind of, you know, legitimized
us to a lot of Night Vale fans, which was amazing.
And then we got featured on iTunes at the end of our second season.
And that was kind of like from there, it was like we could say we were, you know, you know,
we've been featured and we were best of 2016 and everything.
And that that was sort of off the races by that point.
So what is the number of downloads at this point for that first season?
For that first season?
And then, yeah, for that first season or overall, I mean, I read in Forbes that it was seven
million.
Yeah, it's more it's more than that now.
It's about a dollar now.
Wow.
Yeah.
And what was it like to be featured in Forbes?
Oh, it's it was so weird.
It was so wild.
I was like I woke up and like had, you know, an email from from Forbes and I like I thought
it was like a like a spam thing at first.
I almost deleted it and then I opened it and I was like, oh, wait, what?
Because they didn't really like they didn't I don't know that they necessarily like told
me in advance because they I knew that some friends had nominated me.
OK.
And then they sent like a sort of follow up like, can you answer this survey and also
provide a photo?
And I thought that that was just just meant that I had like been gotten to like the next
round or whatever.
I didn't realize that that meant that like I, you know, was actually one of the thirty
hundred thirty people.
So it was it was very it's still now kind of surreal and strange.
Nice.
So now you you you clearly you're on to something, right?
You figured out all this work and this editing and recording my parents door slamming is
is is resulted in a smashing success.
How do you follow that?
How do you follow that up?
You know, what was your plan after that?
And and then how did you start making money at it?
I mean, there, oh, there was no plan at no point in any part of the transitions was there
a plan.
And I think I see that from like a sort of, you know, meta business standpoint.
I think story on the story level, you know, I had I had a general plan and I knew kind
of when I wanted to end the show, I had some goals for certain character arcs, things like
that.
And it was a political episode.
That was something I wanted to do.
And so, yeah, from a story perspective, I was building a plan.
But honestly, it was that like, you know, that that that gif of Gromit from Wallis and
Gromit just like putting the railroad tracks down in front of him as he's on this train
that's moving.
And it was just I mean, completely, you know, by the seat of my pants type of type of thing.
And I never I never really expected to to make money from it.
And I mean, you know, honestly, other than getting paid for acting in it, because I'm
a SAG actor and legally have to have to get paid if I'm under SAG contract.
Other than that, I didn't really ever get consistently paid for writing or producing
or show running the Bright Sessions.
You know, if we had a little surplus in our budget, I would like pay myself for writing,
you know, a season.
And I was sort of figure out, you know, OK, like this is this is what I can sort of give
myself and because there's no way to.
You know, if I was if I was paying myself hourly, you know, oh, yeah, forget it.
Even ten dollars an hour for the work that each of the Bright Sessions.
It's like that would be, you know, eight hundred times our budget.
So, yeah, it was just sort of whatever surplus I think that we could we could afford.
But pretty much all of the money that we made went directly back into making the show, because
especially once Misha came on board and I could get more flexible with what I could
write because I didn't have to sound design it myself.
And you know, then when we got Evan on board as our composer and we started to get, you
know, advertising money and and and Patreon money, things like the musical episode and
like having a 30 minute episode with seven actors became possible where it hadn't been
possible before.
And so really, the money went to the service of of the story plan versus any kind of real
life plan.
And it was really only sort of like 2018, you know, two and a half years into the show
where I started to slow down.
It was really towards the end of season four where I was like, OK, you know, I've been
doing this.
I cannot sustain the thing that I've been doing for for, you know, the past few years
because I'm not 24 anymore.
And I'm just you know, it's been it's been a long road and it's been a lot of fun, but
I need to I need to make.
I think that this can be my career and I need to now start treating it as such.
And yeah.
And so I started, you know, writing on other shows and, you know, doing like pitching the
Am Archives out.
Now it's coming out on Luminary and actually treating it like something that I actually
need to be paid for.
So where so where are you now with The Bright Sessions, another season in July?
Is that right?
No, no, no.
So The Bright Sessions itself is wrapped.
OK.
We just released our final bonus episode in just a couple of weeks ago.
So we wrapped the whole the whole series last June because I knew I knew I wanted to to
sort of conclude these character arcs at this particular point.
I'm always I'm definitely one of those TV fans who like some shows go on, you know,
seven seasons, season five.
Right.
And so I wanted to really end it on my terms.
And then we did these bonus episodes of just like extra therapy sessions for the past nine
months and we're doing our first spinoff.
So we're doing a show called the Am Archives.
It's coming out on Luminary, a new platform on April 23rd.
The first episode drops.
And that's in some ways a continuation of The Bright Sessions in the sense that there's
five returning characters from The Bright Sessions and it picks up after The Bright Sessions
ends, but it's a completely new format, a completely new story.
It's like one of the things that I one of the reasons I wanted to do like a spinoff
instead of just saying like, OK, well, here's season five of The Bright Sessions and it's
just different is that The Bright Sessions to me is like this very it's very important
to me.
It's very precious to me.
It's this contained emotional story, these really small, intimate conflicts.
You know, there's not a lot of there's not a lot of plot in The Bright Sessions.
The Bright Sessions isn't about plot.
It's about emotions.
And and I wanted that I wanted that to be what it is forever.
I didn't I didn't I didn't want to like add just continue to write it and just add more
and more plot and more and more characters.
But I still love this world and there are so many different ways to go.
And so the Am Archives is it's you know, it's it's a very contained kind of plot driven
show with a cast of 20.
So you know, 50 new cast members and it's got it's like fully scored.
It's you know, it's not kind of, you know, in that record, like everything's recorded
kind of format.
It's completely just like a like an audio drama.
You're just dropped into the action, which means that, you know, we're able to do things
like go time traveling with Sam, which we've never done before, which we do in the Am Archives.
And so, yeah, it's I'm really, really excited about what just like getting to expand.
What did the listeners what did the listeners think when you said this is it season four
shutting her down?
I mean, people people were sad.
I think that, you know, they understood that like all things must come to an end and that
I think that there's I think there's a degree of like satisfaction that comes with knowing
because we announced in between our in between our sort of two halves of season four.
So after our first eight episodes and before we went into our last eight and we said, you
know, this is this is going to be the last eight episodes of the show.
OK, it was also, you know, tempered with like we have a book like my first book comes out
in September, which is a bright section of novel.
And we're going to be doing these nine bonus episodes.
So it was like it was a it was a slow, like gentle let down.
Like we're ending, but also here's two things and we're hoping to do some spinoffs.
And because at that point, I wasn't sure that we were going to be able to do the Am Archives.
So I said, you know, kind of stay tuned, but who knows?
And so I think people knew that it was not like the end of this universe or these characters.
But yeah, I think I think there's a there seemed to be a degree of satisfaction over
just like watching these people, you know, grow and and grow closer and kind of find
this family and then come to a place where they're OK, you know, because that's really
what the work is about.
It's about just trying to be OK.
And so I wanted to make sure I got all those characters to a place that they they were
OK.
Well, tell us about the connection or the call you get from Luminary.
Yeah.
So I, you know, had been been trying to figure out a way to, you know, get the Am Archives
made because just looking at what I wanted to do with it, you know, we hired two other
writers.
I knew I needed to get paid for writing.
I wanted to have a lot more actors.
I wanted to have the full score.
I wanted to pay Misha, you know, their actual rate for sound design versus the friend rate
that they've been giving me for years.
And you know, I worked at the budget and I was like, oh, yeah, we can't make this.
And I got I got connected with Luminary and just like talking to Matt Sachs, the CEO there
and just like seeing his passion for his genuine passion for podcasts and then talking to him
about what a partnership would look like and the amount of creative freedom that I would
have and the fact that like Luminary really, really trust their creators to just make the
content that they make and make it well.
And they're very hands off, and that's just such a rare thing, especially somebody who,
you know, lives in Los Angeles and has a lot of friends in television.
It's like that's just unheard of.
So yeah, it just seemed it just seems like a no brainer.
And it would just to just to be able to really to make something where everybody's actually
being paid fairly and that is sustainable and that we can not only make a great show,
but we can level up in a huge way.
It was so exciting.
So you took some there was some backlash when you announced you were going to be on Luminary
because it will be a paid it will be a paywall for people.
So you tried to deal with that as nicely as you could.
But people just want things for free, it seems.
Yeah.
And like I get it.
You know, it like it sucks when when something that you love, you know, sort of changes or
you like you, you know, you expect to consume something in a certain way.
And then it's not that way anymore.
It's like it's it's jarring.
And I get that.
And I think, you know, where I have no no regrets about, you know, decisions I've made
is that this isn't the Bright Sessions, right?
Like it shares a lot of DNA with the Bright Sessions.
It has some of the same characters.
And obviously, you know, it's in the same universe.
But the Bright Sessions ended.
And like and regardless of of making a spinoff, the Bright Sessions was always going to end
in the way that it ended.
And the Bright Sessions is always going to be free.
But you know, it was either I make it and it goes behind a paywall or I don't make it
at all.
And in my mind, it's like I I want to continue to work with this team.
I want to give these incredibly talented people more stuff to work with.
I want to work with these writers and help give them, you know, a different kind of platform
for their for their amazing writing.
And you know, it is it is drawing, but also like it's just not sustainable to make
audio drama completely for free.
And it's like, yeah, it's like, you know, if you can if you can make an audio drama
and completely fund it through Patreon, through advertising, absolutely do that.
I'm hoping to do that with future audio dramas and things like that.
But just this was not going to be something that looking at all the numbers that we had
and kind of, you know, working out all the potentialities that I would be able to ensure
that I actually could pay everybody.
And that's you know, I never want to be in a position where I'm making something and
then laid on payments to people who are working really hard.
And so, yeah, I understand the frustration, but also I just also somebody who is very
invested in audio drama succeeding as an industry and as a legitimate form of entertainment.
I think that, you know, somebody needs to take take the leaps and somebody needs to
to, you know, make take, I guess, take, you know, take the risks of like, all right, I'm
going to try something new and we're going to see if it works.
And I feel that that's as one of the, you know, more established audio drama creators,
I feel that that's something that I can do with with maybe less consequence than somebody
who's just coming up.
And also I can use it to then hopefully elevate, you know, other audio drama creators who don't
have the access to things that I do.
And to me, it's like I have it is my responsibility as a creator who cares about this this medium
to just throw a spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.
So you're in your 20s when you start writing this, at least according to Forbes, you're
writing this script.
And did you did you ever think, man, I'm doing all this work.
It's it just doesn't seem like all this time is going to pay off.
Did you ever think, you know, of throwing in the towel and what advice do you have to
for other people, other folks that want to be podcasters and be storytellers to get them
over that hump?
Yeah, I mean, there were definitely times in season two, which I was just I was very
dumb and ambitious.
And, you know, we we finished our first season, we were having such a good time that not a
lot of people were listening, but we were having a great time.
And so I was like, all right, we're going to do season two and we're going to do 20
episodes and we're released them weekly, which was a completely insane thing to do.
Because it was just I mean, I don't remember the spring of 2016 at all because I was just
so overworked.
And you know, I think in some ways, though, releasing weekly and sort of the insane amount
of content we were releasing is one of the reasons that we built an audience so fast
and so hugely in season two, because it was exciting and there was lots of content coming
out.
But yeah, there were times where I was like, this is just unsustainable.
I can't I cannot work, you know, 80 hours a week at this and then still, you know, work
20, 30 hours a week in my part time job.
And like that math doesn't work.
Right.
But I think for me, the thing that I even even then I didn't necessarily anticipate
it being something that would actually ever pay my rent or turn into a career.
But I just kept going because I just loved making the story.
I just loved working with my actors.
And you know, that's when Misha came on board and getting to work with them and just really
expand my storytelling.
It was just it was just so fulfilling and so, so much fun.
And so I think that's my advice is like, don't like I think, you know, it's an audio drama
and podcasts in general are just a very hot thing to get into right now.
Because it's like the budgets are much less taxing than, you know, other mediums.
There's that whole like low barrier to entry discourse, which I have a lot of opinions
about.
And, you know, and, you know, you can really find your audience, you can make something
really specific and find your audience.
And so I think a lot of people are getting into it.
And I think if you are making a show and your main priority making a show is like, OK, I'm
looking at the landscape of podcasting, I think this type of show is going to do well
with this kind of audience.
Maybe maybe don't bother if that's why you're making the show.
Like it just because you think that there's an audience and podcasting and it will be
successful.
I don't know.
I'm skeptical about how successful that actually will be, because once you actually get into
the grind of making a podcast, unless you really, really love it, it's it's not going
to be worth it.
Right.
You have to have the passion for what you're doing.
Yeah, it has to.
The story, whether it's nonfiction or fiction, like the project itself always has to come
first.
That has to be the thing has to be like, I just really want to tell the story.
And I think audio is the best way to do it.
Or audio is the thing that I have access to or whatever it is.
But I want to tell the story.
I want to talk about this thing, whatever it is.
That has to be your number one priority, because that'll make the late nights and the grind
so much more bearable.
So last question, Lauren, you're you're you're writing your first script.
You're thinking about making a podcast like this, and this August you're going to be the
keynote speaker at Podcast Movement.
Yeah.
Put that into perspective.
It's very weird.
Yeah, it's it's it's wild.
And actually, it's it's funny, because I've been thinking about that.
When they asked me to be the keynote speaker, I was like, my first reaction was like, what
am I going to talk about?
And even now, it's like thinking about, you know, I still have a couple of months to actually
write a thing.
But thinking about what I can, you know, the the pearls of wisdom or the, you know, relatability
or whatever I can that I can relate to an audience interested in fiction podcasting.
I'm thinking about, you know, like, well, why am I why am I qualified to do that?
And it still feels like I think there's still that degree of imposter syndrome of like,
this doesn't feel like something that I'm an expert in, despite the fact that, like,
in the grand scheme of things, there aren't that many experts in in, you know, audio fiction
and in the US at least, obviously, in the UK, there's a much longer tradition of this kind
of storytelling.
But like, yeah, it's it's bizarre to really actually be a professional in this space, because
I still feel like I'm learning constantly, which I think is a good thing.
You know, I want to constantly be challenged and I want to learn from my peers and continue
to grow and grow the medium, but it definitely feels I definitely feel a little bit still
like I'm, you know, a kid walking in my parents shoes or something.
Well, when they hear you say Blue Yeti, and I was editing myself on Adobe, it's it's
there.
They're all going to feel like, you know, they're in your shoes, too.
So well, listen, good luck with the with the new podcast on April 23rd, AM Archives, and
that'll be on Luminary.
So everybody's looking forward to that.
And thanks so much for your time.
Thank you.
Have a good one.