June 23, 2025 • 51 mins
The true cost of quality storytelling.
In this episode, Claire chats with Fariba Nawa, the award-winning investigative journalist behind the On Spec podcast.
Fariba trains journalists worldwide to tell the stories they are personally connected to through sound, ultimately producing documentary journalism that rivals that of major broadcasters.
Since launching in 2019 with Kickstarter funding, On Spec has evolved through six seasons, each with a distinct theme, including disinformation, how borders define us, and a two-year investigation into Iran's targeting of dissidents abroad. The On Spec production process involves extensive collaboration with local journalists, providing them professional development while ensuring stories maintain deep personal connections to the communities they portray.
Meanwhile, the podcasting landscape continues to evolve toward more direct creator support. TrueFans features make it easy for listeners to financially support creators with one-off or continued payments, and offer creators options to divide those payments among their contributors with payment splits – allowing teams like On Spec's to automatically divide listener contribution among hosts, producers, and contributors.
Plus, as the industry debates moving content behind paywalls, what does this mean for accessibility, discovery and sustainability?
This episode discusses:
- Funding options for podcasters: from grants and individual donors to listener support
- TrueFans will soon launch as a native iOS and Android app
- How to use payment splits to automatically divide listener payments among team members
- What do paywalls mean for advertisers, and does secure RSS offer a more favourable option for independent creators?
- Spotify now supports transcripts from the Podcasting 2.0 standard
- Who Claire met and which indie podcasts won at the International Women's Podcast Awards
- How TrueFans showcases independent creators on the app's home page
Discover how TrueFans can help your independent podcast thrive through improved discovery, direct monetization, and enhanced listener engagement.
And if you'd like to chat with us about your independent podcast or music, send a comment or super comment in TrueFans to any Creators episode by clicking on the speech bubble icon or on the comments tab.
Find TrueFans here
Music: How It Is from Ketsa Music
Feedback: TrueFans Support
Read: Creators Blog
Recommendations: Creators Podroll
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Fariba Nawa (00:06):
We do investigative journalism and storytelling
across the world.
We train local journalists totell their own stories, and they
have to be personally connectedto this story.
That's what makes us differentthe immersion being transported
with sound to a world thatallows my imagination to go
where it wants, and I don't haveto use my eyes for it, because
(00:28):
I'm legally blind.
I'm albino, so I try not to usemy eyes as much as possible.
So audio for me has become amuch bigger part of my life than
it was, and this is one reasonI turned to podcasting and I
stopped writing as much.
Sam Sethi (00:42):
The good news is we've now submitted the apps to
both Apple and Google in the appstores for review, so we have
done all the work that's neededto get version 1.0 into the app
stores.
I hope, fingers crossed, it'llbe this week we will have those
(01:04):
available.
Claire Waite Brown (01:06):
Welcome to Creators from True Fans.
I'm independent podcaster,Claire Waite Brown.
Sam Sethi (01:13):
And I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Fans.
Each episode, we'll chat withan independent creator, whether
a podcaster or musician, abouttheir creative experiences and
we'll answer questions fromindependent creators about the
TrueFans features that can helpthem with discovery,
interactivity and monetization.
Claire Waite Brown (01:33):
We'll get interactive and see what our
listeners have been saying inthe comments and super comments.
Sam Sethi (01:39):
And discuss what's happening in the wider world
that could be of benefit toindependent creators.
Hi Claire, hi Claire.
Claire Waite Brown (01:46):
Hi Sam, how are you?
Sam Sethi (01:48):
Ah, yeah, I'm very good.
It's lovely and warm outside,but anyway, this week our
featured podcast is On Spec.
Who's On Spec?
Claire Waite Brown (01:57):
On Spec is a documentary podcast, and it is
produced by independentjournalists from around the
world.
I interviewed Fariba about someof the stories the show has
covered and how it's made.
I'm here with Fariba Nawa andlet's start, please, Fariba.
(02:18):
What is the name of yourpodcast and what is it all about
?
What is the name of yourpodcast and what is it all about
?
Fariba Nawa (02:24):
On Spec Podcast is what it's called, and it's a
documentary podcast from thefield.
We do investigative journalismand storytelling across the
world.
We train local journalists totell their own stories and they
have to be personally connectedto the story.
That's what makes us differentfrom other audio documentaries,
so there's no farce ofobjectivity.
(02:46):
But we're very fair.
We fact check.
We are journalists.
But if you have a personalconnection to the story, if it's
your community you're reportingabout, you have to be
transparent about that andexplain what your position is,
basically what your bias is, ifthere is one.
So that's what we've been doing.
We launched in 2019 with aKickstarter campaign and now
(03:10):
we're on our sixth season, soit's been a good run.
Claire Waite Brown (03:15):
Can you explain a bit more then about
how it works and how you get thecontent?
Because you've explained, youknow you've got different people
reporting on different stories.
How does the content get chosen, decided on?
And tell me a bit as well aboutsome of the stories that have
been covered on the show, please?
Fariba Nawa (03:33):
It was sort of trial and error.
The story of On Spec isinteresting to me because it is
a bunch of frustrated freelancejournalists based in Istanbul,
which is a hub for Middle Eastcorrespondents, by the way.
It's a magical city.
People love living here, it'ssafe enough, and then you can go
to Ukraine, you can go to Egypt, you can go to Lebanon from
(03:55):
here.
So there are at least 500 of usforeign journalists here
working with various mediaorganizations, legacy media and
freelancers, but a lot morefreelancers nowadays because
people are getting laid off from.
You know, the industry'ssuffering right now.
It's evolving.
So this one American couplewho've now broken up and are no
longer part of the podcast.
They came to me with the idea.
(04:16):
They said let's do adocumentary podcast and I said,
guys, this is a lot of workbecause I was the only one with
radio experience on the team andI was the oldest, and I said,
all right, but don't saddle mewith this, don't make me do this
, and six years down the lineI'm doing it, I'm the one who's
taking charge.
(04:36):
But they did spearheaded and Iappreciate that it came from
them.
And then we kind of learnedalong the way, because none of
us really knew what podcastingwas.
We thought it was like radio.
It's not because I had doneradio and I had done a couple of
podcast stories previously withReveal, which is an award
winning American investigativepodcast.
(04:58):
But doing your own is a wholedifferent ballgame.
So we started out with thatKickstarter campaign to get the
funds going.
There were eight of us whoco-founded it.
One was a photographer, one wasa videographer, many of them
were print journalists, text,digital journalists and I was
radio.
So we pulled together all ourresources and skills and we had
(05:18):
about 10 languages among us andthat was a big plus and doing
like skills sharing, so wedidn't have to pay for a lot of
things.
So translation, voiceovers, weall pitched in.
It was all hands on deck.
That's how it all got started.
And then whatever stories we hadnot been able to commission
because especially this was whatwas frustrating for us is a lot
(05:41):
of the legacy media wanted aEuropean angle or especially an
American angle.
American media is obsessed withitself.
So it was like what's theAmerican angle?
We don't care about the storyunless there's something
American in there, and we werelike this is not what we want to
be limited to.
We want to be able to dostories that are good, stories
(06:02):
about people across the world.
So that was the essence of it,and then we had to narrow it
down and eventually we did.
Every season had a theme.
The first season was likewhoever has a story that they
haven't been able to do, if youthink it's good, let's do it.
That's how the first seasonwent.
People had great ideas and weput it out there and it was a
(06:23):
Bolivian musician who traveledaround the world and became a
street musician in Istanbul fromLatin America to here, and how
his identity was shaped by theplaces that he went to.
That was one of lessjournalistic, more storytelling.
We had one story from Iraqabout climate change and how it
was a city of garbage and whatthe Kurdish areas in Iraq were
(06:44):
doing about it.
Initially it was a city ofgarbage and what the Kurdish
areas in Iraq were doing aboutit.
Initially it was a lot ofMiddle East stuff, but then it
expanded.
In our second and third andespecially third, fourth seasons
we had a season ondisinformation.
So we will go to differentparts of the world.
With our third season ondisinformation, we went to seven
different countries and weinnovated I know that's a
(07:05):
buzzword by profiling two sideson a specific issue that
involved disinformation.
I'll give you an example.
So in Russia it was queerrights and how queer people are
treated, and our reporter whohad lived in Russia.
He interviewed a gaypsychiatrist and a student who
(07:25):
was basically exposed to Russianmedia and was anti-queer.
We talked about their views onthe queer community and then we
brought them together in astudio to see if they can find
common ground and that wholeseason was one of my favorites.
The next season was calledBorders how Imaginary and Real
Borders Define Us, and for thatwe went to Armenia and
(07:46):
Azerbaijan.
We went to Zambia, so I trainedlocal journalists.
We work with them one-on-one,but we are not there in the
field.
They have to do their ownreporting.
For the border season we teamedup producers with reporters so
that they could help each other,because these stories are not
easy stories.
You need help, you need a team.
(08:08):
And then for our last season,which is called Lethal Dissent
it was a two year longinvestigation and I did it here
in Turkey.
It was about how Iran kidnapsand kills its dissidents abroad,
and UK residents are familiarwith this story because it's
been happening there as well.
So that's kind of how we dothings and it's sort of we learn
along the way.
Do you have any?
Claire Waite Brown (08:29):
processes or software or tips or things that
have helped you, especiallywith, you know, saving time.
Fariba Nawa (08:37):
Yeah, we are starting to delve into that.
I have very mixed feelingsabout using AI.
Even learning how to use it isproblematic for me because I'm,
you know, gen X.
I just like things the way theywere.
I personally will listen to allmy audio and I will transcribe
word for word because it givesme a sense of the place and the
(08:57):
intimacy, depending on howimportant the interview is.
Last summer, I sat for twoweeks just transcribing 43 pages
and I needed to do that to geta sense of the place and time.
Again, transcribing with AIdoesn't necessarily give you
that intimacy, but we'restarting to, yes, use that.
Sometimes.
We'll use Trent, which is veryexpensive.
(09:17):
We work with a lot of foreignlanguages and we've been using
some whisper and I was justintroduced to something called
assembly.
I'm going to start using that.
So, yes, that is the most timeconsuming thing with interviews.
And then the next timeconsuming thing is editing
scripts, and there is no AIthat's going to do the job of a
script editor yet, becausestorytelling is an art and
(09:39):
humans are still doing it.
Thank God for that, and withLethal Dissent, which was our
last season that I did, we had afantastic editor, ibi Caputo.
She took hours looking overevery word and sentence to make
it as audio friendly as possible.
Other than that, the technologythat we use, we uploaded on
(10:00):
Spotify.
That's where we are.
Our host is Spotify and then itaggregates, it goes into other
feeds and stuff.
So, yeah, I'm not in charge ofthe technical side.
I just do the storytelling andthe editing and the hosting.
Claire Waite Brown (10:14):
Yeah, yeah, understand.
You've mentioned the funding,which itself must be a big job
to go out and source thatfunding.
Does the show have any otherfinancial?
Fariba Nawa (10:25):
support.
I write a monthly newsletterand in it I'm always asking for
donors and supporters the seedfunding that we got from
Kickstarter for one month.
Our goal was to make 20,000 andwe made 22.
So I always go back to thosefolks and the funny thing is
some of them aren't evenlisteners to the show.
(10:45):
It's not their kind of show,but they want to support
independent journalism sothey'll give Others listen.
There are a lot of people wholisten, who don't have the money
.
That's okay too.
They help with skills sharing.
Example.
I put it on my Facebook hey, weneed a voiceover, Someone who
speaks English with a Spanishspeaking accent, and you'd be
(11:05):
surprised how many people wantto be on a podcast with their
voice.
But yes, funding donors,Patreon subscribers we have a
Patreon subscription.
We're just updating our website.
I have a meeting after thiswith our website designers, and
one of the things we've addedare sort of creative perks for
Patreon subscribers.
For example, if you pay Xamount of dollars, our team will
(11:25):
share their personal familyrecipes with you food recipes.
We thought we'd do stuff that'sa bit outside the box for that,
instead of giving earlyepisodes or that we don't do
early episodes, we work to thelast minute to make it happen.
So funding is definitely anissue like everyone else, and
for now I am fundraising for thesixth season and your listeners
(11:47):
can go to unspeccom.
There's a donate banner.
You can make a one-timedonation or you can become a
Patreon subscriber for as littleas $3 to whatever amount you
want.
Claire Waite Brown (11:58):
Brilliant.
We've talked a little bit aboutthis when we met up in London,
but what frustrates you and whatexcites you about podcasting?
Fariba Nawa (12:07):
So I listen to those because I want to be
engaged and I forget that I justwalked an hour and a half.
So the immersion beingtransported with sound to a
world that allows my imaginationto go where it wants, and I
(12:30):
don't have to use my eyes for it, because I'm legally blind.
I'm albino, so I try not to usemy eyes as much as possible.
So audio for me has become amuch bigger part of my life than
it was, and this is one reasonI turned to podcasting and I
stopped writing as much, becauseI don't have to read as much,
right, and I use audio books.
But what frustrates me aboutpodcasting one?
(12:53):
The kind of podcasting we do isso expensive, and I wish it
wasn't, but it is, and I wishpeople would understand the
amount of work that we put infor the little money that we get
, because people want freecontent often, and I'm hearing
that narrative podcasting isdying.
I think it's about finding yourniche.
(13:13):
I don't think it's dyingbecause narrative podcasting is
storytelling.
How could storytelling die?
It doesn't make sense to me.
Everyone I speak to loves agood story and when we did
surveys, people were like.
The other thing was like shouldwe become more geographically
limited.
Should we just go to the MiddleEast and stick?
They said no, we love that.
You go to around the globe.
(13:34):
You're nodding your head, right?
So yeah, because what mattersto us is a fast, paced, engaging
story with a, you know, with anarrative arc.
So that's what we're going tostick to.
But we're also journalists.
We're not doing just randomstories, right.
We're holding peopleaccountable.
We're speaking truth to power,if I may use that adage.
Other than that, I think youand I have this in common.
(13:55):
What frustrates me is that youhave a lot of people who have
huge followings like celebritiesdoing podcasts.
Why?
Why do celebrities need to dopodcasts?
I feel like podcast was theunderdogs thing.
You know, the people who didn'thave a voice would start a
podcast and gain a voice, andnow it's everybody under the sun
(14:16):
who is famous is on the podcastbandwagon and I just tune it
out.
It's like I already know whatyou think and who you are.
Let's give others a chance.
Claire Waite Brown (14:27):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I want to hear reallife stories and real life
people, exactly, exactly, yeah.
So now True Fans this iscreators from True Fans, and the
True Fans app is a podcasting2.0 app.
What do you know, if anything,about podcasting 2.0?
Tell me.
What we want to communicate isthat there are and I'm going to
(14:53):
talk to you about some of thethings that might be good for on
spec, particularly stuff thatsurrounds the audio, if you want
some extra, and it can helpyour show to be discovered.
For example, if you have yourtranscript in the show, people
can search in a podcast app forwords particular to any
(15:15):
transcript, which I think couldbe really useful for this show.
So there are ways that thePodcasting 2.0 features can help
with discovery, maybe withinteractivity, so that your fans
can communicate with you, andthere are monetization aspects
as well.
For example, with every showthat I research for creators,
(15:36):
when I'm listening, I stream avery small amount of money per
minute to that show in TrueFans.
So now for you, when you go toTrueFans and you claim your show
, which is just a matter ofclicking on a button and making
sure you have your email addressin your RSS feed and then
TrueFans can verify that that'syour show.
(15:59):
When you do that, you will bepresented with a wallet and it
will have a very small amount ofmoney in it, probably about 20p
, but anybody can do that.
Anybody can listen to your showon TrueFans and other apps do
it as well, and pay per minuteof listening.
Another thing is they can leavecomments and they can attach a
(16:20):
payment to the comment.
The other thing I wondered withyour show that might be useful
is called recommendations OnTrue Fans.
It's called recommendations Onother places.
It's called pod roll.
Now Spotify allows you torecommend two shows attached to
your show In True Fans itself.
You can attach any number ofshows to your show as a
(16:43):
recommendation.
Fariba Nawa (16:45):
Do we have to change our hosting to True Fans?
Claire Waite Brown (16:48):
No, no, no, that's coming soon.
But you do not have to do thatbecause you can claim your show
with the True Fans.
Then there's a creator'sdashboard that allows you to do
these extra things.
Now I host Creativity Foundwith Buzzsprout and I can do all
of that in Buzzsprout withoutneeding to do it in True Fans.
It goes to True Fans andFountain and other apps that
(17:10):
have those recommendations.
But if you're with a host thatdoesn't allow you to do that,
you can do it with True Fans.
It'll only show up in True Fans, and what I would suggest for
that would be you could go tothat other show and say by the
way, I'm recommending your showbecause we are similar.
Maybe you'd like to recommendmy show on your recommendations.
Fariba Nawa (17:32):
I do think podcast collaborations are one of the
best ways to get an audience.
Claire Waite Brown (17:36):
Yeah, yeah, to finish off, then, how can
people connect with you and onspec, we've got instagram,
instagram, twitter.
Fariba Nawa (17:47):
We're less active on twitter now.
You can understand why, um, butyeah, instagram it's at on spec
podcast, on twitter it's uh, onspec stories, and we've got a
facebook too.
You can also email us at onspec podcast at gmailcom.
You mentioned mailing list aswell.
Exactly, thank you.
We have a monthly newsletterthat you can subscribe to and I
(18:11):
talk about what's new with OnSpec.
I talk about my musings aboutwhat we're doing in the news and
our co-founders and ourcontributors, and then we give a
monthly shout out to oursupporters, because we are very
much into audience engagement.
I love audience engagement.
Claire Waite Brown (18:26):
Brilliant People can sign up to that
newsletter by visitingonspecpodcastcom.
Thank you so much for speakingwith me today, Fariba.
Fariba Nawa (18:36):
Thank you C laire, it's been a pleasure.
Sam Sethi (18:39):
You can hear more from that interview at the end
of this episode of Creators,where Fariba describes how she
and the team behind each seasonand story managed to make such
high quality, well-producedepisodes and how their work is
funded.
Claire Waite Brown (18:53):
That's absolutely right Now.
After our chat, Sam, I didthink about payment splits, did
think about payment splits thatit might be something useful to
them because they work as a teamand I wondered if, with payment
splits, that can be managed onan episode level.
(19:14):
So if one episode has certainteam members, can you manage
payment splits episode byepisode?
And perhaps, sam, this is alsoa good time for you to let the
listeners know what I mean bypayment splits episode by
episode?
And perhaps, sam, this is alsoa good time for you to let the
listeners know what I mean bypayment splits.
Sam Sethi (19:27):
Sure.
So one of the lovely thingsabout podcasting in TrueFans is
that we allow creators to set upin their admin dashboard the
host or maybe a co-host, maybe aproducer, maybe an editor.
So at the podcast level youcould say these people are going
to be receiving monies from anyfan.
(19:49):
So if I wanted to pay, let'ssay on spec, and I give them a
pound or a hundred sats, thenhow does that money get divvied
up?
So what you do in yourcreator's dashboard is you put
the name of the host or thecreators, maybe the producer or
editor and you put 25%, 50%.
(20:10):
It has to, of course, go to100%.
But what happens is then whensomebody pays I don't know,
maybe a super comment or maybethey're streaming stats to them
we automatically send that moneybased on the splits that you've
set up to those people.
Now, that's at the podcast level.
At the episode level, you canalso do that.
(20:33):
So in the same way, you go intothe episode level in your
creator's dashboard, you thenput in the name, put in the
amount.
So what we do is we then goright, four people at the
podcast level were 100%, but nowyou've added the guest and you
may say give them 10%, and youmight have added a new staff
member or podcast editor andthey've got another 10%.
(20:55):
We adjust the top podcastchannel level so that now
becomes an 80% split and then20% goes to the other people.
So we automatically do this.
So all you need to do as acreator is go in and set up the
amount based on the percentageyou want to give each person,
(21:15):
and we will do the rest for youand magically put it into each
person's wallet.
Claire Waite Brown (21:19):
Perfect, brilliant.
Four shows that have those teammembers that maybe vary from
episode to episode.
Oh, that's good.
I learned something new againtoday.
Sam Sethi (21:31):
It's also really good for music artists.
We were talking to AinsleyCostello about a year ago and
you know, can you imagine you'rethe singer, but you're also
maybe the songwriter?
You might have a studioproducer, you might have a
session guitarist or a sessiondrummer who's not part of the
band all the time, but you justhave them on that one track.
(21:52):
So in the same way, you canhave the main singer, songwriter
, and then maybe on a singletrack you might have a guest
guitarist, and so yes, it worksin the same way.
Claire Waite Brown (22:04):
Yeah, that's really useful.
If you'd like to chat with usabout your independent podcast
or your music, send a comment orsuper comment in True Fans to
any Creators episode by clickingon the speech bubble icon or on
the comments tab.
Sam Sethi (22:21):
So we've been collecting the questions that
listeners have sent us in.
Claire, what question are yougoing to ask me this week?
Claire Waite Brown (22:28):
Well, it's one I keep getting asked, so I'm
handing it over to you, Sam,and that is when will the True
Fans native app be ready?
Sam Sethi (22:41):
Oh, if I had a pound for every time that was asked,
yes, I'd be a rich man.
The good news is we've nowsubmitted the apps to both Apple
and Google in the app storesfor review, so we have done all
the work that's needed to getversion 1.0 into the app stores.
1.0 into the app stores.
I hope fingers crossed, it'llbe this week we will have those
(23:07):
available, but of course I can'tdetermine what the reviewers
and how long they will take, butit generally is somewhere
between 48 hours and one week.
That's great, exciting news andI think the big difference is
that people when they go oh,you're a PWA progressive web app
, web-based podcast app.
Oh, I don't know, I was lookingfor you in the app stores and
(23:28):
you weren't there.
Realistically, the biggestthing they'll notice is we will
be in the app stores.
They will be able to clickinstall as they would for any
normal iOS or Android app.
But also on the web page thingswill change.
Now you get a nice littlebanner at the top given to you
which automatically says clickhere and it installs the iOS or
(23:51):
Android app for youautomatically.
Claire Waite Brown (23:52):
Brilliant, so you're going to get that
prompt.
Other than, we can go to theapp stores to get this app, and
that's what people are used todoing with podcast apps, so that
will be easier for me when I'mtelling people to listen on true
fans.
Are there going to be any otherbenefits to listeners
podcasters from the app being anapp app now?
Sam Sethi (24:16):
yes, um, unfortunately, both apple and
google hamstring web-based apps.
They make them slower, theyjust don't give them the same
sort of processing power.
So when you go and becomewhat's called a native app,
which is basically using the appstore and then being approved
by either Google or Apple, theygive you the audio player access
(24:38):
, they give you the offlinecapabilities, they give you all
the things that you want andthey make it really quick and
simple.
So, yes, we will see somebenefits there for true fans
being a native app.
Claire Waite Brown (24:50):
I can't wait to have a play.
Sam Sethi (24:52):
Now I will temper it and say this is a 1.0 and I
would love feedback because,again, you know, when you build
an app for the web and then youchange it and build the app for
the native phone, it does lookand feel exactly the same.
I've been playing with it forabout three or four days myself,
so so far I haven't noticed anydifferences in the UI, but
(25:15):
there may be features andfunctions that I haven't thought
about, that are native to manyother apps People might want to
give us feedback on or request anew feature for, so please do.
We are all ears for them.
So, claire, time for the fanbox.
Have you heard from anylisteners since the last episode
?
Claire Waite Brown (25:34):
We certainly have, sam.
First of all, we had a lovelycomment from last week's guest
podcaster, joanna PR Neves, whoI met in real life yesterday.
She said thanks so much forhaving me.
It was a true pleasure and Ihave to agree, it was a pleasure
(25:55):
.
Now, the next comment you'll seeattached to this episode on
True Fans is from Fanzone.
Claire, which is me and I wrote.
This is the account that I,claire Waite-Brown, use when
taking screenshots for Fanzoneepisodes.
Just popping on to show howeasy it is to leave a comment.
(26:17):
If you need some extra guidance, head to episode 10 of Fanzone.
So if you've not listened tothis show before, fan Zone is
our sister podcast and it's aseries of short and sweet
episodes that tell you what youcan do with true fans and how to
do it.
And then we've had anotherlovely comment from Jim James,
(26:39):
who says great to hear the truestories of indie podcasters
being talked about so openly.
Thanks, guys.
Well, thank you, jim.
You know we love to connectwith our independent podcasters
and to show other people what'sout there.
If you would like to leave us acomment, it's very easy to do.
(27:00):
When you're listening to thisepisode, you can click on the
tab that says comments, or clickon the speech bubble and write
your comment and, if you wish to, you can turn it into a super
comment by attaching a smallpayment.
Thank you, sam.
Have you spotted anything thisweek that independent creators
and their fans might also wantto know about?
Sam Sethi (27:23):
Well, one idea that's floating around this week and I
thought it was worth talking toyou about and see whether you
thought it was a good idea.
Russell Harraway from Pod2 saidwouldn't it be good if we had a
Shazam for podcasting?
Now, first of all, I've got toask you do you know what Shazam
is?
Claire Waite Brown (27:40):
I do know what Shazam is.
It was one of the earliestthings you could do with your
smartphone.
Sam Sethi (27:51):
Yeah, you could put your phone up, listen to any
track that was playing in thebackground and it would
magically find that track foryou and play it back on your
phone Because it was so good.
Apple bought the company andnow it's part of the macOS.
So when Nostle said, wouldn'tit be good to have a Shazam for
podcasting, I was like, well,what would that do?
I mean, there's no pointtelling me what the podcast is,
(28:11):
because I've got it on my phone.
I'm listening to the podcast,I've got a cover art.
I don't need a Shazam to tellme what I'm looking at.
So we had a little brainstormand the idea might be that
actually I might be listening toI don't know another podcast.
I know it's Claire Waite-Brown,or maybe.
I don't know the guest, maybe Idon't know the co-host, and so
what it could do is then listento the people's voices and then
(28:37):
tell me in the app oh yes,claire Waite-Brown is the host
of the one I'm listening to, butyou know she's got creativity
fan and she does fan zone.
She does these other ones aswell, by the way, or it could be
.
By the way, do you knowclaire's been on this podcast as
a guest, or that podcast as aguest.
All right, I like claire.
I'm going to go and find thatpodcast.
(28:58):
Here's the link to it bang.
And so you could turn theShazam for podcast into a
playlist of all of the otherpodcasts that the current host
that you're listening to isactually either a host of
another podcast or a guest onanother podcast.
Claire Waite Brown (29:15):
Right, so do you envisage that this would
pop up?
So if I start listening tocreators from True Fans,
something would pop up on thescreen to say featured in this
episode are Sam Sethi, ClaireWaite-Brown and Fariba Noir, who
you can also find in theseplaces.
Okay, Well, it can't do anyharm, can it?
(29:36):
It's another form of discovery.
I am thinking reminded of theperson tag and the pod role
feature, which can do a similarthing, but I don't know.
Sam Sethi (29:49):
Yeah, it was really.
We're an audio medium and arewe using the audio itself?
Because, if you think of theperson tag, that is being added
by the creator themselves, thepodcaster.
The pod role is being added bythe creator, so it's a physical
entity.
But actually can we use theaudio A bit like the transcript?
(30:10):
Now we could use the transcript, for example, to do a search.
We can now find other speakerscalled Claire Wade Brown and
other speakers called Sam bygoing through every other
transcript.
That's one way of doing it andthat's quite difficult as well.
It's just an idea, as I said,whether people think it's a good
one or bad one.
We'd love comments if you thinkit's good or comments if you
(30:31):
think it's bad.
No one's building it right now,but it was just such an
interesting idea.
Does the audio fingerprint ofsomeone's voice become unique
enough so that they could bediscovered for other podcasts
and then connected together tosort of create a social graph of
your podcasting history?
Claire Waite Brown (30:52):
Okay, yeah, I'll have a think.
Do hit that comment tab or thatspeech bubble and interact with
us.
Let us know what you think.
Sam Sethi (31:02):
Speech bubble and interact with us.
Let us know what you think.
Now, one of the other ideasthat's floating around people
have been talking about the movemore towards putting podcasts
behind paywalls.
Podcasting, I've said, has beenthe second-class citizen of
digital content.
Back in the day, Clay, youmight have had Napster and you
downloaded free music as bestyou you could.
(31:23):
It was a poor experience reallyif we, if we cast our minds
back and then steve jobs camealong and said well, it's 99
cents, everyone okay for that.
I can't be bothered to wait sixhours for that download of that
one single.
So now people were paying formusic.
And then we got people to payfor films and now we happily
have Netflix or Prime or AppleTV.
(31:45):
But podcasting is still seen asa free medium, ad supported in
some cases, but a free mediumfor access.
But more and more the trend isnow to put that content, if it's
quality and you believe thatyour fans will pay for it,
behind the paywall of some sort.
So Patreon or buy me a coffeeor in True Fans, you can have a
(32:08):
support option.
So more and more people aresaying yeah, you know what I
think.
What I do each week is prettygood and each week it takes me
some time.
It could be one hour, threehours.
We, you know, we've all had togo through the recording,
editing, promoting stages andactually, yeah, if you like what
I'm putting out, maybe you wantto give me a few sats, or maybe
(32:29):
you want to give me a monthlyrecurring subscription, and what
that also means is thatlisteners, fans, don't want ads.
They go okay.
Well, if I'm paying for this, Iwant an ad-free version.
This has brought up a reallyinteresting problem for the
advertising industry, becausepeople who can afford to pay for
(32:50):
ad-free TV films do it.
I pay for my subscription toNetflix or Prime or Apple TV and
I don't get ads.
People can afford to pay for noads.
They will.
So are advertisers targetingpeople who can't afford it, and
are they the people thatadvertisers want to reach?
It's a dilemma, hey, Claire.
Claire Waite Brown (33:11):
It is.
Yeah, it's a very interestingone From the creator's point of
view.
I wonder how putting your workbehind a paywall would affect
discovery, because you'rerelying on the people who
already know you to pay.
(33:31):
I certainly know a lot ofindependent podcasters who want
their work to be availableopenly.
I was speaking with Joannarecently and she said I want my
art teachings to be open foreveryone, so that is a kind of
ethical element to it that Iwonder about.
Sam Sethi (33:54):
Yeah, and I tend to agree with her.
Look, there is a technologythat's been produced partly by
me and partly by Russell andpartly by Oscar.
It's called Secure RSS and I'mnot going to get into the
technicalities here.
It's called Secure RSS and I'mnot going to get into the
technicalities here, but what itallows you as a creator to do
is to say, okay, these episodesare going to be free In the same
(34:15):
feed.
I can then say these two orthree episodes are chargeable
and this is how much I want.
And equally, you could actuallygo down to the chapter level
soon and be able to say,actually, all this episode is
free, bar this one chapter ortwo chapters, right?
So what it means to you as acreator is you can choose what's
(34:36):
open, freemium, you know, notpaid for and what is paid for in
the same feed, in the same app.
So you're not sending your fansto another app to go and
subscribe.
You're not having to uploadyour premium content to another
app.
So now you can keep your onefeed with both freemium and
(35:00):
premium and keep your fans inthe same app that they want to
use and it can be freelydistributed and the apps will
determine what you've asked for.
I want these all to be free, butthat last episode is going to
be chargeable yeah, that makesthe most sense to me and I think
when that comes about and itwill do in the latter half of
(35:21):
this year I think you'll startto see people going.
Why am I putting it over onPatreon or Memberful?
Why am I splitting my fan baseand why am I doubling up my work
?
So, as a creator, I think, justkeep an eye out.
Have a think about why youcould actually get your fans now
to pay you directly.
(35:42):
I think creating fandoms iscritical and monetizing those
without advertising.
Claire Waite Brown (35:49):
And that's what we would like people to do,
and we would like our listenersto financially support our
shows.
Even in very little ways, itmakes all the difference to us
as creators.
Sam Sethi (36:01):
I think if you've got 50, 100, 200 people who listen
to your show regularly and theyall gave you 50p, that would be
amazing.
I would be happy.
No, I think it's beholden toapps like TrueFans and others to
make payment easy so that usersthen go oh, that's easy to give
Claire 50p or a thousand sats.
(36:22):
So I think that's where we aretrying to get to as an industry.
Where you go, I'd love to giveyou a heart, a thumb, a like,
but I'm going to give it with alittle bit of micro payment and,
in the aggregate, if you've gota fan base, that will actually
pay you more than theadvertising CPM rates that you
might get, because you have toget thousands of fans.
(36:44):
So you might only be having 100or 50 fans, but you could still
make more money than theadvertising if you had 10x the
number of people listening.
Claire Waite Brown (36:54):
Yeah, I love the practical element of,
obviously, what you're doingwith True Fans, what Oscar at
Fountain and generally the 2.0features.
That's perfect if we can makeit easy for people to do it.
The next step is the mindset ofthe people, so that they do
actually do it.
Sam Sethi (37:13):
Yeah, I think sites like Patreon and Memphil and Buy
Me A Coffee have helped peopleunderstand.
I'd even add in you knowSubstack.
I'd even add in you know othersubscription-based models.
So people are beginning to say,yeah, actually, yeah, actually,
yeah, paying for this contentseems fair, but now let's make
(37:34):
it easier to pay and make itsimpler for creators as well.
Yeah, so that's where we'regoing now, talking about things
that creators should be doingand trends.
Pocket, pocket Casts againanother big podcasting 2.0 app.
They added support for podroles, claire, you'll be very
happy to say.
Claire Waite Brown (37:52):
Yes, my favorite.
Sam Sethi (37:55):
True Fan supports pod roles, buzzsprout supports pod
roles as a host, but pod rolesare simply a way of you, as a
creator, putting a list of otherpodcasts that you recommend, so
it's lovely that you don't havealgorithmic recommendation
engines.
This is bottom-uprecommendations from creators to
(38:16):
other creators, and I thinkit's lovely that that now is
supported in Pocket Cast as well.
Claire Waite Brown (38:20):
Yes, it is.
I was very happy to read that.
As you know, I mentionedPodroll to Fariba because I
think that could be a good thingfor her show, and the Pocket
Cast thing is that they do takeyour Podroll if you've put them
in, but if you haven't put themin, they do make recommendations
of their own, don't they?
Sam Sethi (38:41):
They do, and that's an algorithmic recommendation.
So I think you've got myrecommendations as a creator and
then the app recommendations asan algorithm.
Claire Waite Brown (38:51):
Yeah, it's made clear on the app whose the
recommendations are yeah, no,it's super.
You know me.
I love podcasters recommendingother podcasts and, as you say,
getting away from thealgorithmic recommendations and
getting real recommendationsthat you can trust.
Sam Sethi (39:08):
And one other big story that's happening in the
podcasting world is that Spotifyhave opened the closed door.
They've adopted a podcasting2.0 tag, one of the open tags.
They've supported transcriptsClaire.
Claire Waite Brown (39:23):
It's fabulous.
Yeah, I have been talking withthe people that I interview for
this show, and transcripts iskind of like the first one.
If people don't know about 2.0features, it's one that they
have heard of, but how does itwork with Spotify?
Are we talking about the 2.0feature or are they doing it
(39:43):
like Apple do and making itthemselves?
Sam Sethi (39:45):
What's happened is that if you've got a host that
supports transcripts, likeBuzzsprout or Blueberry or
Transistor, you can then getyour transcript put into your
host.
That gets put into your feed,your RSS feed, and then native
apps like TrueFans or PocketCast or Fountain will read that
transcript and display italongside the episode show notes
(40:08):
, and that's great and it'sgreat for SEO, it's great for
searching, it's great for manyother things If you're somebody
who is slightly hard of hearing,again, it's great for following
along.
But finally, finally, finally,spotify are going to read your
RSS feed and look for thepodcasting 2.0 tag for
(40:30):
transcriptions and if it findsit, it will put that in as the
default transcription.
So, like Apple, you will beable to get a transcription
directly from Spotify if youdon't have your own
transcription, but if they findone that you've put in yourself,
it'll override the one that'snative to the platform, and
(40:53):
that's exactly what happens withApple as well.
Claire Waite Brown (40:55):
Well, it does, sam, but only if you've
done the toggle that says I wantyou to take the 2.0 transcript?
Sam Sethi (41:03):
Yes, and I can't tell you 100% what it looks like in
Spotify, because I haven't goneinto it and I'm assuming it may
be exactly the same, doingexactly the same thing.
But the good news at the macrolevel is that Spotify have added
the podcasting 2.0 namespaceand added the first tag.
(41:26):
Fingers crossed, they will addmore tags.
That's what we want.
We want Apple to add more tags.
We want other apps to add moretags.
It just means that everyone isthen on a uniform platform, and
those tags for creators aregreat, because if you've taken
the time to add the person tagto your host but it doesn't
(41:47):
appear in Spotify or it doesn'tappear in Apple, your listeners
go, oh, it's not there.
Or creators will go back toBuzzsprout and go, oh, I did all
the work but it doesn't appear.
Right, yes, it will appear inTrueFound.
Yes, it will appear in other2.0 apps.
But again, I think once itstarts to appear in other ones
the low hanging fruit we callperson tags, chapters,
(42:08):
transcripts, pod roles I thinkall creators should be doing
those now.
I don't think there's anyexcuse for not doing them.
Claire Waite Brown (42:16):
Yeah, future-proofing, it's my advice
to do, and especially if yourhost allows you to do it, as
Buzzsprout does do all of them.
As you know, I was spoiled.
I thought all the hostingcompanies did all of them
because Buzzsprout does, butit's super easy to do.
But it also gives you control.
So, for example, with yourtranscript, you can correct your
(42:36):
transcript, you can make sureeverybody's names are spelled
correctly, you can make sure awork of art is named correctly
and you have complete control,which is what we want.
We want control of our content,whether it's audio or the
accompanying transcript or theaccompanying chapters.
But it is absolutely veryexciting news, sam.
Sam Sethi (42:56):
And then Claire, where have you been this week?
You've been out and about.
Claire Waite Brown (43:01):
I have.
I've been schmoozing withpodcasts, you people.
I went to the InternationalWomen's Podcast Awards.
So last week on this show, Imentioned some of the
independent podcasts that wereshortlisted for the IWPAs and
celebrated them, because it'snot an easy task to get that far
(43:21):
, and last week I went to theceremony, which was super.
So I got to meet people that Ialready know, but also some
people that I mentioned on theshow last week.
These people are Elizabeth fromthe Adult Ballet Studio and she
had come over from the States.
It was lovely to meet Elizabeth.
I met Anna, who is my friend,who does the story of Woman, and
(43:45):
I met Charlotte from the CancerCaregiver and Siobhan from
Retirement Rebel.
I also met Nikki Elliott from ashow called Women's Business.
I met her in the queue for theloo.
It's where women meet eachother.
Nikki Elliott I didn't mentionher show last week.
It's called Women's Businessand she was also shortlisted and
(44:07):
I want to say really, reallywell done to the shows that did
make it, to the runner up andthe winning position.
So Retirement Rebel and MadeFor Us were runners up in their
category, which is amazing, andBlue Mondays and Tales From the
Singing Porch and Two Liveslives.
(44:29):
They won in their categories aswell, so that was really super
to see.
Sam Sethi (44:33):
I'm going to post, I'm going to put some photos in
the chapters of the people thatI met I think one of the things
that you and I've beendiscussing as well, claire, is
how can we help promote theseshows and these hosts?
So one of the things that we'regoing to be doing on True Fans
is taking away, I suppose, thebig names from the top page you
(44:56):
know, the Joe Rogans or theMichelle Obamas and featuring
some of these shows.
I think we want to championwhich is why we do this show,
claire, and again, I think, asthe CEO of True Fans and you
nudging me nicely, I think wewill promote the shows we
mention each week.
So if you're listening to thisshow and you go, oh, what was
(45:17):
that one?
Again, well, I'm sure it'll bein our show notes, but if you
can't find it in the show notes,you can go to the homepage and
it'll be there in the top header.
Also, we're going to bebuilding in a carousel of
independent podcast creators aswell, so bear with us while we
build that, but we are intendingand will do very shortly to
(45:41):
start to promote all the peoplewe mentioned in this show.
Claire Waite Brown (45:43):
Yeah, it's going to be lovely to be able to
go to a podcast app and seeyour show on the front page.
Brilliant, love it.
It was my idea, of course.
I love it, yes.
Sam Sethi (45:56):
And that's it for this week.
Claire, our audio is recordedand edited using Riverside and
we're hosted by our friends atBuzzsprout, we sure?
Claire Waite Brown (46:04):
are, Remember.
You can support this show bystreaming micropayments from
your True Fans wallet, or youcan leave us a super comment, or
you can become a monthlysupporter.
Sam Sethi (46:18):
If you'd like to advertise or sponsor this show,
please email sam at truefansfmfor further details.
Claire Waite Brown (46:25):
And don't forget, you can find out more
about the fun features that arepart of True Fans by listening
to our sister podcast Fanz one.
And if you're keen to learnmore about Podcasting 2.0 in
general, do check out mycourse-based podcast called
Podcasting 2.0 in Practice.
Sam Sethi (46:44):
And you never know, by next week, Claire, there
might be a native iOS andAndroid app.
Claire Waite Brown (46:49):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, Crossing my fingers.
Sam Sethi (46:53):
Not as much as me.
Claire Waite Brown (46:57):
Don't forget , you can keep listening to hear
more from this episode'sfeatured creator.
Fariba Nawa (47:05):
I'm curious which episodes did you listen to?
Claire Waite Brown (47:07):
While I was on holiday, I listened to the
first few Lethal Dissent, so Igot up to the Poet.
Fariba Nawa (47:15):
You did okay.
Claire Waite Brown (47:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Funny enough, I was listeningto those in the bathroom when I
was getting ready every morningon holiday in this happy place.
I'm sorry.
Fariba Nawa (47:32):
Check yourself.
Claire Waite Brown (47:32):
Check your emotional bandwidth.
Yeah, exactly.
And then I've recently listenedto the one about the tribes and
in Africa and the Q&A episodeafter the main episode as well.
Fariba Nawa (47:46):
That was our most popular episode and we were
really perplexed by that.
Yeah, um, I think it again.
It's it's a solution, like itwas a happy one, right, that one
is a happy one and I think thatit's called tribe and prejudice
is from zombia.
Yeah, people really connectedwith that and we kind of never
know what.
What's going to be popular,what's not.
(48:07):
It's hard to predict.
Claire Waite Brown (48:09):
That's really interesting.
So it's not necessarily amatter of everybody listens to
every episode.
Is what you're saying, then wehave different audience members
coming in.
Fariba Nawa (48:19):
I mean, at one point the analytics were telling
us I don't know how accuratethey are from Spotify that Saudi
Arabia was one of our biggestlisteners, because you have a
lot of English speakers therewho don't want to listen to
legacy media but do wantdocumentaries.
Claire Waite Brown (48:34):
The episodes I've listened to are not only
very interesting and, as you'vealready explained, stories that
I may not ordinarily come across, which is brilliant but also
very beautifully produced, withyour interviews with the.
You know soundscaping and stufflike that.
So, quality wise, it'sbrilliant.
(48:54):
So I'm still grappling withthen, when you're training the
journalists, do they thendeliver the whole product, the
whole episode?
Fariba Nawa (49:06):
You're shaking your head.
No, no.
So, like I said, it takes a bigteam and podcasting, as you
know, has so many layers,especially this kind of
production.
Yes, I hear that a lot frompeople who are like, wow, we
didn't know it was such high.
It's like BBC and NPR qualityproduction.
How do you guys do this?
Well, we work with professionals.
We produce a team for eachseason.
(49:27):
We create a team that will workon that season based on the
funding that we have, and wedon't do things hourly, not
generally.
We did with Lethal Dissent andI made no money, that was a
mistake.
But generally it'sproject-based.
You're going to work on thisproject for this long until it's
finished.
You get half of the money now,half until it's finished.
(49:53):
And then we, you know, we workacross the globe, which gets,
which sometimes is verychallenging remotely.
So we had somebody in the DRCDemocratic Republic of Congo who
disappeared on us in the middleof his story.
So he had done the reporting, Ifact checked it, and then we
had to find someone else tovoice it and pay them separately
.
So, because we're remote, we dohave a lot of challenges, but
we've learned to troubleshootahead of time and, yeah, I'm
(50:18):
proud of the episodes we've doneand the training.
But when these reporters come tome and they've never done
long-form audio they getfrustrated by the amount of
edits and time that it takes,because they're used to like
three minute radio stories thatthey've done.
Nobody comes to me with noexperience.
We don't take people with noexperience.
You have to have someexperience in audio or a massive
(50:40):
experience in print for me towork with you, because I'm not
going to teach one-on-onejournalism.
We're a bit too advanced forthat.
But by the time they get to theend of the story and they hear
the complete production, thedifferent layers, which involves
music, voiceovers, you know wehave artwork.
We have our own graphicdesigner who does for each
episode, creates artwork andthen social media videos.
(51:02):
They are so proud, like eachreporter.
That is the like when theylisten to their final story and
I see the pride they have, thenit makes it all worth it,
because there's a lot of hoursthat go into this for very
little money or no money.
Right, it's a passion in manyways for a lot of these
reporters and then for those ofus who are training them.
Yeah, first we apply forfunding.
(51:25):
We've been able to get a lot ofsmall grants from big media,
let's put it that way NationalGeographic, european Journalism
Center, google, prx and thensmaller outlets the Pulitzer
Center gave us one, so and thendonors coming in, so we have
what they call a diversity ofrevenues in order to do the
(51:46):
stories that we do Claire.
Our stories are not do Claire.
Our stories are not cheap,right, so, because it's
investigative reporting andstorytelling,
We do investigative journalism and storytelling
across the world.
We train local journalists totell their own stories, and they
have to be personally connectedto this story.
That's what makes us differentthe immersion being transported
with sound to a world thatallows my imagination to go
where it wants, and I don't haveto use my eyes for it, because
(00:28):
I'm legally blind.
I'm albino, so I try not to usemy eyes as much as possible.
So audio for me has become amuch bigger part of my life than
it was, and this is one reasonI turned to podcasting and I
stopped writing as much.
Sam Sethi (00:42):
The good news is we've now submitted the apps to
both Apple and Google in the appstores for review, so we have
done all the work that's neededto get version 1.0 into the app
stores.
I hope, fingers crossed, it'llbe this week we will have those
(01:04):
available.
Claire Waite Brown (01:06):
Welcome to Creators from True Fans.
I'm independent podcaster,Claire Waite Brown.
Sam Sethi (01:13):
And I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Fans.
Each episode, we'll chat withan independent creator, whether
a podcaster or musician, abouttheir creative experiences and
we'll answer questions fromindependent creators about the
TrueFans features that can helpthem with discovery,
interactivity and monetization.
Claire Waite Brown (01:33):
We'll get interactive and see what our
listeners have been saying inthe comments and super comments.
Sam Sethi (01:39):
And discuss what's happening in the wider world
that could be of benefit toindependent creators.
Hi Claire, hi Claire.
Claire Waite Brown (01:46):
Hi Sam, how are you?
Sam Sethi (01:48):
Ah, yeah, I'm very good.
It's lovely and warm outside,but anyway, this week our
featured podcast is On Spec.
Who's On Spec?
Claire Waite Brown (01:57):
On Spec is a documentary podcast, and it is
produced by independentjournalists from around the
world.
I interviewed Fariba about someof the stories the show has
covered and how it's made.
I'm here with Fariba Nawa andlet's start, please, Fariba.
(02:18):
What is the name of yourpodcast and what is it all about
?
What is the name of yourpodcast and what is it all about
?
Fariba Nawa (02:24):
On Spec Podcast is what it's called, and it's a
documentary podcast from thefield.
We do investigative journalismand storytelling across the
world.
We train local journalists totell their own stories and they
have to be personally connectedto the story.
That's what makes us differentfrom other audio documentaries,
so there's no farce ofobjectivity.
(02:46):
But we're very fair.
We fact check.
We are journalists.
But if you have a personalconnection to the story, if it's
your community you're reportingabout, you have to be
transparent about that andexplain what your position is,
basically what your bias is, ifthere is one.
So that's what we've been doing.
We launched in 2019 with aKickstarter campaign and now
(03:10):
we're on our sixth season, soit's been a good run.
Claire Waite Brown (03:15):
Can you explain a bit more then about
how it works and how you get thecontent?
Because you've explained, youknow you've got different people
reporting on different stories.
How does the content get chosen, decided on?
And tell me a bit as well aboutsome of the stories that have
been covered on the show, please?
Fariba Nawa (03:33):
It was sort of trial and error.
The story of On Spec isinteresting to me because it is
a bunch of frustrated freelancejournalists based in Istanbul,
which is a hub for Middle Eastcorrespondents, by the way.
It's a magical city.
People love living here, it'ssafe enough, and then you can go
to Ukraine, you can go to Egypt, you can go to Lebanon from
(03:55):
here.
So there are at least 500 of usforeign journalists here
working with various mediaorganizations, legacy media and
freelancers, but a lot morefreelancers nowadays because
people are getting laid off from.
You know, the industry'ssuffering right now.
It's evolving.
So this one American couplewho've now broken up and are no
longer part of the podcast.
They came to me with the idea.
(04:16):
They said let's do adocumentary podcast and I said,
guys, this is a lot of workbecause I was the only one with
radio experience on the team andI was the oldest, and I said,
all right, but don't saddle mewith this, don't make me do this
, and six years down the lineI'm doing it, I'm the one who's
taking charge.
(04:36):
But they did spearheaded and Iappreciate that it came from
them.
And then we kind of learnedalong the way, because none of
us really knew what podcastingwas.
We thought it was like radio.
It's not because I had doneradio and I had done a couple of
podcast stories previously withReveal, which is an award
winning American investigativepodcast.
(04:58):
But doing your own is a wholedifferent ballgame.
So we started out with thatKickstarter campaign to get the
funds going.
There were eight of us whoco-founded it.
One was a photographer, one wasa videographer, many of them
were print journalists, text,digital journalists and I was
radio.
So we pulled together all ourresources and skills and we had
(05:18):
about 10 languages among us andthat was a big plus and doing
like skills sharing, so wedidn't have to pay for a lot of
things.
So translation, voiceovers, weall pitched in.
It was all hands on deck.
That's how it all got started.
And then whatever stories we hadnot been able to commission
because especially this was whatwas frustrating for us is a lot
(05:41):
of the legacy media wanted aEuropean angle or especially an
American angle.
American media is obsessed withitself.
So it was like what's theAmerican angle?
We don't care about the storyunless there's something
American in there, and we werelike this is not what we want to
be limited to.
We want to be able to dostories that are good, stories
(06:02):
about people across the world.
So that was the essence of it,and then we had to narrow it
down and eventually we did.
Every season had a theme.
The first season was likewhoever has a story that they
haven't been able to do, if youthink it's good, let's do it.
That's how the first seasonwent.
People had great ideas and weput it out there and it was a
(06:23):
Bolivian musician who traveledaround the world and became a
street musician in Istanbul fromLatin America to here, and how
his identity was shaped by theplaces that he went to.
That was one of lessjournalistic, more storytelling.
We had one story from Iraqabout climate change and how it
was a city of garbage and whatthe Kurdish areas in Iraq were
(06:44):
doing about it.
Initially it was a city ofgarbage and what the Kurdish
areas in Iraq were doing aboutit.
Initially it was a lot ofMiddle East stuff, but then it
expanded.
In our second and third andespecially third, fourth seasons
we had a season ondisinformation.
So we will go to differentparts of the world.
With our third season ondisinformation, we went to seven
different countries and weinnovated I know that's a
(07:05):
buzzword by profiling two sideson a specific issue that
involved disinformation.
I'll give you an example.
So in Russia it was queerrights and how queer people are
treated, and our reporter whohad lived in Russia.
He interviewed a gaypsychiatrist and a student who
(07:25):
was basically exposed to Russianmedia and was anti-queer.
We talked about their views onthe queer community and then we
brought them together in astudio to see if they can find
common ground and that wholeseason was one of my favorites.
The next season was calledBorders how Imaginary and Real
Borders Define Us, and for thatwe went to Armenia and
(07:46):
Azerbaijan.
We went to Zambia, so I trainedlocal journalists.
We work with them one-on-one,but we are not there in the
field.
They have to do their ownreporting.
For the border season we teamedup producers with reporters so
that they could help each other,because these stories are not
easy stories.
You need help, you need a team.
(08:08):
And then for our last season,which is called Lethal Dissent
it was a two year longinvestigation and I did it here
in Turkey.
It was about how Iran kidnapsand kills its dissidents abroad,
and UK residents are familiarwith this story because it's
been happening there as well.
So that's kind of how we dothings and it's sort of we learn
along the way.
Do you have any?
Claire Waite Brown (08:29):
processes or software or tips or things that
have helped you, especiallywith, you know, saving time.
Fariba Nawa (08:37):
Yeah, we are starting to delve into that.
I have very mixed feelingsabout using AI.
Even learning how to use it isproblematic for me because I'm,
you know, gen X.
I just like things the way theywere.
I personally will listen to allmy audio and I will transcribe
word for word because it givesme a sense of the place and the
(08:57):
intimacy, depending on howimportant the interview is.
Last summer, I sat for twoweeks just transcribing 43 pages
and I needed to do that to geta sense of the place and time.
Again, transcribing with AIdoesn't necessarily give you
that intimacy, but we'restarting to, yes, use that.
Sometimes.
We'll use Trent, which is veryexpensive.
(09:17):
We work with a lot of foreignlanguages and we've been using
some whisper and I was justintroduced to something called
assembly.
I'm going to start using that.
So, yes, that is the most timeconsuming thing with interviews.
And then the next timeconsuming thing is editing
scripts, and there is no AIthat's going to do the job of a
script editor yet, becausestorytelling is an art and
(09:39):
humans are still doing it.
Thank God for that, and withLethal Dissent, which was our
last season that I did, we had afantastic editor, ibi Caputo.
She took hours looking overevery word and sentence to make
it as audio friendly as possible.
Other than that, the technologythat we use, we uploaded on
(10:00):
Spotify.
That's where we are.
Our host is Spotify and then itaggregates, it goes into other
feeds and stuff.
So, yeah, I'm not in charge ofthe technical side.
I just do the storytelling andthe editing and the hosting.
Claire Waite Brown (10:14):
Yeah, yeah, understand.
You've mentioned the funding,which itself must be a big job
to go out and source thatfunding.
Does the show have any otherfinancial?
Fariba Nawa (10:25):
support.
I write a monthly newsletterand in it I'm always asking for
donors and supporters the seedfunding that we got from
Kickstarter for one month.
Our goal was to make 20,000 andwe made 22.
So I always go back to thosefolks and the funny thing is
some of them aren't evenlisteners to the show.
(10:45):
It's not their kind of show,but they want to support
independent journalism sothey'll give Others listen.
There are a lot of people wholisten, who don't have the money
.
That's okay too.
They help with skills sharing.
Example.
I put it on my Facebook hey, weneed a voiceover, Someone who
speaks English with a Spanishspeaking accent, and you'd be
(11:05):
surprised how many people wantto be on a podcast with their
voice.
But yes, funding donors,Patreon subscribers we have a
Patreon subscription.
We're just updating our website.
I have a meeting after thiswith our website designers, and
one of the things we've addedare sort of creative perks for
Patreon subscribers.
For example, if you pay Xamount of dollars, our team will
(11:25):
share their personal familyrecipes with you food recipes.
We thought we'd do stuff that'sa bit outside the box for that,
instead of giving earlyepisodes or that we don't do
early episodes, we work to thelast minute to make it happen.
So funding is definitely anissue like everyone else, and
for now I am fundraising for thesixth season and your listeners
(11:47):
can go to unspeccom.
There's a donate banner.
You can make a one-timedonation or you can become a
Patreon subscriber for as littleas $3 to whatever amount you
want.
Claire Waite Brown (11:58):
Brilliant.
We've talked a little bit aboutthis when we met up in London,
but what frustrates you and whatexcites you about podcasting?
Fariba Nawa (12:07):
So I listen to those because I want to be
engaged and I forget that I justwalked an hour and a half.
So the immersion beingtransported with sound to a
world that allows my imaginationto go where it wants, and I
(12:30):
don't have to use my eyes for it, because I'm legally blind.
I'm albino, so I try not to usemy eyes as much as possible.
So audio for me has become amuch bigger part of my life than
it was, and this is one reasonI turned to podcasting and I
stopped writing as much, becauseI don't have to read as much,
right, and I use audio books.
But what frustrates me aboutpodcasting one?
(12:53):
The kind of podcasting we do isso expensive, and I wish it
wasn't, but it is, and I wishpeople would understand the
amount of work that we put infor the little money that we get
, because people want freecontent often, and I'm hearing
that narrative podcasting isdying.
I think it's about finding yourniche.
(13:13):
I don't think it's dyingbecause narrative podcasting is
storytelling.
How could storytelling die?
It doesn't make sense to me.
Everyone I speak to loves agood story and when we did
surveys, people were like.
The other thing was like shouldwe become more geographically
limited.
Should we just go to the MiddleEast and stick?
They said no, we love that.
You go to around the globe.
(13:34):
You're nodding your head, right?
So yeah, because what mattersto us is a fast, paced, engaging
story with a, you know, with anarrative arc.
So that's what we're going tostick to.
But we're also journalists.
We're not doing just randomstories, right.
We're holding peopleaccountable.
We're speaking truth to power,if I may use that adage.
Other than that, I think youand I have this in common.
(13:55):
What frustrates me is that youhave a lot of people who have
huge followings like celebritiesdoing podcasts.
Why?
Why do celebrities need to dopodcasts?
I feel like podcast was theunderdogs thing.
You know, the people who didn'thave a voice would start a
podcast and gain a voice, andnow it's everybody under the sun
(14:16):
who is famous is on the podcastbandwagon and I just tune it
out.
It's like I already know whatyou think and who you are.
Let's give others a chance.
Claire Waite Brown (14:27):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I want to hear reallife stories and real life
people, exactly, exactly, yeah.
So now True Fans this iscreators from True Fans, and the
True Fans app is a podcasting2.0 app.
What do you know, if anything,about podcasting 2.0?
Tell me.
What we want to communicate isthat there are and I'm going to
(14:53):
talk to you about some of thethings that might be good for on
spec, particularly stuff thatsurrounds the audio, if you want
some extra, and it can helpyour show to be discovered.
For example, if you have yourtranscript in the show, people
can search in a podcast app forwords particular to any
(15:15):
transcript, which I think couldbe really useful for this show.
So there are ways that thePodcasting 2.0 features can help
with discovery, maybe withinteractivity, so that your fans
can communicate with you, andthere are monetization aspects
as well.
For example, with every showthat I research for creators,
(15:36):
when I'm listening, I stream avery small amount of money per
minute to that show in TrueFans.
So now for you, when you go toTrueFans and you claim your show
, which is just a matter ofclicking on a button and making
sure you have your email addressin your RSS feed and then
TrueFans can verify that that'syour show.
(15:59):
When you do that, you will bepresented with a wallet and it
will have a very small amount ofmoney in it, probably about 20p
, but anybody can do that.
Anybody can listen to your showon TrueFans and other apps do
it as well, and pay per minuteof listening.
Another thing is they can leavecomments and they can attach a
(16:20):
payment to the comment.
The other thing I wondered withyour show that might be useful
is called recommendations OnTrue Fans.
It's called recommendations Onother places.
It's called pod roll.
Now Spotify allows you torecommend two shows attached to
your show In True Fans itself.
You can attach any number ofshows to your show as a
(16:43):
recommendation.
Fariba Nawa (16:45):
Do we have to change our hosting to True Fans?
Claire Waite Brown (16:48):
No, no, no, that's coming soon.
But you do not have to do thatbecause you can claim your show
with the True Fans.
Then there's a creator'sdashboard that allows you to do
these extra things.
Now I host Creativity Foundwith Buzzsprout and I can do all
of that in Buzzsprout withoutneeding to do it in True Fans.
It goes to True Fans andFountain and other apps that
(17:10):
have those recommendations.
But if you're with a host thatdoesn't allow you to do that,
you can do it with True Fans.
It'll only show up in True Fans, and what I would suggest for
that would be you could go tothat other show and say by the
way, I'm recommending your showbecause we are similar.
Maybe you'd like to recommendmy show on your recommendations.
Fariba Nawa (17:32):
I do think podcast collaborations are one of the
best ways to get an audience.
Claire Waite Brown (17:36):
Yeah, yeah, to finish off, then, how can
people connect with you and onspec, we've got instagram,
instagram, twitter.
Fariba Nawa (17:47):
We're less active on twitter now.
You can understand why, um, butyeah, instagram it's at on spec
podcast, on twitter it's uh, onspec stories, and we've got a
facebook too.
You can also email us at onspec podcast at gmailcom.
You mentioned mailing list aswell.
Exactly, thank you.
We have a monthly newsletterthat you can subscribe to and I
(18:11):
talk about what's new with OnSpec.
I talk about my musings aboutwhat we're doing in the news and
our co-founders and ourcontributors, and then we give a
monthly shout out to oursupporters, because we are very
much into audience engagement.
I love audience engagement.
Claire Waite Brown (18:26):
Brilliant People can sign up to that
newsletter by visitingonspecpodcastcom.
Thank you so much for speakingwith me today, Fariba.
Fariba Nawa (18:36):
Thank you C laire, it's been a pleasure.
Sam Sethi (18:39):
You can hear more from that interview at the end
of this episode of Creators,where Fariba describes how she
and the team behind each seasonand story managed to make such
high quality, well-producedepisodes and how their work is
funded.
Claire Waite Brown (18:53):
That's absolutely right Now.
After our chat, Sam, I didthink about payment splits, did
think about payment splits thatit might be something useful to
them because they work as a teamand I wondered if, with payment
splits, that can be managed onan episode level.
(19:14):
So if one episode has certainteam members, can you manage
payment splits episode byepisode?
And perhaps, sam, this is alsoa good time for you to let the
listeners know what I mean bypayment splits episode by
episode?
And perhaps, sam, this is alsoa good time for you to let the
listeners know what I mean bypayment splits.
Sam Sethi (19:27):
Sure.
So one of the lovely thingsabout podcasting in TrueFans is
that we allow creators to set upin their admin dashboard the
host or maybe a co-host, maybe aproducer, maybe an editor.
So at the podcast level youcould say these people are going
to be receiving monies from anyfan.
(19:49):
So if I wanted to pay, let'ssay on spec, and I give them a
pound or a hundred sats, thenhow does that money get divvied
up?
So what you do in yourcreator's dashboard is you put
the name of the host or thecreators, maybe the producer or
editor and you put 25%, 50%.
(20:10):
It has to, of course, go to100%.
But what happens is then whensomebody pays I don't know,
maybe a super comment or maybethey're streaming stats to them
we automatically send that moneybased on the splits that you've
set up to those people.
Now, that's at the podcast level.
At the episode level, you canalso do that.
(20:33):
So in the same way, you go intothe episode level in your
creator's dashboard, you thenput in the name, put in the
amount.
So what we do is we then goright, four people at the
podcast level were 100%, but nowyou've added the guest and you
may say give them 10%, and youmight have added a new staff
member or podcast editor andthey've got another 10%.
(20:55):
We adjust the top podcastchannel level so that now
becomes an 80% split and then20% goes to the other people.
So we automatically do this.
So all you need to do as acreator is go in and set up the
amount based on the percentageyou want to give each person,
(21:15):
and we will do the rest for youand magically put it into each
person's wallet.
Claire Waite Brown (21:19):
Perfect, brilliant.
Four shows that have those teammembers that maybe vary from
episode to episode.
Oh, that's good.
I learned something new againtoday.
Sam Sethi (21:31):
It's also really good for music artists.
We were talking to AinsleyCostello about a year ago and
you know, can you imagine you'rethe singer, but you're also
maybe the songwriter?
You might have a studioproducer, you might have a
session guitarist or a sessiondrummer who's not part of the
band all the time, but you justhave them on that one track.
(21:52):
So in the same way, you canhave the main singer, songwriter
, and then maybe on a singletrack you might have a guest
guitarist, and so yes, it worksin the same way.
Claire Waite Brown (22:04):
Yeah, that's really useful.
If you'd like to chat with usabout your independent podcast
or your music, send a comment orsuper comment in True Fans to
any Creators episode by clickingon the speech bubble icon or on
the comments tab.
Sam Sethi (22:21):
So we've been collecting the questions that
listeners have sent us in.
Claire, what question are yougoing to ask me this week?
Claire Waite Brown (22:28):
Well, it's one I keep getting asked, so I'm
handing it over to you, Sam,and that is when will the True
Fans native app be ready?
Sam Sethi (22:41):
Oh, if I had a pound for every time that was asked,
yes, I'd be a rich man.
The good news is we've nowsubmitted the apps to both Apple
and Google in the app storesfor review, so we have done all
the work that's needed to getversion 1.0 into the app stores.
1.0 into the app stores.
I hope fingers crossed, it'llbe this week we will have those
(23:07):
available, but of course I can'tdetermine what the reviewers
and how long they will take, butit generally is somewhere
between 48 hours and one week.
That's great, exciting news andI think the big difference is
that people when they go oh,you're a PWA progressive web app
, web-based podcast app.
Oh, I don't know, I was lookingfor you in the app stores and
(23:28):
you weren't there.
Realistically, the biggestthing they'll notice is we will
be in the app stores.
They will be able to clickinstall as they would for any
normal iOS or Android app.
But also on the web page thingswill change.
Now you get a nice littlebanner at the top given to you
which automatically says clickhere and it installs the iOS or
(23:51):
Android app for youautomatically.
Claire Waite Brown (23:52):
Brilliant, so you're going to get that
prompt.
Other than, we can go to theapp stores to get this app, and
that's what people are used todoing with podcast apps, so that
will be easier for me when I'mtelling people to listen on true
fans.
Are there going to be any otherbenefits to listeners
podcasters from the app being anapp app now?
Sam Sethi (24:16):
yes, um, unfortunately, both apple and
google hamstring web-based apps.
They make them slower, theyjust don't give them the same
sort of processing power.
So when you go and becomewhat's called a native app,
which is basically using the appstore and then being approved
by either Google or Apple, theygive you the audio player access
(24:38):
, they give you the offlinecapabilities, they give you all
the things that you want andthey make it really quick and
simple.
So, yes, we will see somebenefits there for true fans
being a native app.
Claire Waite Brown (24:50):
I can't wait to have a play.
Sam Sethi (24:52):
Now I will temper it and say this is a 1.0 and I
would love feedback because,again, you know, when you build
an app for the web and then youchange it and build the app for
the native phone, it does lookand feel exactly the same.
I've been playing with it forabout three or four days myself,
so so far I haven't noticed anydifferences in the UI, but
(25:15):
there may be features andfunctions that I haven't thought
about, that are native to manyother apps People might want to
give us feedback on or request anew feature for, so please do.
We are all ears for them.
So, claire, time for the fanbox.
Have you heard from anylisteners since the last episode
?
Claire Waite Brown (25:34):
We certainly have, sam.
First of all, we had a lovelycomment from last week's guest
podcaster, joanna PR Neves, whoI met in real life yesterday.
She said thanks so much forhaving me.
It was a true pleasure and Ihave to agree, it was a pleasure
(25:55):
.
Now, the next comment you'll seeattached to this episode on
True Fans is from Fanzone.
Claire, which is me and I wrote.
This is the account that I,claire Waite-Brown, use when
taking screenshots for Fanzoneepisodes.
Just popping on to show howeasy it is to leave a comment.
(26:17):
If you need some extra guidance, head to episode 10 of Fanzone.
So if you've not listened tothis show before, fan Zone is
our sister podcast and it's aseries of short and sweet
episodes that tell you what youcan do with true fans and how to
do it.
And then we've had anotherlovely comment from Jim James,
(26:39):
who says great to hear the truestories of indie podcasters
being talked about so openly.
Thanks, guys.
Well, thank you, jim.
You know we love to connectwith our independent podcasters
and to show other people what'sout there.
If you would like to leave us acomment, it's very easy to do.
(27:00):
When you're listening to thisepisode, you can click on the
tab that says comments, or clickon the speech bubble and write
your comment and, if you wish to, you can turn it into a super
comment by attaching a smallpayment.
Thank you, sam.
Have you spotted anything thisweek that independent creators
and their fans might also wantto know about?
Sam Sethi (27:23):
Well, one idea that's floating around this week and I
thought it was worth talking toyou about and see whether you
thought it was a good idea.
Russell Harraway from Pod2 saidwouldn't it be good if we had a
Shazam for podcasting?
Now, first of all, I've got toask you do you know what Shazam
is?
Claire Waite Brown (27:40):
I do know what Shazam is.
It was one of the earliestthings you could do with your
smartphone.
Sam Sethi (27:51):
Yeah, you could put your phone up, listen to any
track that was playing in thebackground and it would
magically find that track foryou and play it back on your
phone Because it was so good.
Apple bought the company andnow it's part of the macOS.
So when Nostle said, wouldn'tit be good to have a Shazam for
podcasting, I was like, well,what would that do?
I mean, there's no pointtelling me what the podcast is,
(28:11):
because I've got it on my phone.
I'm listening to the podcast,I've got a cover art.
I don't need a Shazam to tellme what I'm looking at.
So we had a little brainstormand the idea might be that
actually I might be listening toI don't know another podcast.
I know it's Claire Waite-Brown,or maybe.
I don't know the guest, maybe Idon't know the co-host, and so
what it could do is then listento the people's voices and then
(28:37):
tell me in the app oh yes,claire Waite-Brown is the host
of the one I'm listening to, butyou know she's got creativity
fan and she does fan zone.
She does these other ones aswell, by the way, or it could be
.
By the way, do you knowclaire's been on this podcast as
a guest, or that podcast as aguest.
All right, I like claire.
I'm going to go and find thatpodcast.
(28:58):
Here's the link to it bang.
And so you could turn theShazam for podcast into a
playlist of all of the otherpodcasts that the current host
that you're listening to isactually either a host of
another podcast or a guest onanother podcast.
Claire Waite Brown (29:15):
Right, so do you envisage that this would
pop up?
So if I start listening tocreators from True Fans,
something would pop up on thescreen to say featured in this
episode are Sam Sethi, ClaireWaite-Brown and Fariba Noir, who
you can also find in theseplaces.
Okay, Well, it can't do anyharm, can it?
(29:36):
It's another form of discovery.
I am thinking reminded of theperson tag and the pod role
feature, which can do a similarthing, but I don't know.
Sam Sethi (29:49):
Yeah, it was really.
We're an audio medium and arewe using the audio itself?
Because, if you think of theperson tag, that is being added
by the creator themselves, thepodcaster.
The pod role is being added bythe creator, so it's a physical
entity.
But actually can we use theaudio A bit like the transcript?
(30:10):
Now we could use the transcript, for example, to do a search.
We can now find other speakerscalled Claire Wade Brown and
other speakers called Sam bygoing through every other
transcript.
That's one way of doing it andthat's quite difficult as well.
It's just an idea, as I said,whether people think it's a good
one or bad one.
We'd love comments if you thinkit's good or comments if you
(30:31):
think it's bad.
No one's building it right now,but it was just such an
interesting idea.
Does the audio fingerprint ofsomeone's voice become unique
enough so that they could bediscovered for other podcasts
and then connected together tosort of create a social graph of
your podcasting history?
Claire Waite Brown (30:52):
Okay, yeah, I'll have a think.
Do hit that comment tab or thatspeech bubble and interact with
us.
Let us know what you think.
Sam Sethi (31:02):
Speech bubble and interact with us.
Let us know what you think.
Now, one of the other ideasthat's floating around people
have been talking about the movemore towards putting podcasts
behind paywalls.
Podcasting, I've said, has beenthe second-class citizen of
digital content.
Back in the day, Clay, youmight have had Napster and you
downloaded free music as bestyou you could.
(31:23):
It was a poor experience reallyif we, if we cast our minds
back and then steve jobs camealong and said well, it's 99
cents, everyone okay for that.
I can't be bothered to wait sixhours for that download of that
one single.
So now people were paying formusic.
And then we got people to payfor films and now we happily
have Netflix or Prime or AppleTV.
(31:45):
But podcasting is still seen asa free medium, ad supported in
some cases, but a free mediumfor access.
But more and more the trend isnow to put that content, if it's
quality and you believe thatyour fans will pay for it,
behind the paywall of some sort.
So Patreon or buy me a coffeeor in True Fans, you can have a
(32:08):
support option.
So more and more people aresaying yeah, you know what I
think.
What I do each week is prettygood and each week it takes me
some time.
It could be one hour, threehours.
We, you know, we've all had togo through the recording,
editing, promoting stages andactually, yeah, if you like what
I'm putting out, maybe you wantto give me a few sats, or maybe
(32:29):
you want to give me a monthlyrecurring subscription, and what
that also means is thatlisteners, fans, don't want ads.
They go okay.
Well, if I'm paying for this, Iwant an ad-free version.
This has brought up a reallyinteresting problem for the
advertising industry, becausepeople who can afford to pay for
(32:50):
ad-free TV films do it.
I pay for my subscription toNetflix or Prime or Apple TV and
I don't get ads.
People can afford to pay for noads.
They will.
So are advertisers targetingpeople who can't afford it, and
are they the people thatadvertisers want to reach?
It's a dilemma, hey, Claire.
Claire Waite Brown (33:11):
It is.
Yeah, it's a very interestingone From the creator's point of
view.
I wonder how putting your workbehind a paywall would affect
discovery, because you'rerelying on the people who
already know you to pay.
(33:31):
I certainly know a lot ofindependent podcasters who want
their work to be availableopenly.
I was speaking with Joannarecently and she said I want my
art teachings to be open foreveryone, so that is a kind of
ethical element to it that Iwonder about.
Sam Sethi (33:54):
Yeah, and I tend to agree with her.
Look, there is a technologythat's been produced partly by
me and partly by Russell andpartly by Oscar.
It's called Secure RSS and I'mnot going to get into the
technicalities here.
It's called Secure RSS and I'mnot going to get into the
technicalities here, but what itallows you as a creator to do
is to say, okay, these episodesare going to be free In the same
(34:15):
feed.
I can then say these two orthree episodes are chargeable
and this is how much I want.
And equally, you could actuallygo down to the chapter level
soon and be able to say,actually, all this episode is
free, bar this one chapter ortwo chapters, right?
So what it means to you as acreator is you can choose what's
(34:36):
open, freemium, you know, notpaid for and what is paid for in
the same feed, in the same app.
So you're not sending your fansto another app to go and
subscribe.
You're not having to uploadyour premium content to another
app.
So now you can keep your onefeed with both freemium and
(35:00):
premium and keep your fans inthe same app that they want to
use and it can be freelydistributed and the apps will
determine what you've asked for.
I want these all to be free, butthat last episode is going to
be chargeable yeah, that makesthe most sense to me and I think
when that comes about and itwill do in the latter half of
(35:21):
this year I think you'll startto see people going.
Why am I putting it over onPatreon or Memberful?
Why am I splitting my fan baseand why am I doubling up my work
?
So, as a creator, I think, justkeep an eye out.
Have a think about why youcould actually get your fans now
to pay you directly.
(35:42):
I think creating fandoms iscritical and monetizing those
without advertising.
Claire Waite Brown (35:49):
And that's what we would like people to do,
and we would like our listenersto financially support our
shows.
Even in very little ways, itmakes all the difference to us
as creators.
Sam Sethi (36:01):
I think if you've got 50, 100, 200 people who listen
to your show regularly and theyall gave you 50p, that would be
amazing.
I would be happy.
No, I think it's beholden toapps like TrueFans and others to
make payment easy so that usersthen go oh, that's easy to give
Claire 50p or a thousand sats.
(36:22):
So I think that's where we aretrying to get to as an industry.
Where you go, I'd love to giveyou a heart, a thumb, a like,
but I'm going to give it with alittle bit of micro payment and,
in the aggregate, if you've gota fan base, that will actually
pay you more than theadvertising CPM rates that you
might get, because you have toget thousands of fans.
(36:44):
So you might only be having 100or 50 fans, but you could still
make more money than theadvertising if you had 10x the
number of people listening.
Claire Waite Brown (36:54):
Yeah, I love the practical element of,
obviously, what you're doingwith True Fans, what Oscar at
Fountain and generally the 2.0features.
That's perfect if we can makeit easy for people to do it.
The next step is the mindset ofthe people, so that they do
actually do it.
Sam Sethi (37:13):
Yeah, I think sites like Patreon and Memphil and Buy
Me A Coffee have helped peopleunderstand.
I'd even add in you knowSubstack.
I'd even add in you know othersubscription-based models.
So people are beginning to say,yeah, actually, yeah, actually,
yeah, paying for this contentseems fair, but now let's make
(37:34):
it easier to pay and make itsimpler for creators as well.
Yeah, so that's where we'regoing now, talking about things
that creators should be doingand trends.
Pocket, pocket Casts againanother big podcasting 2.0 app.
They added support for podroles, claire, you'll be very
happy to say.
Claire Waite Brown (37:52):
Yes, my favorite.
Sam Sethi (37:55):
True Fan supports pod roles, buzzsprout supports pod
roles as a host, but pod rolesare simply a way of you, as a
creator, putting a list of otherpodcasts that you recommend, so
it's lovely that you don't havealgorithmic recommendation
engines.
This is bottom-uprecommendations from creators to
(38:16):
other creators, and I thinkit's lovely that that now is
supported in Pocket Cast as well.
Claire Waite Brown (38:20):
Yes, it is.
I was very happy to read that.
As you know, I mentionedPodroll to Fariba because I
think that could be a good thingfor her show, and the Pocket
Cast thing is that they do takeyour Podroll if you've put them
in, but if you haven't put themin, they do make recommendations
of their own, don't they?
Sam Sethi (38:41):
They do, and that's an algorithmic recommendation.
So I think you've got myrecommendations as a creator and
then the app recommendations asan algorithm.
Claire Waite Brown (38:51):
Yeah, it's made clear on the app whose the
recommendations are yeah, no,it's super.
You know me.
I love podcasters recommendingother podcasts and, as you say,
getting away from thealgorithmic recommendations and
getting real recommendationsthat you can trust.
Sam Sethi (39:08):
And one other big story that's happening in the
podcasting world is that Spotifyhave opened the closed door.
They've adopted a podcasting2.0 tag, one of the open tags.
They've supported transcriptsClaire.
Claire Waite Brown (39:23):
It's fabulous.
Yeah, I have been talking withthe people that I interview for
this show, and transcripts iskind of like the first one.
If people don't know about 2.0features, it's one that they
have heard of, but how does itwork with Spotify?
Are we talking about the 2.0feature or are they doing it
(39:43):
like Apple do and making itthemselves?
Sam Sethi (39:45):
What's happened is that if you've got a host that
supports transcripts, likeBuzzsprout or Blueberry or
Transistor, you can then getyour transcript put into your
host.
That gets put into your feed,your RSS feed, and then native
apps like TrueFans or PocketCast or Fountain will read that
transcript and display italongside the episode show notes
(40:08):
, and that's great and it'sgreat for SEO, it's great for
searching, it's great for manyother things If you're somebody
who is slightly hard of hearing,again, it's great for following
along.
But finally, finally, finally,spotify are going to read your
RSS feed and look for thepodcasting 2.0 tag for
(40:30):
transcriptions and if it findsit, it will put that in as the
default transcription.
So, like Apple, you will beable to get a transcription
directly from Spotify if youdon't have your own
transcription, but if they findone that you've put in yourself,
it'll override the one that'snative to the platform, and
(40:53):
that's exactly what happens withApple as well.
Claire Waite Brown (40:55):
Well, it does, sam, but only if you've
done the toggle that says I wantyou to take the 2.0 transcript?
Sam Sethi (41:03):
Yes, and I can't tell you 100% what it looks like in
Spotify, because I haven't goneinto it and I'm assuming it may
be exactly the same, doingexactly the same thing.
But the good news at the macrolevel is that Spotify have added
the podcasting 2.0 namespaceand added the first tag.
(41:26):
Fingers crossed, they will addmore tags.
That's what we want.
We want Apple to add more tags.
We want other apps to add moretags.
It just means that everyone isthen on a uniform platform, and
those tags for creators aregreat, because if you've taken
the time to add the person tagto your host but it doesn't
(41:47):
appear in Spotify or it doesn'tappear in Apple, your listeners
go, oh, it's not there.
Or creators will go back toBuzzsprout and go, oh, I did all
the work but it doesn't appear.
Right, yes, it will appear inTrueFound.
Yes, it will appear in other2.0 apps.
But again, I think once itstarts to appear in other ones
the low hanging fruit we callperson tags, chapters,
(42:08):
transcripts, pod roles I thinkall creators should be doing
those now.
I don't think there's anyexcuse for not doing them.
Claire Waite Brown (42:16):
Yeah, future-proofing, it's my advice
to do, and especially if yourhost allows you to do it, as
Buzzsprout does do all of them.
As you know, I was spoiled.
I thought all the hostingcompanies did all of them
because Buzzsprout does, butit's super easy to do.
But it also gives you control.
So, for example, with yourtranscript, you can correct your
(42:36):
transcript, you can make sureeverybody's names are spelled
correctly, you can make sure awork of art is named correctly
and you have complete control,which is what we want.
We want control of our content,whether it's audio or the
accompanying transcript or theaccompanying chapters.
But it is absolutely veryexciting news, sam.
Sam Sethi (42:56):
And then Claire, where have you been this week?
You've been out and about.
Claire Waite Brown (43:01):
I have.
I've been schmoozing withpodcasts, you people.
I went to the InternationalWomen's Podcast Awards.
So last week on this show, Imentioned some of the
independent podcasts that wereshortlisted for the IWPAs and
celebrated them, because it'snot an easy task to get that far
(43:21):
, and last week I went to theceremony, which was super.
So I got to meet people that Ialready know, but also some
people that I mentioned on theshow last week.
These people are Elizabeth fromthe Adult Ballet Studio and she
had come over from the States.
It was lovely to meet Elizabeth.
I met Anna, who is my friend,who does the story of Woman, and
(43:45):
I met Charlotte from the CancerCaregiver and Siobhan from
Retirement Rebel.
I also met Nikki Elliott from ashow called Women's Business.
I met her in the queue for theloo.
It's where women meet eachother.
Nikki Elliott I didn't mentionher show last week.
It's called Women's Businessand she was also shortlisted and
(44:07):
I want to say really, reallywell done to the shows that did
make it, to the runner up andthe winning position.
So Retirement Rebel and MadeFor Us were runners up in their
category, which is amazing, andBlue Mondays and Tales From the
Singing Porch and Two Liveslives.
(44:29):
They won in their categories aswell, so that was really super
to see.
Sam Sethi (44:33):
I'm going to post, I'm going to put some photos in
the chapters of the people thatI met I think one of the things
that you and I've beendiscussing as well, claire, is
how can we help promote theseshows and these hosts?
So one of the things that we'regoing to be doing on True Fans
is taking away, I suppose, thebig names from the top page you
(44:56):
know, the Joe Rogans or theMichelle Obamas and featuring
some of these shows.
I think we want to championwhich is why we do this show,
claire, and again, I think, asthe CEO of True Fans and you
nudging me nicely, I think wewill promote the shows we
mention each week.
So if you're listening to thisshow and you go, oh, what was
(45:17):
that one?
Again, well, I'm sure it'll bein our show notes, but if you
can't find it in the show notes,you can go to the homepage and
it'll be there in the top header.
Also, we're going to bebuilding in a carousel of
independent podcast creators aswell, so bear with us while we
build that, but we are intendingand will do very shortly to
(45:41):
start to promote all the peoplewe mentioned in this show.
Claire Waite Brown (45:43):
Yeah, it's going to be lovely to be able to
go to a podcast app and seeyour show on the front page.
Brilliant, love it.
It was my idea, of course.
I love it, yes.
Sam Sethi (45:56):
And that's it for this week.
Claire, our audio is recordedand edited using Riverside and
we're hosted by our friends atBuzzsprout, we sure?
Claire Waite Brown (46:04):
are, Remember.
You can support this show bystreaming micropayments from
your True Fans wallet, or youcan leave us a super comment, or
you can become a monthlysupporter.
Sam Sethi (46:18):
If you'd like to advertise or sponsor this show,
please email sam at truefansfmfor further details.
Claire Waite Brown (46:25):
And don't forget, you can find out more
about the fun features that arepart of True Fans by listening
to our sister podcast Fanz one.
And if you're keen to learnmore about Podcasting 2.0 in
general, do check out mycourse-based podcast called
Podcasting 2.0 in Practice.
Sam Sethi (46:44):
And you never know, by next week, Claire, there
might be a native iOS andAndroid app.
Claire Waite Brown (46:49):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, Crossing my fingers.
Sam Sethi (46:53):
Not as much as me.
Claire Waite Brown (46:57):
Don't forget , you can keep listening to hear
more from this episode'sfeatured creator.
Fariba Nawa (47:05):
I'm curious which episodes did you listen to?
Claire Waite Brown (47:07):
While I was on holiday, I listened to the
first few Lethal Dissent, so Igot up to the Poet.
Fariba Nawa (47:15):
You did okay.
Claire Waite Brown (47:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Funny enough, I was listeningto those in the bathroom when I
was getting ready every morningon holiday in this happy place.
I'm sorry.
Fariba Nawa (47:32):
Check yourself.
Claire Waite Brown (47:32):
Check your emotional bandwidth.
Yeah, exactly.
And then I've recently listenedto the one about the tribes and
in Africa and the Q&A episodeafter the main episode as well.
Fariba Nawa (47:46):
That was our most popular episode and we were
really perplexed by that.
Yeah, um, I think it again.
It's it's a solution, like itwas a happy one, right, that one
is a happy one and I think thatit's called tribe and prejudice
is from zombia.
Yeah, people really connectedwith that and we kind of never
know what.
What's going to be popular,what's not.
(48:07):
It's hard to predict.
Claire Waite Brown (48:09):
That's really interesting.
So it's not necessarily amatter of everybody listens to
every episode.
Is what you're saying, then wehave different audience members
coming in.
Fariba Nawa (48:19):
I mean, at one point the analytics were telling
us I don't know how accuratethey are from Spotify that Saudi
Arabia was one of our biggestlisteners, because you have a
lot of English speakers therewho don't want to listen to
legacy media but do wantdocumentaries.
Claire Waite Brown (48:34):
The episodes I've listened to are not only
very interesting and, as you'vealready explained, stories that
I may not ordinarily come across, which is brilliant but also
very beautifully produced, withyour interviews with the.
You know soundscaping and stufflike that.
So, quality wise, it'sbrilliant.
(48:54):
So I'm still grappling withthen, when you're training the
journalists, do they thendeliver the whole product, the
whole episode?
Fariba Nawa (49:06):
You're shaking your head.
No, no.
So, like I said, it takes a bigteam and podcasting, as you
know, has so many layers,especially this kind of
production.
Yes, I hear that a lot frompeople who are like, wow, we
didn't know it was such high.
It's like BBC and NPR qualityproduction.
How do you guys do this?
Well, we work with professionals.
We produce a team for eachseason.
(49:27):
We create a team that will workon that season based on the
funding that we have, and wedon't do things hourly, not
generally.
We did with Lethal Dissent andI made no money, that was a
mistake.
But generally it'sproject-based.
You're going to work on thisproject for this long until it's
finished.
You get half of the money now,half until it's finished.
(49:53):
And then we, you know, we workacross the globe, which gets,
which sometimes is verychallenging remotely.
So we had somebody in the DRCDemocratic Republic of Congo who
disappeared on us in the middleof his story.
So he had done the reporting, Ifact checked it, and then we
had to find someone else tovoice it and pay them separately
.
So, because we're remote, we dohave a lot of challenges, but
we've learned to troubleshootahead of time and, yeah, I'm
(50:18):
proud of the episodes we've doneand the training.
But when these reporters come tome and they've never done
long-form audio they getfrustrated by the amount of
edits and time that it takes,because they're used to like
three minute radio stories thatthey've done.
Nobody comes to me with noexperience.
We don't take people with noexperience.
You have to have someexperience in audio or a massive
(50:40):
experience in print for me towork with you, because I'm not
going to teach one-on-onejournalism.
We're a bit too advanced forthat.
But by the time they get to theend of the story and they hear
the complete production, thedifferent layers, which involves
music, voiceovers, you know wehave artwork.
We have our own graphicdesigner who does for each
episode, creates artwork andthen social media videos.
(51:02):
They are so proud, like eachreporter.
That is the like when theylisten to their final story and
I see the pride they have, thenit makes it all worth it,
because there's a lot of hoursthat go into this for very
little money or no money.
Right, it's a passion in manyways for a lot of these
reporters and then for those ofus who are training them.
Yeah, first we apply forfunding.
(51:25):
We've been able to get a lot ofsmall grants from big media,
let's put it that way NationalGeographic, european Journalism
Center, google, prx and thensmaller outlets the Pulitzer
Center gave us one, so and thendonors coming in, so we have
what they call a diversity ofrevenues in order to do the
(51:46):
stories that we do Claire.
Our stories are not do Claire.
Our stories are not cheap,right, so, because it's
investigative reporting andstorytelling,
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