Flying Audio Fiction to the Moon
About six months ago, I met Victor Lee, one of the three founders of Apollo Podcasts, at a meetup in Los Angeles, and we hit it off. Over the next month or so, I met the other two founders, and became an official fanboy.
Everyone who is actively interested in audio fiction can sense that there are some fundamental economical obstacles the medium will have to overcome in order to reach its full potential. Voltage’s first blog post was an effort to frame some of these issues in a way brands and executives might find useful.
Today, I want to give the guys at Apollo the chance to pitch the unique solution they’ve been working hard to build for creators.
But first, let me be transparent: there is no guarantee that what these guys are doing will work. In fact, the odds are pretty well stacked against them. But I still think they’re worth paying close attention to. Regardless of whether Apollo itself can pull off the moonshot, the founders have the right perspective, the right attitude, and the right amount of passion for this work.
As though to put an even finer point on it, AJ Churchill agreed to do this interview three days before his wedding.
So here it is.
Interview with AJ Churchill
Who is Apollo? Give me a quick and personal introduction.
Apollo is a fiction podcast app co-founded by Nick Prufer, Victor Lee, and myself, three Brazilians who ended up in LA working in entertainment. Nick’s background is in animation, Victor’s in business and entrepreneurship, and mine in music/audio production.
What attracted you guys to this corner of the audio ecosystem? In other words, why audio fiction? What is the origin story of Apollo?
We were attracted to audio fiction because we felt it was a challenge we could tackle with our combined skill set. Nick had always been thinking up stories and creating characters. Victor is a born producer, and I had been working on sound in film and TV for years.
So, late in 2019, we produced an 8 episode season of an audio fiction series called Earth Eclipsed. It went on to win over 35 awards, including an Ambies nomination for Podcast of the Year and an entry in Tribeca’s inaugural audio storytelling section.
In the process of producing and then publishing that show, we met dozens of other great fiction podcast creators, who were all facing the same issues we were with distribution and monetization.
The existing apps focus so much on nonfiction or interview shows that fiction just disappears. There are 4.5 million podcasts (with hundreds of millions of episodes) and only 10K fiction shows. They’re a drop in the ocean. They get lost. Even if you know the exact show you’re looking for, it can be hard to find.
For instance, I tried searching for a fiction show called “Anomaly” on Spotify — which is an award winning audio drama — and there are pages and pages of results with songs, albums, artists, and other podcasts and their episodes all mixed up… The show I was looking for? Page 10.
And if you do manage to find the show you want, there’s a good chance its episodes are listed in reverse order, which works great for nonfiction podcasts with a regular release schedule, but not so much with serialized shows.
Not to mention that funding the creation of audio series remains one of the most challenging aspects of making an audio series and that none of the legacy podcast apps offer any form of monetization apart from just the regular ad model.
We wouldn’t have been exposed to any of these issues without producing Earth Eclipsed, meeting tons of other creators, and seeing them first-hand.
Out of all these issues, what do you think is the single biggest challenge facing the creators of audio fiction, and what are you doing to solve for that?
The single biggest challenge facing audio fiction creators right now is that most people still aren’t totally aware that audio fiction even exists. It is still an extremely niche audience. People know what an audiobook is, and they generally know what a podcast is, but they tend to think of them as interviews or documentary shows. There isn’t really a broad awareness of fiction podcasts: serialized, scripted, with voice actors, sound effects, music…
Back just a couple of years ago, when we showed people the pilot for Earth Eclipsed, they asked if we had ‘invented’ this style of podcast. But of course there’s already this rich tradition of audio drama, even before podcasting was invented.
So we really need to get more people to know that fiction podcasts are an available option for entertainment.
This lack of awareness is what keeps the audiences small, which is also why ad-based revenue models don’t work for fiction. Audio dramas often have committed fan bases that are small. So, while we need to increase the general audience awareness of audio fiction, we also need better revenue models for people who are creating audio fiction now.
So what is Apollo doing about this stuff?
Apollo’s main selling point to users right now is discovery. People who come to our app can find excellent shows they have never heard of, because these shows just don’t get surfaced on Spotify or Apple. Apollo eases the pathway to find a fiction show for the aficionado and novice alike. We have granular genre categories (like fantasy, slice of life, sci-fi) and format categories (full cast, narrated, cinematic) to make it easier to find the kind of show you’re looking for. Creating a great discovery tool, and also spotlighting excellent, lesser known content, both help grow the entire medium.
We’ve also been working with creators to build monetization models that allow them to capture much more value from their small, passionate audiences, and free them from chasing ad revenue.
I remember you telling me, in a previous conversation, that last year was pretty bumpy. What went wrong? What have you learned? What are you doing differently now?
Yeah, last year was rough for us. I have written a lot about what went wrong here and here, but to explain it briefly, we hired an outside software vendor to build Apollo and wound up with an app that was buggy and unstable from launch. Eventually, we had to completely scrap that version and do a full rebuild with an internal team of three developers.
Obviously this was an expensive and time-consuming decision, but it bought us a huge amount of quality, in terms of app stability and reliable new features. Going through all that also helped us improve all our internal processed, to the point where we are able to be competitive against platforms that employ teams many times larger than ours.
The other thing that made last year so hard was that we also made the mistake of trying to grow too fast. We should have been more conservative with our expectations of Apollo’s initial growth and what we could realistically deliver in a short time period.
Needless to say, we’ve learned to focus on the most important features first, and keep our overhead as low as possible while we build trust with creators and audiences.
What are the biggest hurdles still in front of you?
Apollo faces the same audience and funding challenges creators do. We need to not only grow the app’s user base, but we also need to improve our retention metrics. Apollo is not yet at the point where its listening features are on par with the legacy apps, and so we are working hard to quickly close that gap.
How can independent creators work with you, and what's your best pitch for why they should?
We designed Apollo to help indie creators compete with big production houses. Our front page showcases several excellent independent series alongside high-budget content. Part of our definition of success is being able to turn a hidden gem into a mainstream hit by surfacing it to a passionate audience.
Creators should reach out to Apollo when they are releasing new shows so we can help it get discovered. We have a lot of tools to make that happen, including popular curated playlists, where the majority of Apollo’s users find their next listen.
Creators interested in building a new way of funding fiction can apply to join Apollo+, a subscription service that provides ad-free listening, bonus content (think Patreon or Supporting Cast content), and gives 70% of the revenue to creators. To qualify, a show doesn’t need to be a new release, and it doesn’t need to be exclusive to the Apollo+ platform.
What can Apollo offer a larger podcasting studio or publisher?
We want to bring attention to the best audio fiction possible, big or small. Along with independent shows, we also feature blockbuster hits on our various curated playlists and on the front page. Partnerships with larger studios would help us coordinate their releases with a marketing push on Apollo. We also invite larger platforms to apply to join Apollo+ and help build a new sustainable funding model for fiction podcasting.
Most importantly, why should a listener use Apollo instead of whatever they're already using?
We are working to build the best experience possible for finding and listening to audio fiction. Right now, Apollo is a truly excellent place to find new shows, but app design is an iterative process and Apollo’s listening features are rough around the edges. Currently it can’t compete toe-to-toe with legacy podcast apps that offer frictionless listening experiences.
That said, I can confidently invite anyone who loves audio fiction to use Apollo and help guide its development with feedback. The best UX ideas come from people who live and breathe audio fiction, and know well the limitations of the legacy apps and how they could be improved.
On the other hand, people who are new to audio fiction can ease their way into this new world through our curated playlists and categorization features. If someone finds it challenging to know where to start listening, Apollo is an incredibly good place to start.
What are your most hopeful predictions, in terms of the future of audio fiction? What are your greatest fears?
My hope is that awareness of audio fiction continues to grow: we need more people listening to this artform for it to become sustainable for creators outside of the top 1%. More listeners would attract more creators and bring more great stories to life.
I hope, too, for a change in how creators gauge the success of their work. Too many people think that to “make it” with a fiction series, you have to strike a TV deal. We need to prove that an audio drama can be hugely successful as an audio drama, and not just a lottery ticket that buys you access to a better paying medium.
In order for that to happen, ads need to become a secondary source of revenue, as more and more people become willing to pay for premium audio fiction content, just like they do with other high quality streaming services.
My greatest fear is the status quo: where being an audio fiction creator is a near impossible career; the medium itself is deeply confined to a small niche; and where playing for IP remains the only game in town.
What are three audio dramas you think should get a lot more attention?
Podcube is a microfiction comedy series that I believe deserves so much more attention. It’s unlike anything I have ever heard: hilariously funny improvised and sketch comedy scenes combined with great sound design.
I also have really enjoyed listening to The Offensive, a show about the day-to-day operations of a fictional Premier League football club. Super well-written and great listening for someone interested in that world.
Wooden Overcoats is already very popular but so well written and performed, it also deserves even more attention than it has already received.
Where can people find you to follow your progress?
We’re on Twitter and Instagram, and you can also head over to ApolloPods.com. And of course you can download the app and watch it grow in realtime. If I haven’t made it really clear by now, we are always welcome to feedback!
Disclaimers
Nobody is giving us anything to run this interview. That said, Voltage’s interest in Apollo is twofold:
We genuinely like these guys and want to see them succeed.
The bigger they grow, the more opportunities there will be for small companies like ours to make great audio dramas.
Want to help?
The Audio Fiction Moonshot
This is a great interview, and I'm excited to see how things progress in the coming months!