Meet Rebeca Seitz! She’s a writer, producer and communicator with over 15 years of experience in leadership roles in the media and entertainment industries. She started out as a publicist, then launched a literary PR firm that served debut novelists and New York Times best-sellers. She has published five novels. Rebeca writes, produces, and looks for ways to put the power of writing toward positive means.
Recently, Rebeca has entered into the audio world. She launched the 1C Story Network (because her name, Rebeca, is spelled with only one ‘c’). 1C aims to create programming that makes listeners feel good.
She recently also launched PodPair, a company that pairs audio with goodies such as food or activities. PodPair can be gifted or enjoyed as another way of experiencing an audio production.
In this chat, Rebeca joins Zach and Rock to discuss storytelling and how to create compelling narratives. She also gives some business advice and shares her hopes for her companies!
Extras
- Susie Singer Carter’s I love Lucifer
- PodPair
- About Rebeca Seitz
- Submit your podcast pre-roll ad
- Try out SquadCast’s remote video and audio platform for 7 days free
- SquadCast’s YouTube channel
Our podcast stack
- ATR 2100 Mics
- Apple AirPods Max Headphones
- Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Audio Interfaces
- Adobe Audition
- Buzzsprout
Episode Transcriptions
Susie Singer Carter: [00:00:00] Before we get to this week’s episode of Between Two Mics, I want to tell you about another show I think you’ll really enjoy. I’m Susie Singer Carter and I’m the co-creator of I Love Lucifer, the podcast starring Adam Levy from The Witcher. It’s a scripted comedy horror, a little bridesmaids and A Little American Werewolf in London that takes you along the wild journey of to be movie stars that fight movie monsters by day and real monsters at night. You can find I love Lucifer, the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Well, let’s get to this week’s episode of Between Two Mics. [00:00:31][31.4]
Zach Moreno: [00:00:32] Welcome to Between Two Mics, the podcast that brings you remote recording resources from SquadCast Dot FM. [00:00:39][6.6]
Rock Felder: [00:00:41] I’m Rock Felder, co-founder and CFO of SquadCast. [00:00:43][2.3]
Zach Moreno: [00:00:45] And I’m Zach Moreno, co-founder and CEO. [00:00:47][2.0]
Rock Felder: [00:00:48] On Between Two Mics, we bring you interviews with podcasters, experts in the field of remote recording. We discuss current events in podcasting and so much more. [00:00:57][8.5]
Zach Moreno: [00:00:58] Twice a month, you’ll hear a founders episode. That’s just the two of us chatting about all things remote recording, updates to SquadCast, what we’re up to and what we’re listening to. [00:01:09][10.9]
Rock Felder: [00:01:10] The other two weeks of the month we’ll bring you interview episodes. Zach and I will sit down with experts in the podcast space to discuss their companies, their podcasts, their thoughts on podcasting, creating content and more. [00:01:22][12.2]
Zach Moreno: [00:01:23] The most exciting part? We’re recording all of this on SquadCast, the best place to record remote audio and video interviews in studio quality. [00:01:32][9.2]
Rock Felder: [00:01:33] So let’s get between two mics. [00:01:36][2.7]
Zach Moreno: [00:01:38] Today’s guest is Rebecca Seitz. Rebecca is the founder and CEO of both 1C Productions and Pod Pair, two super innovative companies that will hear a lot more about in today’s interview. And Rebecca is also a writer, producer and communications professional who loves her family, revels in story, and chases truth with wild abandon. Rebecca, welcome to Between Two Mics. All right, well, let’s jump right in. You’re the founder and CEO of Onesie Productions and Pod PR.. What was the unique insight that made you want to start these two businesses? [00:02:13][34.8]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:02:14] I blame it all on Mike Flaherty. This is Mike Flaherty’s fault, because I started in book publishing and then I was in film and television, and I was in all of that for about 15 years. Loved it. And then I was trying to figure out what to do next. The the I was at the time heading up a nonprofit film studio here in Naples, and it had closed. And so I was trying to figure out what the next step would be. And I called Mike because he’s just an incredible business. That Mike was the founder of Walden Media, which did Chronicles of Narnia Bridge to Terabithia because of Winn-Dixie, you know, big family movies. And he had just left Walden. And so I said, Well, what are you doing next? And he said, I’m getting into podcasting, and I just I was like, I’m confused because like his movies have made $4 billion at the box office, and so that just felt like a really big left turn to me. So I said, why? And he, he and I share the characteristic of we love getting in on the ground floor of something when it’s all, you know, forming. And so he said, Oh my gosh, Tribeca, it’s like the early days of TV. It’s the networks are forming, the stars are forming, the shows are starting, you know, you can make it what you want. And that really appealed to me. So I said, OK, and then I did the research and learned about Gimlet and learned about Wondery and saw the paths that they had followed to build a library and then sell to a larger. And so I said, OK, well, step one, build a library. Let’s let’s build a library. But for me, my entire background in the entertainment business is story based. I’m a story person, so I thought I’m probably not going to be great at doing news, podcasts and things like that. I’m not really much into the talkies. We have a couple, but they they are story based too. So I thought, OK, I’ll build a library of story based podcasts, and most of our shows are just that. They’re scripted. They sound like old radio dramas, but they’re comedies. So it’s that that’s that was the impetus behind it. It’s all Mike Flaherty’s fault. [00:04:03][109.0]
Rock Felder: [00:04:04] Well we’ll blame Mike, but that’s a great origin story in this podcast is all about focusing on folks that are really pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in podcasting, in audio and storytelling because it is so fresh and new. And yeah, a lot of people equate it to like Wild West stuff. So when you and Mike are, you know, talking about what you’re going to do with this media company and you say things like it’s the early days of TV, where do you see podcasting going? Do you seen it, where people are going to listen as a family to podcasts? Or where do you see podcasts? [00:04:36][31.4]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:04:36] I think so. I mean, as a family, my family have two children, husband and you know, we go out, we live on an island, so we are at the beach a lot together. We go for walks, a lot together and having an audio that you’re all listening to together. We cook dinner together mainly because I can’t cook and the kids don’t want me to kill them. So we cook dinner together to make sure mommy doesn’t poison anybody. But yeah, we listen to podcast together, and then we listen to the same podcast separately and then talk about it later over dinner. So I do think that there’s going to be some family friendly content like that where families are listening together or friends are listening together or listening separately and then talking to each other about it. That was one of the reasons that our other company pod pair that you mentioned is going so well because pod pair creates a collective experience for the listener. So pod pair came about because we were about to. We’re a month away from releasing our first show, which was making the cut and the pandemic hit. And so, you know, the top two ways people listen to podcasts are the commute and at the gym and those went away. And so I kind of panicked as a business owner, and I know we’ve spent all this money and. Some months at that point, building a show, and nobody’s going to listen to it, so I just had this image of this woman, me tired and exhausted at the end of the day, she’d been trying to keep her business going and the kids in virtual school and all that. And all she wanted to do was turn on a story and escape and not have to stare at a screen and just relax for a little bit. At the end of the day, that’s all she wanted to do, and I thought, I know she can do that with our story, with making the cut. That’s what it’s for. But in my mind, she was holding a glass of wine and I thought she can’t leave her house to get the wine. This was the early days of the pandemic. We were all sanitizing our groceries in the garage, you know? So I thought, I have to get the wine to her. So I found a wine partner out in Napa that had a big wine library and I selected a bottle of wine for every episode that had something in common with that episode. And I called my attorney and I said, I don’t want to mix this in with one see because I don’t know if I’m going to keep doing this and I don’t want to muddy the waters once he is just a media library. And he said, OK, well, what are we going to call it? And I said, Well, it’s paired with a podcast. We’ll just call it pod pair. He said, OK, pop, here it is. And that actually ended up being one of those like golden ticket ideas, like a Kleenex kind of idea, because it turns out we could get a patent on it because nobody had patented food, drinks, hobbies and other consumables with stories before you engage with them. So wine was our first one, and now we have shows where, like, we’ve had custom art created by a painter and turned into a puzzle and you worked the puzzle with your family while you listen to the show. And it’s a scene from the show. So it’s creating that period where you can completely escape into the story yourself, or you can gather with others and enjoy a glass of wine while you listen or put together a puzzle or things like that. That’s pod pair. [00:07:29][172.9]
Rock Felder: [00:07:30] Wow, that’s amazing. Thank you. Could you walk us through more? Like, how does someone interact with it? Would I be able to pick what I pair my podcast with? Or yeah, how does it all work? I guess i’m so stoked to learn. [00:07:40][10.4]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:07:41] I would love to be able to tell you we have figured everything out and we’re those questions. So what we’ve been trying to do over the past year? This just started last year. And so what we’ve been trying to do is test out different ideas to see what the market likes. Our first one was the wine, and one of our listeners messaged me, found me on Facebook and messaged me and she said, Here’s the thing I absolutely love this, but I want to give it as a gift, and I don’t. I don’t want to have to give 30 bottles of wine to somebody. I don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars. Could you do a show that’s just one episode with something more like a thirty five dollar? And I was like, Girl, absolutely. So that was that became chocolate and joy. And that was our first Christmas show. It’s a really it’s like a hallmark, charming small town Tennessee show. And in the box were the gingerbread cookie that the characters eat in their show, the hot chocolate mix that specific to how the character makes it in the show. And some stuff that they call Christmas crack in the show that’s like Chex mix stuff that you ate at Christmas. And so that that was our next one of should it be a gift giving based idea and those did really well, that show really hit. So then we did a Valentine’s Day episode with a Valentine’s gift box and a Mother’s Day with a Mother’s Day gift box. And so they’ve had like jewelry and candles that again are in the show are pivotal to the story. So when the character gives the other character that candle that has a little gem at the bottom of it and that plays a role in the show, you have the candle at home that you can be burning while you listen to the show. So that was our next one. And then with the puzzle, we wanted to play around with the idea of what if you had an item that lasted across multiple episodes? Because until then we had done episodes, specific items and the puzzle has proven to be quite popular. I think also because it’s something that you can do, you know, with the family while you listen. Also, that’s a really fun show. It’s a comedy about a British expat grandma who ends up fighting a rebel in the Indian jungle. It’s called Grandma Rambo. So this is a fun show, but like we have another one coming out where the puzzles are clues in a murder mystery, and you’re trying to figure out the password to get the prize by the end of the show. So we’re sort of testing out, you know, what works? And then the final thing that we’re testing, which will start next year. We have a show coming out where the pot pairing is food, and we’ve partnered with a restaurant company up in Virginia that is supplying the menu items and the menu and the recipes for item specific to the show. And you’ll be able to order that on Grubhub, DoorDash and UberEats. So you’ll be able to get your pod pair with only 30 minutes notice instead of a few days, because so far you’ve had to order a few days ahead of time and plan out your entertainment experience. This way, you’re actually going to just go on DoorDash and the food will show up. That’s in the show. [00:10:24][163.3]
Rock Felder: [00:10:25] Oh my goodness, this is crazy. It’s so cool. Has PodPair gone through a Christmas season yet? [00:10:32][6.7]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:10:32] The first one was last year. Chocolate and joy. Our second season is coming up this Christmas and that one, like we recorded the show in October, so. There was no I wrote the show at the beginning of October, and we recorded at the second week of October, so there wasn’t a lot of prep allowed there. We were building the show as we were building Pot Bear. [00:10:49][16.7]
Rock Felder: [00:10:49] I think I know what I’m getting my family for Christmas. Let’s find the puzzle listening to a podcast like I’m already envisioning it. [00:10:56][6.7]
Zach Moreno: [00:10:56] Yeah, scripting a podcast and recording with voice actors and approaching it from that perspective. Craft is already a ton of work, but then you’re planting this like seeds right of elements in the story that is typically like abstract. We hear it. You know, we listen with our family, which I love as a cornerstone of, you know, like collaborative listening is a big part of how you’re engaging with your audience and then bringing it into the real world is just like another layer of connection. You have to these stories as a listener, and that’s how my wife and I listen to audio dramas and scripted shows us is typically together like like similar to how we would watch Netflix or something like that. And that’s so different. In contrast to like how most people it’s a solitary headphone. I’m on the bus or something like that experience or during my commute, and that’s like a 180. So I just totally innovative. And is this what you mean when you describe yourself as like reveling in the story or means something else? Like, Where does that come from? [00:11:55][59.1]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:11:56] So I memorized my first short story when I was four years old, so I’ve just always been. It was Benji goes to school. [00:12:04][8.0]
Rock Felder: [00:12:05] And how short was it? It was [00:12:08][2.1]
Zach Moreno: [00:12:08] Memorized that. [00:12:08][0.0]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:12:09] The school bells rang and a lovely autumn morning. I called out to the children, Hurry, or you’ll be late for school. I can still do the whole thing. Just imagine what I could do in life if I still had that brain capacity. [00:12:17][8.4]
Rock Felder: [00:12:20] It’s passed the copyright process, though, right? I’m not going to call my lawyers right. [00:12:23][2.5]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:12:23] It has to be. I’m old, so we’re done. And then I wrote my first one when I was eight. So I guess I just I’ve never really known a life that I wasn’t interpreting through story. I learned through story. I experienced their story. Everything’s always a story. Even parenting, you know, my kids are their own stories and we’re, we’re, you know, writing their stories every day. So I just wanted to create this opportunity for people. It’s so life is just so hard right now with everything going on, and I just wanted to create this ability to step away from it and to enjoy a story and not feel like after you listen to that story, you need to take a shower because it damaged your psyche. You know, it’s like I used to watch a lot of shows that I realized one day when I was watching one of them that the entertainment the story was about a little girl being sexually violated and I stepped away for it was a television show and I stepped away from it and I was like, I just spent forty seven minutes of my life and that that’s not entertaining. What am I doing like? There was no, there wasn’t even a redeeming end to that particular story, and I thought, This is very prurient, Rebecca, what are you doing? So when I started one, see, I thought, I want to make shows that we don’t have to think, Well, I’m going to mess myself up if I go, listen to this show or I’m going to put these horrible thoughts in my head that are going to keep me up tonight. I just want you to relax a little bit and escape. Life is hard on its own. We don’t have to make that part up. Let’s let’s just go enjoy a story. And give us a new perspective. Learn about another part of the world. Two of our shows are set not in the US, so you get to visit another part of the world and never leave your house, that sort of thing. So that was that really was what PodPair was about, just trying to let you further escape into that story. Now I need you to come back at the end. But that was the whole idea is just let you get into it and really experience. [00:14:11][108.1]
Rock Felder: [00:14:11] It makes sense. And it’s also something I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this, but since we’ve been in the podcast industry for about five years now, we’re always paying attention to like what the industry leaders are saying, you know, paying attention to different trends. And one of the trends that was really eye-opening to Zach and I when we heard it at podcast movement I want to say in 2019 was how the the demographics, the type of listener that’s come into podcasting is a completely different type of listener than the, you know, maybe first 10 years of podcasts. The original podcast listener was a little bit more like how Zach and I were. We’ve been listening to podcasts for a long time now, and we were more so looking to seek information, go deep on a particular topic that maybe we’re not hearing from general media sources, but that really speaks directly to us. And then we can go educate ourselves or become, you know, just uniquely, I guess, intimate for lack of a better word with it. But what we’re seeing is that we’re right. I think is interesting about your approach is that more and more folks are coming to podcasting for that escape for entertainment, not to add more stress or more thought onto the plate. It is to to do that. So I’m curious, are you just naturally skating to the puck or is it maybe just that insight from TV where you’re like, this is how TV is so podcasting would follow? So yeah, it’s definitely see our more curious. Did you did you see that coming intuition? [00:15:33][81.8]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:15:35] I am a slave to story. That’s probably it. Also, because good, I used this. When I was when I started in book publishing, I would tell everybody, Look, if you ever come to my home, you’re going to see a lot of nonfiction books on the shelves in the front room where we’ll sit down. But in the rest of the rooms that you’re not going to come to are all my novels because we are led to believe that nonfiction readers are the smart ones and fiction. [00:15:56][21.6]
Rock Felder: [00:15:58] I was just gonna say. You don’t want to let the freak flag fly, right? [00:16:00][2.7]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:16:01] But actually, research shows that those who read fiction are more empathetic and have a higher IQ because you have to use your imagination and because you open yourself up to other worldviews. So it’s one of those things where I’ve as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more and more comfortable with just being very out loud about, Look, I’m just a story person. I don’t listen to a lot of nonfiction. I don’t read a lot of nonfiction when I approach it. It’s exactly the kind of scenario that you just said where I’m actively thinking, I need to learn some more about that. So let me go find it. But I’m not just passively going to turn on something like that. I’m I want to go deep into a story and escape and relax. And so, you know, with creating it and podcasts, when we set about doing it this way, my background was in film and TV. I knew scripting. Now granted there, as far as I know, there’s still and if there are tech people out there, please call me. There still is no program to write a script for a podcast. There, of course, is final draft that we use in screenwriting, and you can create radio drama scripts with that, but that doesn’t really translate to what we’re doing over at one. So I had to modify some of the ways that the scripts format themselves and final draft to adapt to what we were creating. And then part of what I’ve been teaching writers occasionally now is how do you write a story for the ear? It’s, you know, I can’t in screenwriting, I can have a character come in and they’re going to communicate an emotion to you with their acting. I can’t do that editorially, so I’ve got to figure out, Well, is it going to be moods set by music? We don’t want to do the clunky, you know, character saying, I’m sad, you don’t want that, so you have to write differently for the ear than you do for the page or for the screen. So it was a whole adaptation of that. And then we had to go find the voice actors in the middle of a pandemic because initially we now have a recording studio, my home. So I thought, Well, you know, I’ll just hire actors and they’ll come and they’ll record. And then the pandemic hit, and that was not going to happen. So our first show had 99 characters voiced by 67 actors in 14 different countries. It was a lot to get that show done. Yeah, it was like trial by fire. So you get thinking. We did not start small. [00:18:08][126.8]
Rock Felder: [00:18:10] Let’s take a short breather. We’ll be right back. [00:18:12][2.3]
Arielle: [00:18:15] Hello, SquadCaster. Arielle, your community manager here with a quick message. At the beginning of this episode, you heard a pre-roll ad from a SquadCast customer. They told you a bit about their podcast and then gave us a nice introduction into this week’s episode of Between Two Mics. If you record your podcast on SquadCast, you can submit one of these pre-roll ads too. We want to show off your podcast. For details on submitting an ad for your show, head to SquadCast Dot FM slash share. That’s our new content submission page. In addition to voice clips, you can submit squad shots, feature videos and more. Again, head to SquadCast Dot FM slash share. Super easy URL to remember, it’s SquadCast, dot FM slash what? Share. SquadCast Dot fm Slash share to submit your voice clip so that we can feature you on this podcast. OK, let’s get back to the show. [00:19:09][53.8]
Rock Felder: [00:19:11] Yeah, what did you find worked for you? Going through that practice? [00:19:13][2.4]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:19:13] Yeah, I can show you one of our scripts. I type a lot more on the scripts for podcasts than I do ever did for film or TV, because I have to write a sound effect, right? The next sound effect and our editor season brackets continuing sound effect next sound effect preview sound effect ends next, so it’s very explicit and it’s time consuming, much more time consuming than film and TV, but less time consuming than me continually having to send it back to the editor and saying, no, we needed the waves to keep going or, you know, that sort of thing. And we even indicate now I even indicate now when I want a sound effect to be at the same volume level as the character or when I want it, you know, lower in the background, the sound effect is coming from 500 feet away, that sort of thing. [00:19:56][43.0]
Zach Moreno: [00:19:57] It’s like layers of annotation, like kind of how how I think of it. And that’s a lot. So respect to you for those productions and thank you for bringing those to life. It’s it’s something else that struck me as well is that, you know, you’re focused on helping people escape through the stories that you’re creating, but then you bring it into their reality with these these elements that are part of the story. So it’s both like out of your reality, but then also in your reality, and that makes it more part of the real escapism in some roundabout way. So that’s also, I think, very creative of you. [00:20:30][33.3]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:20:30] Thank you. You can escape right at your kitchen table. It’s fine. [00:20:33][2.6]
Rock Felder: [00:20:33] So things did not work out as scary as it started off with, with jumping into this endeavor right as a pandemic started and stuff it. No, in speaking, it’s been all right for podcasting, but I’m curious for your business as businesses. [00:20:44][10.9]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:20:45] I started this by saying it’s Mike’s fault, but it’s also, to Mike’s credit, that he suggested that I start this. We formed one c we incorporated on Friday the 13th December 13th, 2019, so of course nobody knew about the pandemic yet. We were deep into production on multiple shows when all of my friends, all of my producer, director, writer, actor friends were out of work because every set shut down in the country. And so it was just this colossally fortuitous timing with the formation of the company obviously not fortuitous what was going on in the world. But the timing was such that we could get truly amazing actors on our project that we wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise. But they were out of work because all the sets were shut down. And that’s not to say that every film and television actor translates well to a voice actor. We learned the hard way they don’t, but some of them do. Some of them are very adept at coming into the voice world, and we wouldn’t have been able to get them. I mean, one of the voices on one of our shows is a producer on American Ninja Warrior. I never would have had that guy. I couldn’t have afforded him, but I could in the beginning. And now he’s been in multiples of our shows. You know, when I started as a writer, as a formal writer, my my first novel, it takes me a couple of weeks to write a novel. And I get I’ve been asked in so many interviews as a writer how how do I write so fast and a lot of us do. I’m not unique in being able to do that. It’s and I always say I just close my eyes and write the movie that’s playing in my head. And and that’s that’s how I write a novel quickly. And audio storytelling is the same way. I just want you to close your eyes and see the movie in your head because honestly, anything that you are going to put into your head is better than anything I can put on a screen because I don’t tell. We don’t tell stories like Marvel Stories, so you know, things like. Some Marvel movies. OK. My brain will probably not have come up with that. You know, they’re amazing special effects. [00:22:48][123.3]
Zach Moreno: [00:22:49] 20 different things happening all at once. [00:22:50][1.4]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:22:51] You know, the whole world is turning on its axis with the hands of the wonderful Benedict Cumberbatch. I mean, that’s amazing, you know? But the kind of stories we tell, you know, you’re going to envision that grandma and her granddaughters running through the jungle in India from a crazy, you know, guy with a gun and it being a comedy because our grandma is a wisecracking grandma telling the guy needs to stop talking about himself in the third person while he’s pointing a gun at her that’s going to take place better in your head than it ever, I think would have on a screen written that way is started. That was started as a written book, and we adapted it for the era and we had to take out storylines and characters and certain things because like you were saying, the human mind can only hang on to so many bits of information at once. So when you streamline it down to the audio, I just feel like it’s a storytelling experience like nothing else. [00:23:40][48.8]
Zach Moreno: [00:23:40] And you have to be co-creator, right? Because of the imagination element. Yeah. That’s one of the things I love about [00:23:46][5.7]
Rock Felder: [00:23:46] it is I hear that’s one of the things that makes the the fiction podcast conferences like Pot Con or there’s a few others. Hopefully they come back. People dress up as these characters that they have in their head that no one’s really seen before because it’s only existed in an audio form. So my [00:24:02][15.5]
Zach Moreno: [00:24:02] interpretation? [00:24:02][0.0]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:24:03] Yeah, yeah, we have that over in book world, too. Coming from Book World, you know, I’ll have fans tell me about my characters that in my head look like something, but in their head look like completely different. And it’s just it’s cool to see what a human human imagination will do when you let it go there, when you just leave it to tell its story. [00:24:20][17.7]
Zach Moreno: [00:24:21] And I have to imagine that all the thinking that you’re putting into telling stories like when you remove censors kind of forces you is kind of an added constraint to get better at the sense that you’re focused on in the stories you’re telling. So I have to imagine, like when you do approach other forms of media, like television or film or or even writing, these things compliment each other. And like your, your audio is going to be super on point when you add video to it, right? [00:24:45][24.2]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:24:46] Because like the story that’s going on. [00:24:48][2.7]
Zach Moreno: [00:24:49] Yeah. And that’s like, I think one of the questions that we had for you with this unique vantage point that you have is what can podcasters learn from these more established media spaces? And like, what do you think needs to change and what do you think still has opportunities to improve? [00:25:02][12.7]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:25:02] Well, when you’re in the storytelling space, you have to as a storyteller, you know the things that carry a story or dialog, the story itself and characters. One of those is going to be stronger than the other two almost every time. But they all have to be strong for something to be stellar. You can have something that’ll find some decent success if two of the legs are there. But if you really, you know, want it to hit, you’ve got to have all three. You’ve got to have really good, well-thought out characters that have depth to them. No cardboard characters. You’ve got to have excellent dialog and you’ve got to have a good story arc. So how that plays out, depending on the medium that you’re in, one of those is going to rise to the top more than the other. Ordinarily speaking, your dialog is really going to matter. That dialog is got to carry it. It’s got to communicate almost the entire story because you can only do so much with sound effects and music. I mean, they’re there. They’ll set the mood and they’ll help bolster the imagination of what’s going on in the person’s head. But that character’s words are what is going to really sell the day, sell the story. And it can’t be. There’s this weird, lazy thing that started happening in audio storytelling. I’m going to get up on a soap soapbox for a second, but it really is the old mantra of show. Don’t tell. How do you show auditor really don’t have your character? Tell me what’s going on? You know, it just frustrates me to no end when they’re like, Oh my gosh, that car just ran in front of me. Really like the car. Just let me just hear, hear the tires squealing and let me hear you reacting. And then let me hear a character saying, Oh my gosh, are you OK? That thing almost hit you. That just communicated that a car almost hit. You didn’t need to tell me as a character. So it’s really paying attention to what am I going to rely on to keep the person in the story and I’ll pull him out of it the second that I start telling them a story instead of showing them a story. So it’s really just thinking through How do I communicate story while the person is in the story living the story and then on the page is the easiest way because you can you can tell them just about everything that’s I used to get in trouble when I first started as a novelist. My editor would just just rail on me because she would say, Rebecca, I need you to spend at least a couple of paragraphs putting me into the scene because I would rush forward to the action of what was happening in the scene. And so that actually is the the biggest challenging place for me to write is on the page because you do have to take the time to communicate all of that with words. That was like a whole diatribe on here’s how we write, and it reminds me of [00:27:27][144.8]
Rock Felder: [00:27:27] a similar framework in the startup game where you said the three components are what story, dialog and characters in the startup game. Its product, people and market or product team and market. I’m wondering, though, is like. Is there anyone that absolutely has to get right and where I’m going with this is because a lot of times they’ll say you can have an OK product, maybe an OK team, but if you’re in a hot market, you might actually do OK versus the opposite where if you have a stellar team and the product is awesome, but the market’s just there’s no demand like you, you might not have an actual nice business. I’m curious, is there any is there any connections in that with the I know it’s not apples to apples, but is there something like that in the storytelling framework where it’s all about the story story? Is the market in that example where you can kind of get away with? I don’t know is does that even make any sense, Rebecca? [00:28:16][49.1]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:28:17] Some people do get away with less. It’s really frustrating, if not you. [00:28:20][3.5]
Rock Felder: [00:28:21] I’m not talking about, you know, Rebecca, [00:28:22][1.3]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:28:22] I’ve gotten away with less on a couple of projects, you know? OK, so what we’re after, though, is longevity. I’m not trying to tell one story and be done. I’m trying to build a library of really good stories over time so that over time, you know, if I want one that’s going to deliver, I need to go get a one see story because they’ve been doing this over time. You can have a one and done. There are plenty of people. It’s why publishers like to sign writers to at least three books in the beginning, because you want to establish this is a storyteller market that you can rely on dear market, pay attention to the storyteller. And you can’t establish longevity and a fan base unless you are firing on all three cylinders the majority of the time. Now, some some writers that I’m not going to name because I don’t want to get sued do get away with having horrific dialog in their books. You know, they’re ones that I just oh, it’s just so frustrating because, you know, there are these writers out there who are working so hard on their craft and then they’re reading these other books and they’re not great, and then they model their stuff after that. And sometimes the market eats it up because, like you said, sometimes the market’s just hungry for that kind of a story and they’ll take whatever. Sometimes I’m starving, and if the only thing is McDonald’s, I’m going to eat it, even though I shouldn’t, and I’m going to be hungry again an hour, you know, I’ve been there. But with storytelling, if you if you’re trying to have longevity in the storytelling industries, then you really need to be strong on all three consistently. So in the audio space, anyway, yeah, it’s audio storytelling is challenging, especially when our market is dominated by non storytelling stuff. It’s really hard to find an audience right now. It’s like, like, say, saying the beginning. It’s early days of podcasting as a storyteller, still. But if we just keep doing it and doing it well, then it’ll grow. It always does. [00:30:13][111.0]
Rock Felder: [00:30:14] Before we wrap up, like what can we expect from the rest of the once production story from from pod pair? Like, what are you looking forward to? [00:30:23][8.6]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:30:24] So here’s what’s coming down the pike and this is based in when I started one, see the companies that I had started before then I was a pusher. I pushed things into existence. I made things happen. I was that kind of a personality. When I started one see, I was turning 40 and I was tired. And so I thought, I’m just not going to do that. I’m going to let things happen as they’re going to happen. I’ll do the work. Not not scared of the work, but I’m not going to try to push toward a preconceived end because this also is a part of the business that isn’t even really fleshed out. So let’s just see what happens. Let’s make something, see what happens and go from there, which I had also learned about writing all of those SEO profiles for founder. So in going about it that way, you know, I had my three year production plan and these are the shows that we’re going to put out, and these are the pod pairs. And then I’ve had to learn to be very flexible and say, Well, that show needs to get pushed for a year because what makes sense right now is the show instead. And so to that end, the the shows that we have coming out that I know are coming out now because I’m letting things happen. One of them that I’m very, very excited about is the we’re partnering up with the surviving members of the Negro Baseball League and for the first time, in their own words, they’ll be telling their own stories of playing as black baseball players during Jim Crow years, when the gentlemen’s agreement was in place in Major League Baseball, before Jackie Robinson integrated and after Jackie Robinson integrated, it took several years after that for every Major League Baseball team to have a black player. And these players played then so they can tell us about what they lived through to keep black Americans in baseball and even keep baseball going in this country during those awful times. So I’m really excited about that one because in meeting these guys and hearing their stories, I’ve learned just how taken advantage of they’ve been not only from those those years, but from people telling their stories for them and profiting off of their stories and not cutting them in on those profits. So I’m really excited that one C can come alongside the majority of profits from anything we ever create with Negro League players goes back to the players. That’s our contract with them. So and our even our investor that’s come alongside in that has said 51 percent of their profits will go back to the players as well of what they make off of it. So that’s one that’s exciting. One that. We have coming, and that’s the one where we’re going to get to do the pod pair in almost real time because in the arenas when they played at the ball fields, they would play on Sundays. And so what was being served at the ball field most of the time was soul food. And so we’ve partnered with this company that they have this wonderfully rich background in understanding the history of African-American food coming here literally from Africa. And what though and also what those foods were at the ball field. And so that’s what you’re going to be able to order and listen to that show are the foods that were at the ball field when those people would come from church to watch the Negro League teams play. So that one’s I’m excited about. We’re recording that all this year, and the first episodes will start releasing in the spring. And then the second one that we’re working on right now is there is a law that was passed in Michigan a year ago that took effect this past summer and to give you the very short version of it, it effectively changed the law in Michigan that allows them to access a $23 billion fund to take care of catastrophic car accident patients. So if you are in a catastrophic car accident in Michigan, this fund pays for your medical care for life once your insurance is tapped out. This law cut their benefits by 45 percent. Some patients have already died. Some family members have already dropped patients off at the E.R. because they can’t afford to keep caring for them at home. Like 40-Something, health care businesses have shuttered. And it just went into effect July 2nd. So it’s just a complete catastrophe that’s happening. And the senator who championed it has said, Well, we’re not going to undo it. We’re just going to wait and see what happens. And so one of the one of the women called me and she said, we have to get our stories out if I have to believe that if the world knew what was happening, something would stop. They would stop doing this. So I’m actually headed up to Michigan in a couple of weeks to start recording those shows and start getting those out. That one is called Silent Crash. [00:34:40][255.8]
Zach Moreno: [00:34:40] That is a great name. And what a story you set of stories. I mean. Mm hmm. Wow, that’s so awesome. Thank you for giving us a preview of what what you have coming in one c and pod pair is really awesome. Like next level product placement. Your innovation, I think, is going to continue to come to life in new ways. [00:34:58][18.3]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:34:59] And I would be remiss, can I tell you about one more project that’s coming do i have time? Is that OK? Oh, yes, yes. OK. So there’s one more because it’s one of those, and I want to give her big props because it’s one that was supposed to already be done and out, and she allowed me to push it because these other things were coming. So the other show that’s coming out is called Heal Me, and it is a lady who has dealt with some horrific things in her life. Many of us have. And they made her very physically ill to the point that her doctors were telling her she’d be dead in a month. And it was all a result of dealing with stress from the day she was born of just problem after problem after problem in her life, and she didn’t recognize that a doctor at the Mayo Clinic did. And he put her on a program called Biblio Therapy, where you can rewrite the what has happened in your life, and that requires your brain to get rid of the chronic pain that your body is engaged in. And so she is. She’s amazing. And so her podcast show is it’s called Heal Me, and we’ll be telling her story of what she endured so that the listeners can understand, yeah, hers is as bad as yours. And here is how she found a path out of it to be healthy and whole and enjoy life. And the power that goes with it is the journal where that that helps you rewrite your story as well, so you can start rewiring that part of your brain. That’s causing pain with all of those memories. So I’m really stoked about that one, too. And she let me push it by like six months so that we could develop these other projects. She was so kind in that, and she will say the same thing that we do have. The her show has ended up being so much better, too, because she allowed us to do that and more people have come alongside it in the interim. So that’s the other one that’s coming. Heal me, Negro Baseball League and Silent Crush. [00:36:35][96.1]
Rock Felder: [00:36:36] Can’t wait for it. Thank you so much, Rebecca, for joining us today. [00:36:38][2.5]
Rebeca Seitz: [00:36:39] Yeah, thank you for having me. I really this is a huge forum. Thank you a ton. [00:36:42][3.6]
Rock Felder: [00:36:44] Thanks for tuning in to this week’s episode of Between Two Mics. [00:36:47][2.7]
Zach Moreno: [00:36:47] We hope you enjoyed our conversation. If you learn something or are we intrigued you a bit, let us know on social media. [00:36:53][5.9]
Rock Felder: [00:36:54] You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn by searching for SquadCast FM. [00:37:00][5.7]
Zach Moreno: [00:37:01] And if you want to show the podcast Some Love, you can leave us a rating or review wherever it is you’re listening right now. [00:37:07][5.5]
Rock Felder: [00:37:07] This show is put together by us, Zach in Rock. It’s mixed and produced by Vince Moreno with help from Arielle Nissenblatt. Our logo is designed by Alex Whedbee. [00:37:17][9.3]
Zach Moreno: [00:37:18] Since we’re a podcast about podcasts, we want to shout out the brands and products that we trust. We’re recording using SquadCast dot FM, and here’s our current stack. For recording, we’re using ATR2100 mics, Apple AirPods Max headphones, and focusrite Scarlet 2i2 audio interfaces. [00:37:37][19.6]
Rock Felder: [00:37:38] We edit the show on Adobe Audition in our hosting site is simple cast. [00:37:42][3.4]
Zach Moreno: [00:37:43] That’s it for us this week. We’re back next week with more from between these mics. [00:37:43][0.0]
Arielle Nissenblatt is SquadCast’s head of community and content. She’s obsessed with all things podcast-related and is the founder of EarBuds Podcast Collective, a podcast recommendation engine.