Articles To Make Audio Fiction Better

More than 1,000 finished audio fiction shows in The End!

October 27, 2024

So you like completed audio fiction shows, do you? Sure seems like it. We hope you've got plenty of listening time coming soon!

Just over two years ago, I hit publish on the first rendition of The End. At that time, The End was nothing more than a weekly newsletter, filled—crammed, frequently—with fiction podcasts that had reached at least a season finale. And… that was it, I thought.

But then things got complicated. Or, more accurately, I realized I needed to deal with the complexity inherent in presenting finished audio fiction shows to potential listeners—complexity that far exceeded the limitations of a simple email newsletter.

I’d need to evolve The End beyond its humble beginnings to do that. I’d need to make The End into a directory. A directory powered by a database so I could highlight the myriad differences and similarities between fiction podcasts. That database would need to power well-organized web pages to display the collected data about shows and the creators behind them. More web pages would be required—dynamic and capable of presenting listeners with a wide range of discovery options, allowing them to find shows tailored to their preferences. And it still needed a newsletter component!

I knew that if I could deliver on those items and obsessively focus on listeners' needs first, creators would see the value of The End and be excited to have their shows included in the most comprehensive and easy-to-use directory of finished audio fiction.

We're getting there. Our directory now has over 1,000 fiction podcasts, audio dramas, audiobooks, and other forms of audio fiction! 🥳 And I’m adding dozens of new and new-to-us shows every single week.

With our commitment to only listing completed audio fiction shows—either at a season or series level—The End will never be the biggest audio fiction directory on the internet. But I do hope you think it is one of the best.

Breaking into the 1,000 club is a big accomplishment, but there’s still much more to do with The End. I’m working on it. 😉

A huge thank you to everyone who encouraged me to share this idea with the world. There are far too many of you to mention for fear of leaving someone out. But know that you have my thanks.

Here’s to the next 1,000 shows added to The End!

- Evo

Packaging Your Fiction Podcast To Maximize Your Listeners’ Experience

August 28, 2024

Ten straightforward changes to make to your fiction podcast right now to give the best listening experience to your future listeners.

There are many reasons I love listening to “compete” fiction podcasts. But chief among these is the convenience factor. Because I’ve waited to start listening to episodes until the creator has reached a season finale or completed the entire season, I’m not waiting on them! (Yes, I recognize many people love listening along as episodes are posted. Y’all keep on keepin’ on. Podcasting is big enough for both of us!)

Unfortunately, that convenience factor is often hindered by the presentation of the complete series or season in podcast listening apps and directories. I lay a lot of the blame at the feet of podcast hosting companies who should, I feel, do a better job of catering to the specific needs of fiction podcasters and take a more active role in ensuring creators get things right.

But we don’t live in that world (yet?). We do, however, live in a world where I’ve helped close to a thousand different creators package their fiction podcasts in a way that maximizes the listener experience.

And, after all, every fiction podcaster wants to give their listeners an amazing experience with their show, right?

With that, I make the following ten recommendations on ways every fiction podcaster—staunchly independent or as part of a big production house or network—can improve the listener experience. I encourage you to open up your show’s dashboard in your hosting company and look at your implementation for each of these all-too-overlooked aspects of packaging for fiction podcasts

1. Is your title the right title?

Let’s start with arguably one of your fiction podcast's more important parts—if not the most important part—the title. This is rather straightforward to many fiction podcasters but a bit of a head-scratcher to others, particularly those with multiple seasons, anthologies, and podcasts that contain more than a single story.

When you set the title of your podcast in your podcast hosting company’s dashboard, you have a singular goal: Ensure your show is findable and unambiguous.

Both of those things. Findable, as in when someone searches on this name, will my show come up? And unambiguous, as in if multiple shows display, is mine obviously mine?

As an example of how not to do that, check out this search query for “coaches corner” on the Podnews search engine, which is a good representation of the results in-app search engines deliver. Twenty-two shows with that exact name, dozens more with those words in their titles, and then another set of results once the apostrophe is added. Which one is the right one?

Now search for your show. Or better yet, tell someone the name of your show and ask them to search while you peek over their shoulder. Do the results of that search look like what you expected? What do you need to do differently to your title to get the result you wanted? Add “The Audiodrama” to the title? A few shows do that. Maybe the title of your show isn’t the name of the story you’re currently podcasting. Podcast listening app search engines are exceedingly rudimentary, so be sure to name your podcast the same way you talk about your podcast and the stories you tell.

2. Is your artwork right for your show?

Potential listeners can and do judge a fiction podcast by its cover. And if the cover image for your murder mystery thriller looks like your 8-year-old made it out of macaroni at summer camp… you get the idea.

I’m not an artist, so I’m unqualified to tell you how to design your show’s artwork. All I can do is try to press upon you the need for the artwork to match the show and set the proper expectation, style, and tone. It’s a job that really does require some design chops, so I tend to work with designers rather than hacking something together on my own.

I am, however, qualified to tell you the technical specs your artwork must adhere to. Your final show-level image should be perfectly square, ideally 3000x3000 pixels (but not smaller than 1400x1400), in either JPG or PNG format, and less than 500 KB in total file size. If it’s not, then some directories will reject your show. Not kidding.

3. Is your show’s description actually descriptive?

Generally speaking, creators are bad a writing “summaries” of their work. “If I could say it in a couple of paragraphs, I wouldn’t have needed to write the whole novel,” I’ve had novelist friends say to me. And I understand the sentiment.

Perhaps a formula may help. Sure, there’s the risk it’ll be formulaic, but you can probably smooth that out before you update the box in your podcast hosting company’s dashboard. Try this:

Start with a sentence that familiarizes prospects with the show they will hear. The first sentence of the description of Afflicted is a great example: “Lovecraft Country meets True Blood in this new series from award-winning producers Tonia Ransom and Jen Zink.” I wish the creators did more than this with their description, but I gotta give ‘em credit for a solid opening.
After that, write a 2–3 paragraph synopsis that hits the important bits of your show. No, sorry, your characters' names are NOT the important part. Not usually, at least. Don’t give away everything but spend some time setting the scene. Is the story from a certain era? Is it an interesting mashup of different genres? Is there a location/geography component? Are the creators from historically marginalized groups? Try to think of unique aspects of your story that are different from things you’ve heard before.
Give credit where credit is due! If you did everything, from script writing to performing to engineering and beyond, all by your little lonesome, congrats! Today, however, many fiction podcasts are a team effort, complete with showrunners, a cast of actors, sound designers, marketing people, and much more. And all of them deserve credit in the description of the show. You can even type out URLs for everyone if you like.
Let people know how they can get in touch with you. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is when I find a great show that I want to feature in The End but cannot reach the creator. Podcast hosting companies are taking email addresses out of RSS feeds, autogenerated websites don’t have contact forms, and people are disabling direct contact methods for their social channels. My advice? Get a show-specific email address and forward it to your inbox. Put the show-specific email as the last item in your show’s description.

Do those four things. But don’t worry about this going long. Write as much as you need. 500–1000 characters isn’t unusual in a solid show description, especially for fiction podcasts.

4. Is your website linked in your podcast feed?

If you have a separate website for your show, maybe on Squarespace or WordPress, be sure that website is added to your podcast hosting company's dashboard. Most podcast hosting companies will auto-generate a website for you. And if you don’t have a website, this is fine. But if you do, you want the website you built for your podcast to be associated with your podcast’s RSS feed, not the default one your hosting company creates. Find that field. Enter your custom website URL. And if your hosting company doesn’t allow this… switch hosting companies. It’s quite straightforward.

5. Is your “show type” correct?

Most fiction podcasts are designed to be listened to the same way fiction books are designed to be read and fiction television shows are designed to be watched: from the beginning. As it turns you, that’s a peculiar thing in podcasting, as the vast majority of podcasts are designed to be listened to more like magazines and newspapers are read: from the most recent episode.

Luckily for you, the fiction podcaster (and us, the fiction listeners), there’s a simple “fix”. All you have to log into your hosting dashboard and make sure your show type is set to “serial” and not “episodic.” Yes, you must do this, or your show’s feed will be set to episodic by default. But you are not default. You are a fiction podcaster!

Most podcast hosting companies make this easy. Some have hidden the setting, so you may have to send in a help request. Unfortunately, Anchor, now Spotify for Podcasters, does not let you change this setting. So don’t use Anchor for your serialized, listen-from-episode-one fiction podcast. Sorry.

When your show is properly marked as “serial,” apps like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, and more change how the show is displayed, giving new listeners your very first episode (or the very first episode of your last season, which is a little maddening but we’re moving in the right direction) rather than displaying your most recent—or the last episode if it’s finished—first.

No one wants to listen to your story backward. Don’t force your listeners to go into their app settings and fiddle around to get yours looking right. Change this setting. It’s dead simple. Unless you’re on Spotify for Podcasters/Anchor. Then… move.

6. Is there a trailer to preview your show?

Trailer episodes are fantastic for fiction podcasts. Every show should have one. And a new one should be created each season.

But… if your trailer still says something like “Coming this fall…” or “New episodes release every Tuesday,” that’s less helpful. It made great sense to make that trailer before you released an episode. It even made sense while you were releasing episodes every week. But now you’re not. The show (or one or more seasons) is fully available. Your trailer should say that.

Does that mean you need to make a new one? Well… yes. Keep the trailer (or trailers, if you have multiple seasons) relevant to listeners right now, not what was happening years ago when you started.

Also, mark the episode as a trailer. Not a full episode. And certainly not a bonus. Again, your podcast hosting company should make this easy. If not… switch!

7. Are your episodes properly numbered?

Your podcast hosting company should allow you to “tag” each episode with a season number and an episode number, a pair of fields perfect for fiction podcasters! Yet far too many fiction creators don’t use them. Bah!

Use them! But use them smartly. Every “story” episode should be numbered. Most “non-story” episodes should not. Yes, it’s possible—likely, even—for a fiction podcast to have numbered and non-numbered episodes. Consider a show that has a trailer episode, five episodes of actual story content, then a short episode when they went on break for the summer, then a “we’re coming back next week” episode, then the next five episodes of the story to complete the season, then a trailer for the 2nd season. And maybe a promo episode (an episode drop) for another podcast. That’s 15 episodes, but only 10 of them should be numbered. Like so:

Trailer (S1, no episode number, type = trailer)
Story pt 1 (S1/E1, type = full)
Story pt 2 (S1/E2, type = full)
Story pt 3 (S1/E3, type = full)
Story pt 4 (S1/E4, type = full)
Story pt 5 (S1/E5, type = full)
On break special announcement (S1, no episode number, type = bonus)
Coming back next week special announcement (S1, no episode number, type = bonus)
Story pt 6 (S1/E6, type = full)
Story pt 7 (S1/E7, type = full)
Story pt 8 (S1/E8, type = full)
Story pt 9 (S1/E9, type = full)
Story pt 10 (S1/E10, type = full)
Promo for another show (no season, no episode, type = bonus)
Trailer for Season 1 (S2, no episode number, type = trailer)

There are lots of permutations to this, so do whatever you need to do. Just do it with intent.

8. Are your episode descriptions actually descriptive?

Writing a synopsis for the whole show is hard enough for a fiction podcaster, but doing that for each and every episode is… well, let’s just say I don’t have to struggle with how much to share without spoiling.

Regardless of that, there are a couple of things you should add to your episode descriptions that go beyond plot. Two things, really:

Credit to the people who worked on/appeared in this particular episode.
Information that “tethers” the episode back to you show. It’s possible a fan might share your episode directly from their listening app with a friend, losing the context of all the other episodes. A bit of boilerplate at the bottom of each episode, complete with a link back to the website or way for listeners to get more info, can help mitigate this problem.

9. Is your season finale/series final episode clearly marked?

The great thing about most fiction podcasts is that there is an ending, or possibly many endings, in sight. But right now, listeners don’t have a good way to determine if a season finale or the series completion for your show has been reached. Those last episodes look like any other, and many listeners (I’m one!) won’t start a show unless we know an endpoint has been reached.

So in place of a tagging system (we’re working on it!), it’s up to you, the creator, to clearly let current and would-be listeners know that you’ve reached a season finally or the series completion. And you’ll do that in two ways:

Use something like “Season 2 finale” in the title of your final episode.
Add something like “TWO SEASONS COMPLETE, AND THE THIRD STARTING IN OCT 2025” in the show's description, right at the very top. And yes, in all caps, Yell that stuff, yo!

That removes any ambiguity.

Pro-tip: Get your Q&A or Season Recap bonus episode posted 24–48 hours after your season finale is posted with info on when you’ll be coming back with new episodes. And clearly mark that one, too!

10. Have you cleaned up your feed?

All fiction podcasts take a long time to produce, but not all fiction podcasters wait until the hard work is done to start posting episodes. That can lead to all sorts of “extra” bits in feeds, from coming soon announcements for the next episode to multiple feed drops for other shows to behind-the-scenes episodes to other things that made sense at the time… but now it’s a year later. Someone listening brand new probably doesn’t need to sit through all that stuff.

So once you’ve posted a finale/the final episode, go back and delete the stuff that no longer needs to be there. In the example above, there’s no need to keep the episodes that announced the season break or the coming back soon event. That’s just clutter for new listeners.

Think of this as cleaning up after yourself. Delete what doesn’t need to be there now. Re-name (or re-number) to keep each episode consistent. Remember—listening now that the show/season is complete should be a much different experience than when you were releasing live. So clean this place up a bit. Company is coming over

So there you have it. 10 things you can do right now to help better package your fiction podcast for new listeners.

I’ve a few more thoughts and ideas noodling around in my brain, so you may see a few more articles like this from me that are written to help make the best experience for listeners like me.

Cheers!

E.

How To Optimize Podbean for Your Fiction Podcast

August 28, 2024

Everything you need to know about optimizing your Podbean account so your fiction podcast shines to the world!

Podbean is a popular choice for a podcast hosting company among fiction podcasters. A quick scan of our database on The End shows that a little more than 8% of the shows we’ve listed use Podbean as their hosting provider. A lot of that has to do with pricing—Podbean has a limited free tier and an “unlimited” plan for only $9 per month. And the people I’ve met at Podbean (hi, Roni!) are super nice!

But does Podbean make a good place for fiction podcasters to call home? It can be, but due to the quirks of fiction podcasting vs “normal” podcasts, some tweaks need to be made to optimize Podbean for fiction podcasters.

In the subsequent sections of this article, I’ll break down how to optimize your Podbean account on a page-by-page, field-by-field level. I'll use the exact name of the fields and even include a cropped screen shot of each to help make things as clear as possible. But please note that I’ll only offer advice/opinions/directions for the fields that need optimization. If I don’t have anything to say about a field, that doesn’t mean the field isn’t important. It probably is! It’s just not something that needs to be optimized. With that, let’s get started!

Settings > General

Once you’re logged into your Podbean account, select Settings > General from the right navigation bar. We’re going to optimize just six fields on this page: Podcast Title, Brief Description, Podcast Category, Podcast Website, Author / Owner, and Podcast Type.

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Podcast Title

This is the title of your fiction podcast, obviously. Some creators like to add “Audio drama” and stuff like that, but I say do that only if you need it. And remember, you don’t need to add “podcast” (probably) to the name of your show.

Brief Description

This is the full description of your show. It should not be “brief,” no matter what Podbean says. But also, it shouldn’t be 50K characters long, which they also say. [sigh]

The words entered here are used both for the description that appears on your Podbean-generated website as well as the description that is distributed to various podcast listening platforms and directories. Is it important? Yes. Very. And it’s probably something you should revisit on a regular basis as your show grows.

You have up to 4,000 characters to work with when you write your description. I included some tips on crafting a great fiction podcast description in this article. It’s item #3.

Podcast Category

You can choose up to three different categories/subcategories for your fiction podcast. My strong recommendation: Unless you have a very good reason not to, your first category should be Fiction or Fiction > [Comedy, Drama, or Science Fiction]. Don’t get me started on how dumb it is to limit fiction podcasts to just those three subcategories. It aggravates me too, but we work with what we have.

Let your other two other categories be what they need to be, based on the contents of your fiction podcast. I’ve seen fiction podcasters also categorize their shows as Arts > Performing Arts, Arts > Books, Comedy > [subcategories], History, Leisure, Kids & Family, and many others. Whatever makes sense for the story(ies) you’re telling in your fiction podcast.

But there’s more to do after that on this page. Click the More Options link below to expand some hidden fields that are pretty important.

Behold! More fields to optimize.

Podcast Website

This field is somewhat misleading, and it duplicates the name of another field. [sigh] You likely do not want to change this field, especially if your show has already been submitted to podcast directories and apps. As noted on the screen, changing this field will change the URL of your show’s RSS feed, and that’s exceedingly bad. So don’t touch this. But don’t freak out in a moment when you see that same name used for a different field.

Author / Owner

The contents of this field are displayed prominently along with your show’s title and artwork in most directories and apps, so make sure it says what you want it to say! Repeating the name of your show here is rather pointless. Using the name of an aspirational production company won’t give you personally any branding. But you can enter something like Creator Name | Other Creatorname | Network/Studio in that field if you want to give more than one person/entity some initial credit.

Podcast Type

This is the big one. The one that is all too often missed by fiction podcasters. Chances are, you want to select Serial, not the default choice of Episodic. Episodic describes podcasts with formats like interviews, current events or news, or weekly gab-fests. With those shows—they make up the largest share of podcasts—it’s fine for a brand-new person to listen to the most recent episode.

But most fiction podcasts—yes, there are exceptions—presenting the most recent episode to a new listener makes for a bad listener experience. When you read a fictional story or start a new fictional series on TV, you start at the beginning, not the end. And certainly not at whatever the current episode is, right?

This is the tag that gives fiction podcasters like you some control over how your episodes are presented to your listeners. Serial. That’s the right answer for fiction podcasts that publish episodes that really should be listened to in a particular order.

Make your changes, then click the big blue Update Options button, and we can move on to the next bit. Yeah, we’re just getting started!

Settings > Feed

Now, let’s optimize your RSS feed settings. No, you will not have to look at your RSS feed, I promise. (Though, honestly, it’s pretty simple to read once you understand the structure. But that’s not important right now. Focus, Evo!) We have six more fields to optimize here: Apple Podcasts Summary, Podcast Website, Episode Link, Episode Number Limit, Episode Artwork Tag, and URL prefix.

Access these by selecting Settings > Feed from the left navigation bar.

Screenshot: Settings > Feed — Back to the left nav!

Apple Podcasts Summary

I’m somewhat surprised Podbean still includes this, as it populates an RSS feed tag that has been deprecated by Apple Podcasts. But because you probably abhor empty boxes as much as I do, copy and paste in the Brief Description you used in the Settings > General section above.

Everything else we need to optimize on this page is collapsed under Advanced Feed Settings. Click those words to expand it.

Hey! Now we’re getting somewhere! Let’s start at the top:

Podcast Website

OK, now this field is the actual field for your podcast’s website. Specifically, this is where you enter the URL of your website so it’s included in (and distributed with) your RSS feed. Many of today’s listening apps and podcast directories will place a clickable link with “show website” or something like that, encouraging listeners to click and get to your site.

If you have your own website—i.e. MyAmazingAudioFiction.show—enter the full address in this field, starting with https:// (or, less ideally, http://) to make a fully formed URL.

If you do not have a dedicated and separate website/page for your show, then I recommend letting Podbean generate a website for you. In which case, you’ll leave this as it currently is. (Though, really, you need your own domain name, at least. That’s my very strong opinion.)

Episode Link

More confusing choices, yay! Let me break down these two choices for you.

If you have your own fully functioning website and you create episode-specific pages on that website, then you’ll want to choose Custom Episode Link from the dropdown. That will allow you to enter the specific URL to the episode-specific page you made on your website for that episode when you publish a new episode on Podbean. We’ll get there soon enough. This just sets that up so that you can "attach" the specific URL of your website to the episode. We'll get there!

If you do not create episode-specific pages on your own fully functioning website, leave this as Podbean Episode Link.

Episode Number Limit

Here’s another setting from the early days of podcasting that needs to go away. Look, you probably do not want to limit the number of episodes people can listen to, right? Set this to an insanely high number, like 999. Or more, if they let you.

Episode Artwork Tag

If you make custom artwork for each of your episodes, change this to Use iTunes Image Tag, and then use them. We’ll get there. If you do not make custom artwork for each of your episodes, leave this as Not Set.

URL prefix

This isn’t really about optimizing, but I’m a huge fan of what OP3.dev is doing to “normalize” stats. My advice? Add https://op3.dev/e/ to this field.

We’re done with this section. Hit the big blue Update Options button (again), and let’s move on.

Episodes > Episode List

OK! We’ve done all the optimization at the “channel” level for your show and are set up to do further optimization at the episode level. Select Episodes > Episode List from the left nav bar.

We have nine fields to optimize on this page: Title, Description, Season NO., Episode NO., Episode Type, Summary, Author, Episode-Level Artwork, and Link in Feed.

Before making any changes to any specific episode, take a moment to look at the list of episodes you see on this page. You’ll see the 20 most recent episodes and can page forward, which you’ll probably want to do eventually. But for now, just look at the Title column for these episodes, and ask yourself some questions:

Do the story episodes look like they are all part of the same story?
If you have episode drops or promos for other shows, do those episodes look different from your “normal” episodes?
Does the trailer episode(s) clearly look like a trailer?
Do your season finale episodes clearly look like season finales?

The title of your episode is important, but it’s also important that everything looks like it belongs and is in the right place. If one looks odd to you, I can promise you it looks odd to potential listeners. Don’t do that.

Let’s click on an episode to go more into detail on how to optimize episode listings on Podbean.

Title

There are many schools of thought on how episode titles should be written, but I belong to the “most important things first” clan. That’s probably not the episode number. That’s probably not the title of your podcast. What’s important is what the content if that episode actually is. That could be as simple as Chapter 1. Or it might be The Plot To Steal Xmas or whatever nifty title you’d write if the episode were a blog post or article.

If you have extra things you want to add to your title, like Season 2 finale or Part 3 of 4, add those to the end of the title, as they are (probably) not the most important things.

Description

Each episode can—and should—have its own description. These are often called show notes in podcasting parlance, though I hate the term and prefer episode details, as that’s more representative of what this text should be. But I’ve been lobbying for that change since 2004, and I’ve gotten nowhere. Regardless, see item #8 in my previously mentioned article on some good ideas of what information you should put in this field for each of your episodes.

When you have that text in those fields the way you want it, click More Episode Settings at the bottom. Why they hide this incredibly important stuff is beyond me.

Lo and behold! More fields. And some that work exceptionally well for fiction podcasters who optimize them.

Season NO.

If you selected Serial as your Podcast Type, then Season YES, I say! Which means you’ll most likely want to use season numbers. Modern listening apps like Apple Podcasts and others use the Season tag to group episodes of a season together. So… use it. Only use non-negative, non-zero integers (e.g. 1, 2, 3…).

Episode NO.

Just to keep the joke going—Episode YES! Episode numbers work in conjunction with Season numbers. This field also only takes non-negative, non-zero integers, and they are used to determine the order in which episodes of a particular season should be displayed.

It is very possible that some of your episodes will not have an Episode number. You’ll see why next. Also, it’s best practice (though not a requirement) to restart your episode numbering with each new Season. For example, your first Season may have Episode numbers 1–10, and your second Season might also have Episode numbers 1–10. That’s fine, because the Episode number works in conjunction with the Season number.

Episode type

Most of your episodes will be tagged as Full and get a sequential number in the Episode NO. field. In fact, that’s a good rule—if an episode of your show is NOT to be missed, mark it as Full and give the correct Episode number so it displays in the proper order.

Got an episode drop or a special announcement episode in your feed that isn’t part of the story? Then it is most likely a Bonus episode. Bonus episodes are just that—extra content that a new listener doesn’t have to listen to enjoy the continuing arc of your story. Some apps, like Apple Podcasts, will segregate most (but not all) Bonus episodes to the bottom of a season or series. Keep in mind that caught-up listeners—those who eagerly download and listen to your latest episode as soon as it comes out—will hear your Bonus episodes as you add them. The segregation I spoke of is really for people who are “behind” listening, if you will. Or bingers (like me). So you don’t need to worry that your Bonus episode won’t be heard by your most rabid fans. It will be! But for people who come in a month (or years) later, those Bonus episodes won’t be speedbumps in their (our) listening.

Bonus episodes can be numbered, but only if the Bonus episode is a Bonus episode for a specific Full episode. For example, let’s say that you had a guest actor on an episode, and you decided to do an interview with them. If you think it’s important for your listeners—current and future—to hear that conversation, give that Bonus episode the same Season and Episode number as the Full episode the actor appeared in. That will cause your Bonus episode to show up after the Full episode, at least in the modern apps that respect those tags.

Trailer is the other type, and it’s most often used like trailers are used in the movies, but can also be used to denote “sample” content. When you tag an episode as a Trailer, modern apps will elevate that episode to be the first thing a brand-new listener hears—sometimes even before they decide to follow or subscribe. And, if you use multiple seasons and you make a new trailer for each season, you’ll want to add the Season number to your Trailer episodes as well.

Like Bonus episodes, Trailer episodes can be numbered, but that’s unusual. I’ve seen some audio fiction creators put out Trailer episodes for a delayed-but-soon-to-be-released episode as a sort of teaser. The same rule applies: use the same Episode number as the Full episode that Trailer is about. (Pro tip: Episodes like that are only meaningful for people who are waiting on the next episode. Once it publishes, I think you should delete the numbered Trailer episode.)

Summary

Another deprecated tag from the ye olde days. Leave it blank.

Author

This should auto-fill with whatever you have entered at the “channel” level. You probably will never change it for a particular episode, but you might. Episode drops are one example. Go for it!

Episode-level Artwork

If you look to the right side of the page, you’ll probably see your show artwork. Remember when we told Podbean whether or not we had episode-specific custom artwork? This is where you load it. Follow the sizing guidelines on the page, and try to keep the “weight” to under 500 KB.

Link in RSS Feed

If you have a custom website and you make episode-specific pages with things like your extended episode details, transcript, cast and crew credits, fan art, or other nifty things specific to each episode, this is the spot where you connect the URL of that page on your website to your RSS feed, so that listeners are taken to your website and not Podbean’s when they click on “more information about this episode,” or whatever they app calls the link.

This also gives you a nifty SEO boost, as you’ll have a bunch of links from Podbean pointing to your website. Nice, huh?

That’s all the important stuff on the Episode list page. Click Update if you made changes, and then do this all over again. Yes, for every single episode. Sorry.

Distribution > Podcast Apps

You’re probably tempted to click Podcast Website next, but hold that thought! We need a few more things in place before we get there. We’ll start by clicking Distribution > Podcast Apps.

The apps that display on this page are the apps that will be presented to website visitors to your generated podcast website… but only if you fill them out. Which ones should you fill out? All of them, of course. Why not? People listen on lots of different platforms. Why not be everywhere? It only takes a moment to submit a show. Do it. All of them. And, while you're at it, here's a bunch more you should also submit your show to. You’re welcome.

If you have a custom website and don’t use Podbean’s auto-generated page, you can safely skip this.

OK, now you can click Distribution > Podcast Website on your left nav bar. I know you’ve been dying to.

Distribution > Podcast Website

Look for the green oval with Actions in it and click it to expand it:

If you have your own domain name or website, select Own Domain. Follow those instructions and ignore everything else I write in this section. It ain’t for you!

If you’re using Podbean’s automatically generated website, select Pages, and I’ll walk you through a few things.

Podbean, like a lot of other podcast hosting services, will allow you to create additional pages on your generated website. I strongly suggest you at least add a “Contact Us” page where you list out your show’s email address and other ways people can contact you. I’d also add an “About Us” page that details who’s involved in the production. Just you? Cool. Drop in your pic and bio. Got a full cast? Showcase them. Want to give credit to your engineer, your social media person, your casting agent, or your mom? This is the place to do that. It’s a blank screen, but you’ll figure it out. You’re creative, right?

When that’s done, you can then click on Customize. Now, I’m not a designer, so feel free to do things here that look right to you.

The one thing I want you to do is this: While you’re editing your page, scroll down to the episode list. Now scroll down past that list. Click the blue + circle and add a Title section. And in that, write up all the things that are “missing”. Like social properties you frequent. Like your show’s email address. Like your Patreon/BMAC/Ko-fi link. Those things.

‍

That’s it! You have now fully optimized your fiction podcast's Podbean account. Nicely done! It'll take a few hours (or days, sometimes) for your changes to be fully distributed. You should see changes to your website immediately, obviously. And, depending on how drastic your changes were, you may hear from some users about repeat downloads, which means you'll see a temporary spike in downloads. That will soon settle down. You did good work!

Special thanks to Willow Grace, creator of The Willow Haven Catalogue, for granting me access to her Podbean account, letting me poke around, and being the first one to implement optimization techniques!

If you’re a fiction podcast creator and you found value in this post, don’t keep it to yourself! I wrote it so that all fiction podcasters who use Podbean as their hosting platform can present their show and episodes in the best way possible. Share it with your fellow creators.

I've also written a "how to" guide like this for Buzzsprout, and I’m working on other guides for other popular hosting platforms, so stay tuned and I’ll probably get to your hosting provider very soon. You can always email me and lobby me to get to yours quicker. If you sign up to become an Individual Supporter or Supporting Creative Shop, I’ll bump you to the head of the line!

If you work for a hosting company, I’d love to chat with you about making it easier for fiction podcasters to use your platform. They have some pretty specific needs that, as you can see, can get a little obfuscated. I’m happy to consult with you on better serving those needs.

And if this is your first time experiencing me and The End; welcome! My focus is on helping listeners find more fiction podcasts they can enjoy on their schedule. Please subscribe to the weekly newsletter so you always know what fiction podcasts have reached the end of a season, have a new season coming soon, or have reached the conclusion of the entire series. It’s what we do around here!

- Evo

How To Optimize RedCircle For Your Fiction Podcast

August 28, 2024

Everything you need to know about optimizing your RedCircle account so your fiction podcast shines to the world!

RedCircle is arguably one of the better free podcast hosting choices for a fiction podcaster. A quick scan of our database on The End shows that about 4% of the shows we’ve listed use RedCircle as their hosting provider. There are, as you might imagine, some limits on what you can do with their free tier.

But does RedCircle make a good place for fiction podcasters to call home? It can be, but due to the quirks of fiction podcasting vs “normal” podcasts, some tweaks need to be made to optimize RedCircle for fiction podcasters. And some of those tweaks will require a more advanced tier to activate.

In the subsequent sections of this article, I’ll break down how to optimize your RedCircle account on a page-by-page, field-by-field level. I'll use the exact name of the fields and even include a cropped screenshot of each to help make things as clear as possible. But please note that I’ll only offer advice/opinions/directions for the fields that need optimization. If I don’t have anything to say about a field, that doesn’t mean the field isn’t important. It probably is! It’s just not something that needs to be optimized. With that, let’s get started!

All Podcasts > [Your Podcast Title]

Start this process by logging into your RedCircle account. Once you are in, you’ll see a good overview of your podcast on this page, with several grey boxes of options. But the place we want to start is hidden in the ellipsis on the upper right-hand corner of your page:

Click that, and then choose Podcast Settings from the drop down menu:

Now we’re getting somewhere. There are ten tags we’ll optimize on this page: NAME, DESCRIPTION, PRIMARY CATEGORY, SECONDARY CATEGORIES (OPTIONAL), CONTACT EMAIL, AUTHOR NAME, SUBTITLE, APPLE SUMMARY, EPISODIC VS. SERIAL, and EXTERNAL LINK.

NAME

This is the title of your fiction podcast, obviously. Some creators like to add “Audio drama” and stuff like that, but I say do that only if you need it. And remember, you don’t need to add “podcast” (probably) to the name of your show.

DESCRIPTION

The words entered here are used both for the description that appears on your RedCircle-generated website as well as the description that is distributed to various podcast listening platforms and directories. Note: podcast listening apps and directories search through the show description text when returning search results. Is it important? Yes. Very. And it’s probably something you should revisit on a regular basis as your show grows.

You have up to 4,000 characters to work with when you write your description. I included some tips on crafting a great fiction podcast description in this article. It’s item #3.

PRIMARY CATEGORY

My strong recommendation: Unless you have a very good reason not to, the entry in this field should be Fiction or Fiction > [Comedy, Drama, or Science Fiction]. Don’t get me started on how dumb it is to limit fiction podcasts to just those three subcategories. It aggravates me too, but as Sigourney Weaver’s character told us in Cabin In The Woods, we work with what we have.

SECONDARY CATEGORIES (OPTIONAL)

You can choose up to two more categories/subcategories for your fiction podcast. Choose whatever makes sense based on the contents of your fiction podcast. I’ve seen fiction podcasters also categorize their shows as Arts > Performing Arts, Arts > Books, Comedy > [subcategories], History, Leisure, Kids & Family, and many others. Whatever makes sense for the story(ies) you’re telling in your fiction podcast.

CONTACT EMAIL

Make sure the email address here is one you don’t mind giving out and is one you check. Regularly. My advice: create a show-specific email address, something like “myamazingfictionpodcast@gmail.com,” and forward that inbox so that all mail to it routes to your personal email address. Now you won’t miss any important updates, and no one has your personal email address. Sweet!

AUTHOR NAME

The contents of this field are displayed prominently along with your show’s title and artwork in most directories and apps, so make sure it says what you want it to say! Repeating the name of your show here is rather pointless and, at the risk of repeating myself, repetitive. Using only the name of a production company won’t give you or other creators any branding. But you can enter something like Creator Name | Other Creator Name | Network/Studio in that field if you want to give more than one person/entity some credit.

There’s more to do in this section, but our next group of tags is hidden behind the Advanced Settings link. Click it.

Hey! Look! More fields to tweak.

SUBTITLE & APPLE SUMMARY

Let’s deal with both of these together. Whatever you have in here—delete it. These tags have both been deprecated, so they serve no purpose. Delete them. You’re welcome.

EPISODIC VS. SERIAL

This is the big one. The one that is all too often missed by fiction podcasters. Chances are, you want Serial as your feed type, not Episodic. Episodic describes podcasts with formats like interviews, current events or news, or weekly gab-fests. With those shows—they make up the largest share of podcasts—it’s fine for a brand-new person to listen to the most recent episode.

But most fiction podcasts—yes, there are exceptions—presenting the most recent episode to a new listener makes for a bad listener experience. When you read a fictional story or start a new fictional series on TV, you start at the beginning, not the end. And certainly not at whatever the current episode is, right?

Changing your feed type to Serial gives fiction podcasters like you some control over how your episodes are presented to your listeners. Serial. That’s the right answer for fiction podcasts that publish episodes that really should be listened to in a particular order.

EXTERNAL LINK

This field is poorly named and doesn’t quite function the way it should out of the box. But we can get it there.

In most hosting platforms, this is where you enter the URL of your show’s website so it’s included in (and distributed with) the RSS feed. Many of today’s listening apps and podcast directories will place a clickable link with “show website” or something like that, encouraging listeners to click and get to your site.

If you have your own website—i.e. MyAmazingAudioFiction.show—enter the full address in this field, starting with https:// (or, less ideally, http://) to make a fully formed URL.

But there’s an extra step to get this working in RedCircle! In order to get the external link to actually update in your RSS feed, you have to email contact@redcircle.com and ask them to pretty please, with sugar on top, update your RSS feed to include this new external link in your RSS feed. If you don’t do that, then the link in your RSS feed won’t be to your custom website, but to the generated webpage RedCircle makes for all of their customers. Which you don’t want if you have your own custom website. It won’t take them long to make the change, I’ve been assured.

If you do not have a dedicated and separate website/page for your show, then I recommend letting RedCircle generate a website for you. In which case, you’ll leave this as it currently is. (Though, really, you need your own domain name, at least. That’s my very strong opinion.)

OK! That’s it for this section. Hit the red Save button, and let’s move on.

Episodes

The rest of the work we’re going to do to get your RedCircle account up to snuff is all in the Episode section. Click that big grey box, and let’s dive in.

You should now see a list of your previously published episodes in reverse chronological order. Before making any changes to any specific episode, take a moment to look at the list of episodes you see on this page. Specifically, I want you to focus just on the Titles of your episodes, and ask yourself some questions:

Do the story episodes look like they are all part of the same story?
If you see episode drops or promos, do they look different from your “normal” episodes?
Does the trailer episode(s) clearly look like a trailer?
Are any bonus episodes clearly tagged and named so they look like bonus episodes?
Do your season finales clearly look like season finales?

The text used for the title of your episodes are important, but it’s also important that every episode looks like it belongs, is in the right place/order, and is properly tagged. If an episode looks odd to you in this view, I can promise you it looks odd to potential listeners when it hits their listening app. And you don’t want that.

We’ll make changes to your Titles (and more) one by one, so start by clicking the ellipsis to the right of any episode and then choosing the Edit Episode option

We have eight fields to optimize on this page: TITLE, DESCRIPTION, EPISODE ARTWORK, SUBTITLE, EXTERNAL WEBSITE, EPISODE NUMBER, SEASON, and EPISODE TYPE.

TITLE

There are many schools of thought on how episode titles should be written, but I belong to the “most important things first” clan. That’s probably not the episode number. That’s probably not the title of your podcast. What’s important is what the content if that episode actually is. That could be as simple as Chapter 1. Or it might be The Plot To Steal Xmas or whatever nifty title you’d write if the episode were a blog post or article.

If you have extra things you want to add to your title, like Season 2 finale or Part 3 of 4, add those to the end of the title, as they are (probably) not the most important things.

DESCRIPTION

Each episode can—and should—have its own description. These are often called show notes in podcasting parlance, though I hate the term and prefer episode details, as that’s more representative of what this text should be. But I’ve been lobbying for that change since 2004, and I’ve gotten nowhere. Regardless, see item #8 in my previously mentioned article on some good ideas of what information you should put in this field for each of your episodes.

EPISODE ARTWORK

If you make custom artwork for each of your episodes, this is where you upload them for each episode. By default, your show-level artwork displays. It’s up to you to decide if you want to do it or not. Some of the most podcast apps are showing them, however. I like it.

If you decide to create them, follow the sizing guidelines on the page, and try to keep the “weight” to under 500 KB.

Huh. That was easy. No, wait! There are more things we need to look at, and they’re once again hidden behind a More Options link:

That’s more like it!

SUBTITLE

Remember how I suggested you wipe out the SUBTITLE field in the prior section? Surprise! I’m suggesting you wipe this one out as well. It’s just not used anywhere.

EXTERNAL WEBSITE

Another poorly named field. I’d be a lot happier if this were EPISODE WEBPAGE. But hey, choosing beggars and all.

If you have a custom website and you make episode-specific pages with things like your extended episode details, transcript, cast and crew credits, fan art, or other nifty things specific to each episode, this is the spot where you connect the URL of that page on your website to your RSS feed, so that listeners are taken to your website and not RedCircle’s when they click on “more information about this episode,” or whatever they app calls the link.

This also gives you a nifty SEO boost, as you’ll have a bunch of links from RedCircle pointing to your website. Nice, huh?

APPLE SUMMARY

Deprecated and worthless. Delete anything you have in here. Or keep it in. Whatever. It’s not doing anything.

EPISODE NUMBER

While I wish they listed SEASON first, but see my prior referenced Sigourney Weaver quote.

EPISODE NUMBERs work in conjunction with Season numbers. This field also only takes non-negative, non-zero integers, and they are used to determine the order in which episodes of a particular season should be displayed.

It is very possible that some of your episodes will not have an Episode number. You’ll see why soon enough. Also, it’s best practice (though not a requirement) to restart your episode numbering with each new Season. For example, your first Season may have Episode numbers 1–10, and your second Season might also have Episode numbers 1–10. That’s fine, because the Episode number combines with the Season number (e.g.S2E1, so there won’t be any duplicates.

SEASON

If you changed a setting earlier from Episodic to Serial, then you’ll most likely want to use season numbers. Modern listening apps like Apple Podcasts and others use the Season tag to group episodes of a season together. So… use it. Only use non-negative, non-zero integers (e.g. 1, 2, 3…).

And now you see why I wanted to see SEASON listed before EPISODE NUMBER. But I’ll live.

EPISODE TYPE

Most of your episodes will be tagged as Full and get a sequential number in the EPISODE NUMBER field. In fact, that’s a good rule—if an episode of your show is NOT to be missed, mark it as Full and give the correct Episode number so it displays in the proper order.

Got an episode drop or a special announcement episode in your feed that isn’t part of the story? Then it is most likely a Bonus episode. Bonus episodes are just that—extra content that a new listener doesn’t have to listen to enjoy the continuing arc of your story. Some apps, like Apple Podcasts, will segregate most (but not all) Bonus episodes to the bottom of a season or series. Keep in mind that caught-up listeners—those who eagerly download and listen to your latest episode as soon as it comes out—will hear your Bonus episodes as you add them. The segregation I spoke of is really for people who are “behind” listening, if you will. Or bingers (like me). So you don’t need to worry that your Bonus episode won’t be heard by your most rabid fans. It will be! But for people who come in a month (or years) later, those Bonus episodes won’t be speedbumps in their (our) listening.

Bonus episodes can be numbered, but only if the Bonus episode is a Bonus episode for a specific Full episode. For example, let’s say that you had a guest actor on an episode, and you decided to do an interview with them. If you think it’s important for your listeners—current and future—to hear that conversation, give that Bonus episode the same Season and Episode number as the Full episode the actor appeared in. That will cause your Bonus episode to show up after the Full episode, at least in the modern apps that respect those tags.

Trailer is the other type, and it’s most often used like trailers are used in the movies, but can also be used to denote “sample” content. When you tag an episode as a Trailer, modern apps will elevate that episode to be the first thing a brand-new listener hears—sometimes even before they decide to follow or subscribe. And, if you use multiple seasons and you make a new trailer for each season, you’ll want to add the Season number to your Trailer episodes as well.

One key point about Trailers: None of them should be required listening. Once a person is following your show in a podcast app, the trailer episodes will not (or at least should not) play during binge-listening sessions.

Like Bonus episodes, Trailer episodes can be numbered, but that’s unusual. I’ve seen some audio fiction creators put out Trailer episodes for a delayed-but-soon-to-be-released episode as a sort of teaser. The same rule applies: use the same Episode number as the Full episode that Trailer is about. (Pro tip: Episodes like that are only meaningful for people who are waiting on the next episode. Once it publishes, I think you should delete the numbered Trailer episode.)

When you have all of that done, hit the big red Update button if you made any changes, and then do this all over again. Yes, for every single episode. Sorry.

Next, we’ll check to see how far and wide your fiction podcast has been distributed.

Distribution

Click the big grey box with the same name:

Your goal here is to see DISTRIBUTION CONFIRMED on all of these choices. If you don’t, you’re missing potential listeners. These are the apps that will be displayed on your generated podcast website… but only if you fill them out. Which ones should you fill out? All of them, of course. Why not? People listen on lots of different platforms. Why not be everywhere?

And, while you're at it, here are a bunch more locations you should also submit your show to. Full coverage everywhere and anywhere someone listens to podcasts is what you want. This is how you do it.

That’s it! You have now fully optimized your fiction podcast's RedCircle account. Nicely done! It'll take a few hours (or days, sometimes) for your changes to be fully distributed. You should see changes to your website immediately, obviously. And, depending on how drastic your changes were, you may hear from some users about repeat downloads, which means you'll see a temporary spike in downloads. That will soon settle down. You did good work!

Special thanks to W. Keith Tims, creator of The Book of Constellations, for granting me access to his RedCircle account, letting me poke around, and being the first one to implement optimization techniques!

If you’re a fiction podcast creator and you found value in this post, don’t keep it to yourself! I wrote it so that all fiction podcasters who use RedCircle as their hosting platform can present their show and episodes in the best way possible. Share it with your fellow creators.

I’m working on other guides for other popular hosting platforms, so stay tuned, and I’ll probably get to your hosting provider very soon. You can always email me and lobby me to get to yours quicker. If you sign up to become an Individual Supporter or Supporting Creative Shop, I’ll bump you to the head of the line!

If you work for a hosting company, I’d love to chat with you about making it easier for fiction podcasters to use your platform. They have some pretty specific needs that, as you can see, can get a little obfuscated. I’m happy to consult with you on better serving those needs.

And if this is your first time experiencing me and The End; welcome! My focus is on helping listeners find more fiction podcasts they can enjoy on their schedule. Please subscribe to the weekly newsletter so you always know what fiction podcasts have reached the end of a season, have a new season coming soon, or have reached the conclusion of the entire series. It’s what we do around here!

- Evo

Best Audio Fiction Shows Completed In June 2024

July 3, 2024

My favorite fiction podcasts, audio dramas, audiobooks, or audio theatre—that reached a season finale or the series conclusion in June of 2024.

It’s once again time for me to do a rundown of what I think are the best audio fiction shows that were completed in June of 2024. As is always the case with these monthly-best-of articles, I use the word “completed” to refer to shows that have reached either a season finale or a series conclusion last month. If you’re like me and prefer to “binge” or “mainline” your audio fiction and are looking for something new, this list is for you. Let’s do this.

Looking at our database—which is almost exclusively based on submissions from fiction podcast creators—I see that a total of 27 shows posted either a season finale or the series conclusion sometime in June 2024. Is that a lot? Well, compare it to the 95 shows that started posting episodes in June, as compiled by The Cambridge Geek and added to the database at AudioFiction.Co.Uk. This article makes a nice book-end to that.

But that’s a delta of nearly 4x. Shouldn’t finishes be roughly the same as starts in any given month? No, not really, and my money as to the reason why is on one simple thing, and it’s the simple thing that led me to create The End in the first place—starting an audio fiction project is relatively simple compared to finishing one. Podfading is real, and though I don’t have the data to back this up (yet), it seems logical that it’s even more prevalent when it comes to making audio drama. Because even though I am not an audio fiction creator, I’ve produced podcasts since 2004 and have helped hundreds of creators bring their audio fiction to life, so I do know that that shit is hard. Like, really hard.

So I want to start by saying congrats to the creators who reached a season finale or the series conclusion last month. You hit a milestone that, if the data here is to be considered representative, most do not. My hat’s off to you.

Now, for fans of audio fiction like me, let’s get into the cream of the crop, shall we? And I'm not going to write this like a recipe post. I'm just going to give you the pertinent info. You decide what to investigate further. Click on the title/image for more info on where you can listen, visit the show’s website, or play some sample audio trailer. That's enough to get you started, I reckon. Oh, and I present these in no particular order. I enjoyed each of them immensely.

Evo's Picks for the Best Audio Fiction Tales Completed in June 2024

Best Completed Audio Fiction Shows for May 2024

June 3, 2024

My favorite fiction podcasts, audio dramas, audiobooks, or audio theatre—that reached a season finale or the series conclusion in May of 2024.

It’s once again time for me to do a rundown of what I think are the best audio fiction shows that were completed in May of 2024. As is always the case with these monthly-best-of articles, I use the word “completed” to refer to shows that have reached either a season finale or a series conclusion last month. If you’re like me and prefer to “binge” or “mainline” your audio fiction and are looking for something new, this list is for you. Let’s do this.

Looking at our database—which is almost exclusively based on submissions from fiction podcast creators—I see that a total of 27 shows posted either a season finale or the series conclusion sometime in May 2024. Is that a lot? Well, compare it to the 103 shows that started posting episodes in May, as compiled by The Cambridge Geek. This article makes a nice book-end to that.

But that’s a delta of nearly 4x. Shouldn’t finishes be roughly the same as starts in any given month? No, not really, and my money as to the reason why is on one simple thing, and it’s the simple thing that led me to create The End in the first place—starting an audio fiction project is relatively simple compared to finishing one. Podfading is real, and though I don’t have the data to back this up (yet), it seems logical that it’s even more prevalent when it comes to making audio drama. Because even though I am not an audio fiction creator, I’ve produced podcasts since 2004 and have helped hundreds of creators bring their audio fiction to life, so I do know that that shit is hard. Like, really hard.

So I want to start by saying congrats to the creators who reached a season finale or the series conclusion last month. You hit a milestone that, if the data here is to be considered representative, most do not. My hat’s off to you.

Now, for fans of audio fiction like me, let’s get into the cream of the crop, shall we? And I'm not going to write this like a recipe post. I'm just going to give you the pertinent info. You decide what to investigate further. Click on the title/image for more info on where you can listen, visit the show’s website, or play some sample audio trailer. That's enough to get you started, I reckon. Oh, and I present these in no particular order. I enjoyed each of them immensely.

Evo's Picks for the Best Audio Fiction Tales Completed in May 2024

Best Completed Audio Fiction Shows for March 2024

May 27, 2024

My favorite fiction podcasts, audio dramas, audiobooks, or audio theatre—that reached a season finale or the series conclusion in March of 2024.

It’s once again time for me to do a rundown of what I think are the best audio fiction shows that were completed in March of 2024. As is always the case with these monthly-best-of articles, I use the word “completed” to refer to shows that have reached either a season finale or a series conclusion last month. If you’re like me and prefer to “binge” or “mainline” your audio fiction and are looking for something new, this list is for you. Let’s do this.

Looking at our database—which is almost exclusively based on submissions from fiction podcast creators—I see that a total of 24 shows posted either a season finale or the series conclusion sometime in March 2024. Is that a lot? Well, compare it to the 112 shows that started posting episodes in March, as compiled by The Cambridge Geek. This article makes a nice book-end to that.

But that’s a delta of nearly 5x. Shouldn’t finishes be roughly the same as starts in any given month? No, not really, and my money as to the reason why is on one simple thing, and it’s the simple thing that led me to create The End in the first place—starting an audio fiction project is relatively simple compared to finishing one. Podfading is real, and though I don’t have the data to back this up (yet), it seems logical that it’s even more prevalent when it comes to making audio drama. Because even though I am not an audio fiction creator, I’ve produced podcast since 2004 and have helped hundreds of creators bring their audio fiction to life, so I do know that that shit is hard. Like, really hard.

So I want to start by saying congrats to the creators who reached a season finale or the series conclusion last month. You hit a milestone that, if the data here is to be considered representative, most do not. My hat’s off to you.

Now, for fans of audio fiction like me, let’s get into the cream of the crop, shall we? And I'm not going to write this like a recipe post. I'm just going to give you the pertinent info. You decide what to investigate further. Click on the title/image for more info on where you can listen, visit the show’s website, or play some sample audio trailer. That's enough to get you started, I reckon. Oh, and I present these in no particular order. I enjoyed each of them immensely.

Evo's Picks for the Best Audio Fiction Tales Completed in March 2024

Choosing the Best Fiction Podcast App: A Guide for New Listeners

May 12, 2024

Listening to fiction podcasts is great! But finding a podcast listening app that does a great job of presenting fiction podcasts is downright hard. Luckily, you have some excellent choices that work great and ensure your listening experience is as fantastic as the stories you want to hear.

Last month, I dropped a bomb on the podcast app developer community with my article entitled Unlocking the Potential of Fiction Podcasts: A Call to Podcast App Developers, where I spent some 5,000+ words illustrating what key features fiction podcast listeners need from app developers to improve the listening experience, especially for people new to podcasting who start off listening to a fiction podcast and not a standard episodic podcast.

I expected a lot of pushback, but I instead received several compliments on my in-depth research. And three different developers reached out to me directly, all vowing to take my suggestions to heart an include them in a future build. Hooray!

This month, I’m again taking pen to paper (read: fingers to keyboard) on the same topic, but with a different target audience: You, the fiction podcast listener. And more specifically—you, the fiction podcast listener who is very new to podcasting. My intent with this article is to tell you, very clearly, which podcast listening app is best for you as of right now, May 2024.

Disclaimers, or Please Don’t Send Me Hate Mail

Because this article is for listeners more than it is for developers, I’m focusing just on the key attributes that matter the most to the overall listening experience. Yes, many apps do some amazing things. But this article isn’t about bells, whistles, or new features—it’s only about the fiction podcast listening experience. As such, my rubric is slightly different this time, as I’m keying on the following:

Does the app respect the serial tag, and does it group episodes by Season number? This is the cost of entry to be in this consideration set. Present episodes in sequential order, and if Season number tags are present, group them by seasons. I’ve included every app that does so—all seven of them—in my list. And I’ve ignored the rest.
Does the app sort by Episode number? Apps should do this. Most do not.
Does the app display the Season numbers and Episode numbers? These visual cues are very helpful, especially when considering the preceding bullet.
Does the app move “extra” episodes out of the way? Trailer and Bonus episodes are great, but when mainlining a show, they’re speedbumps that negatively impact the listening experience.

Also, a note to listeners who are already in love with their chosen listening app, who perhaps hundreds of shows in their library, who have spent a lot of time tweaking the settings of their preferred app to get it fined-tuned just the way they want—this article is not for you. You’re fine using what you have. Though, if you want to see how much of that you didn’t need to do (at least for fiction podcast listening), read on.

One final nota bene before I get started—I do not own an Android phone. I only own an iPhone, so you will only see apps on this list for iOS. If that causes you strife, 🤷‍♂️.

The Graphs

Here’s a full view of just the apps mentioned in this article, with all attributes displayed:

A very wide chart that isn't necessary to read because I go into detail in the text. You're good! — Fig 1 - Seven podcast listening apps compared

Yes, that’s quite small. But you need not focus on it, because in the sections below, I’ll go into detail on each app, highlighting which of those attributes it does well and where it falls short. Again, viewed from the perspective of a person quite new to fiction podcast listening.

Here’s a view zoomed in on just the most important stuff:

A simpler chart that shows the rankings and high-level attributes for each. Again, I go into this in detail in the text below. — Fig 2 - Focusing in just on what's important

Oh, that’s better. As you can see, I’ve sorted the attributes by importance scale, moving from left to right. If an app nails a listed attribute, it gets a score of zero and a green background. Total misses get a score of 2 and a red background. And the ones that kinda-sorta get it right have a score of 1 and have a yellow background. I do some math, then come up with the overall score as a percentage, and then sort the seven apps with the best on top.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

Certified Fiction Podcast Friendly Listening Apps

I struggled for way too long trying to come up with clever names for these groupings. In the end (heh), I settled on clarity over cleverness and went with the classic Good, Better, and Best. Or Best, Better, and Good in this case. But you know what I mean.

Best App for Listening to Fiction Podcasts

The best podcast-listening app for fiction podcasts is Apple Podcasts.

Surprise! This free iOS-only podcast-listening app nails the most important things for fiction podcast listening: Episodes are grouped and sorted by Season and Episode numbers, Bonus and Trailer episodes are moved out of the story flow for uninterrupted listening, and the app assures the listener they are, in fact, listening in the correct order, because it displays that (those?) metadata unambiguously. Hate on Apple all you want, but you won’t find another app on this list—at least not yet—that hits all the required marks for a fantastic listening-to-fiction-podcasts experience.

But while Apple Podcasts gets all green marks in the zoomed graph above, the longer graph shows some additional opportunities to make the app even better. Like allowing for one-click downloads of entire seasons or the entire show. Yes, there are device storage issues to consider when trying to download all seasons of We’re Alive. I understand. Yes, wifi and wireless networks are almost everywhere. But drops happen. Airplanes without wifi happen. Enabling a one-click download of an entire fiction podcast on my device means I can keep listening regardless of connectivity. Hint, hint, Ted.

Better Apps for Listening to Fiction Podcasts

I’m stoked that a Podcasting 2.0-enabled app is so high on the list! That app is Podverse, a free iOS, Android, and web app that groups and sorts episodes by Season and Episode numbers, and moves Bonus and Trailer episodes out of the listening-next flow. But it doesn’t display Season/Episode number data to users, which impacts confidence that the listener is actually listening to the correct episode. Creators aren’t infallible, and visual cues can help the listener understand when something is amiss.

Beyond that, I’d like to see Podverse do a better job of formatting the show description. This shouldn’t be too hard for them, as they do an excellent job of preserving the formatting of episode descriptions (aka “show notes”). The app also fails to link to the show’s website, doesn’t tend to recommend other fiction podcasts, and lacks one-click download options.

Next up is an app that only includes fiction podcasts: Apollo. This free iOS and Android app relies heavily on their own human curation to group and sort episodes by Season/Episode number, and to move Bonus and Trailer episodes out of the story flow. While it doesn’t display the Season or Episode numbers, Apollo’s reliance on human curation and manual sorting/filtering is a good proxy—but only if it’s been applied to the show you want to listen to. But it does an excellent job of recommending other fiction podcasts simply because only fiction podcasts are in the app!

Some other attributes not in my main consideration set are worth mentioning. Apollo doesn’t do a good job of preserving the formatting of the show description or episode details. Nor does it provide out-of-app links, either to the show website or a webpage for any episode. Apollo doesn’t allow for one-click downloads, and it doesn’t display episode-level artwork if it’s available.

Good Apps for Listening to Fiction Podcasts

In fourth place from my rubric is Pocket Casts, a free iOS and Android app that groups episodes by Season number, but fails to override the in-feed order by using the included Episode Numbers. It leaves Bonus and Trailer episodes where they appear in the feed, which interrupts binge-listening, as the app presents all episodes in historical feed order. So the “Sorry for our delay” episode published in 2019 still appears between episodes 9 and 10 five years later for no good reason. Pocket Casts does, however, show the Season and Episode numbers, which helps assure the listener they are, in fact, listening to the story itself in the correct order.

Additionally, Pocket Casts preserves the formatting of both show descriptions and episode details, which is quite nice to see. And best of all, a single click is all it takes to download all the episodes of a fiction podcast. No worry about dropped coverage! However, there isn’t an off-app link to the podcast website or the webpage for a single episode, episode-level artwork isn’t shown, and it doesn’t do a great job of recommending more fiction podcasts.

Another Podcasting 2.0-enabled app is in fifth place—Podfriend. It’s a free web app that groups episodes by Season number and moves Trailer episodes out of the story flow, but listeners will still find Bonus episodes interrupting their listening, as the app presents all episodes in feed order. It does not display either the Season or Episode numbers either.

Additionally, while Podfriend does preserve the formatting of episode details, it doesn’t do that for the show description, which is odd. Conversely, it does provide an off-app link to the show website but not to the episode webpage. It doesn’t offer one-click downloads, and it’s not that great at recommending other fiction podcasts.

Listening Apps That Group By Season… But Not Much Else Fiction Podcast Listeners Need

Lastly, in a tie for sixth place are Goodpods and Amazon Music. Both are free iOS and Android apps that do group episodes by Season numbers… but that’s the only reason they made my list at all. Again, that was the table stakes (stake?). With either app, listeners will still find Trailer and Bonus episodes interrupting their listening, as the app presents all episodes in feed order. Neither display Season or Episode numbers to listeners.

However, both will display episode-level artwork if it’s present, and Amazon Music does a good job of recommending other fiction podcasts. But formatting, off-app links, and one-click download options aren’t available on either.

Reality Check: The App Space is Dynamic

Recall at the top of this article when I said a few developers have reached out to me. Respecting that, I’ll revisit this article as I learn of—and verify—upgrades that make these apps and the ones I didn’t mention much better for fiction podcasters.

But I’m not waiting. In fact, I’ve just re-formatted the show pages on The End to suggest these apps to my readers, with this nifty little design for the Certified Fiction Podcast Friendly badge:

I’m no designer, but I kinda like it. At least well enough until a real designer offers up their services. 😉

I’ll continue to make it easy to find a show in every app I can, but I’m done carrying water for apps that just don’t do a great job at presenting fiction podcasts to their users.

As with all things in life, your mileage may vary.

Happy listening!

- Evo

Unlocking the Potential of Fiction Podcasts: A Call to Podcast App Developers

April 14, 2024

Fiction podcasts are… weird. In this world, back-catalog downloads are de rigueur, average episode consumption rates approach 100%, and conversion rates are off the charts. But fiction podcasters are grossly underserved by most, if not all, podcast-listening apps. With a few tweaks, podcast app developers could win over a fiercely loyal audience who love to share.

It wasn’t always the case, but the first-time listener experience for audiobooks today is quite good. Install the Audible app—or substitute any audiobook app of your liking—on your mobile device, choose a book, and start listening from chapter one. Yes, I’m glossing over the “sign up for an account and pay” necessary steps, but that’s all integrated into the onboarding. If you don’t listen much to audiobooks, you’ll have to take me at my word—it is dead simple to do so.

Compare that to the first-time listener experience for fiction podcasts, which is quite bad, if I’m being brutally honest. Install a podcast-listening app—or choose the one that is already on your phone, possibly one you play music with or maybe watch videos in?—and choose a fiction podcast. No, not just any podcast. A fiction podcast. Yeah. You gotta hunt for those. That’s OK. I’ll wait. Found one? Cool! Follow it, or subscribe to it, whatever the app calls it, as the terms are synonymous in podcasting. Why do you have to follow or subscribe instead of “start listening?” Because that’s how podcasts work. Don’t fret. You’ve followed one? Excellent. Now start listening to the show. No, wait! Not that episode. That’s the most recent episode that was posted for the show. Or it’s the first episode of the third season, and you haven’t listened to seasons one or two yet. Confused? Fixing it is easy. Go into your settings and change the sort order. Again, don’t fret. That’s just how podcasts work! You’ll get used to it. What’s that? You say you’re hearing an episode of a completely different show now? Ah. We call those episode drops. It’s from 2017, you say? Yeah, well… you can always skip it. And now you’re hearing the creators talking to themselves? That’s a filler episode the creators put out in 2018 when they were taking an unforeseen short break and they wanted to let their listeners know of the delay. No, it’s not relevant to you now. Yes, it’s a speed bump. Just skip it. What’s happening now? Episode four of the second season is playing next instead of the second episode of the first season? Oh, that’s because the app isn’t sorting episodes properly, partly because the creator tagged it wrong, but also because the app doesn’t key on the correct tags. So what you need to do now is—Wait! Where are you going?

Fiction podcasts may be free to listen to, but getting there isn’t worth the cost for many, and all fiction podcast creators pay the price. Which leads me to this bold statement:

Fiction podcasts are fundamentally incompatible with most podcast-listening apps

That headline is going to spark a lot of anger amongst my fellow fiction podcast listeners. After all, we clearly have no trouble finding and consuming fiction podcasts to our heart’s content, so I must be being hyperbolic, right?

Wrong.

We, the extant fiction podcast listeners, have figured out ways to make our preferred podcast-listening apps function well enough. We’re not new, so we’re OK—or we’ve become OK—if not adept at tweaking the settings buried inside our chosen apps to make them functional, removing a good portion of the horror expressed in the second paragraph of this article. We’ve even convinced ourselves that the status quo is fine and perhaps is a rite of passage other potential fiction podcast listeners must go through to join our ranks.

Bullshit.

We need our apps to work as well for fiction podcasts as they do “normal” podcasts. And even if we, the experienced fiction podcast listeners, don’t think we need it, I assure you that regular people can’t be bothered with the bullshit we put up with, keeping fiction podcasts at arm's length because they’re too hard to listen to. Which, considering some of the amazing fiction podcasts available to potential listeners, is a damned shame.

Which is the best fiction podcast-listening app?

Apple Podcasts. There. I said it. Which is also pissing off a lot of readers right now. I beg your patience as I lay out my position.

Let me start with this, a comparison chart of the fiction-podcast-specific capabilities of 21 podcast-listening apps. I’ll break down those capabilities and explain why each is important—if not critical—to first-time users listening (or trying to listen) to fiction podcasts on each of those apps.

Chart with 21 apps on the y-axis and 13 attributes on the x-axis, complete with ranking and scores for each. All in the details of this article. — Fig 1: 21 podcast-listening apps compared

The apps have been “scored,” with elements weighted by an increasing importance scale of 1, 2, or 3 (I’ll explain shortly), and then sorted by descending score. Apple Podcasts is #1, followed by Podverse, a relatively new app with Podcasting 2.0 features, then Pocket Casts, a long-running podcast app, then another newer app called Podfriend that’s also built with Podcasting 2.0 services, and then Spotify to round out the top five.

You probably think it’s weird that Spotify didn’t rank higher. Given how popular Spotify is among fiction podcast listeners, I understand why it seems weird. Looking at app popularity by share of downloads will show a very different story. But I’m not looking at current usage by seasoned podcast listeners. I’m solely interested in the experience for new listeners of fiction podcasts, a demographic not captured by current usage trends.

The attributes in the far left column and how well an app adheres to said attributes are what determine the score given to each app. Let me explain in more detail.

What are the characteristics of an excellent fiction podcast-listening app?

If you’re an app developer, this is the part you came for. As you read this, please keep in mind that your app is probably amazing at certain things. You very likely have a dedicated user base who loves what you are doing. Keep on keepin’ on. If it works in your tech stack to make some of these modifications without negatively impacting your core, outstanding. If not… well, I will concede that the audience for fiction podcasts is smaller than “normal” podcasts. Bear that in mind as you evaluate your priorities.

I’m going to start with the attributes I’ve marked as the highest priority. I am my own measuring stick here and you can disagree if you like. But I’m coming at this exclusively from the position of a listener. Not a fiction podcast creator. Not a podcast-listening app developer. And not someone who’s deeply committed to a single app and cringes at the thought of moving my follows/subscriptions from one app to another. That’s not an issue for me, and I love change!

Respect the >serial< tag

The most important thing a podcast-listening app can do with it encounters a fiction podcast—or any podcast, really—is look for and respect the <itunes:type>serial</itunes:type> tag. “Normal” podcasts are typically episodic, meaning each episode is more or less stand-alone, and there’s no need for a brand new listener of Geek News Central, for instance, to start listening to the first episode of that long-running show, posted back in 2004. Starting to listen to that show from the most recent episode is fine, so that’s what podcast-listening apps present first. And, if the listener loves what Todd has to say, they can rifle through his back catalog of 1,700+ episodes at their leisure to learn about Zune, the demise of Google Reader, or whatever cool tech Todd was talking about at any point in time over the last 20 years. GNC is a great technology time capsule!

But a new listener who just discovered The White Vault is not going to have a good time starting with the most recent episode of that fiction podcast. As of this writing, the most recent episode is an episode drop for a different fiction podcast. But if the listening app used by that new listener respects the <itunes:type>serial</itunes:type> tag, it knows to “flip the feed”, presenting the episodes from oldest to newest, not the other way around.

But, as you can see, less than half of the compared apps do this by default: Apple Podcasts, Podverse, Pocket Casts, Podfriend, Spotify, Podbean, Amazon Music, Podcast Guru, Goodpods, and iHeart. More than half do not, either not at all or hiding the ability to change the default sort order behavior by digging around inside the app’s settings just to get the episodes to sort properly. And while I’m a huge fan of giving users extreme flexibility, not respecting the creator-set feed type by default is reducing flexibility, not enhancing it.

Group episodes by Season Number

If “flipping” the feed so the first episode appears in the app first is a no-brainer, then using the <itunes:season> or <podcast:season> tag to group episodes of a season together is the next obvious great idea. Using The White Vault again as our example, the six seasons (currently) of that show can be collected together inside the podcast-listening app, allowing listeners to easily “jump ahead” to skip the seasons they’ve already listened to. (Or, sadly, as it’s most often implemented today, “jump back” to previous seasons if the entire show is brand new to them.)

Without that season-level grouping, navigating multiple seasons is significantly more challenging. And given that many fiction podcasters often make drastically different content from season to season, often with a new description and even artwork, those groupings will become more important.

Nota bene: There is no current support for things like season-specific show titles, descriptions, or artwork within the RSS spec. But I’m optimistic that won’t always be the case.

Six of the compared podcast-listening apps group episodes by Season Number: Apple Podcasts, Podverse, Pocket Casts, Podfriend, Amazon Music, and Goodpods. The others simply list out every episode in the order it appears in the feed, with no grouping at all.

Sort episodes by Episode Number

Going hand-in-hand with Season Number is the <itunes:episode> or <podcast:episode> tag. Rather than relying on publish date, feed order, or other inferred ways to sort episodes, this tag is an explicit sort order set by the creators for the main—or “Full”, in podcast parlance—episodes of a fiction podcast.

Consider this common reality: a fiction podcast starts with a “teaser” episode published well ahead of the first episode of the show. They then do that two more times, building up some pre-launch buzz for the show. Then the actual, “for-reals” Trailer episode drops, followed next week by the first full episode of the show. Only that first Full episode would have a declared Episode Number, and that number would be 1. However, if you were to count the total number of episodes in the feed at that point in time, you’d find five. That’s correct. Only one of them—the Full episode—is numbered.

The creator keeps publishing full episodes until after the sixth episode is posted, when the sound designer is laid up in the hospital after a motorcycle crash, forcing the creator to release a special “we’re on an unscheduled break” episode while the sound designer convalesces for a few weeks. That’s a Bonus episode, meaning it’s not really part of the main story itself. So it gets no number. The RSS feed now has eleven episodes in it—the four trailers and this Bonus episode, all unnumbered, and the six Full episodes, numbered sequentially 1–6.

The sound designer is much better a few weeks later, and production is once again underway. But after the tenth episode of the story, the creator opts to run an “episode drop”, where they are plugging another show that they like—or are paid to plug and say that they like. That episode is also not part of the story flow, so it’s another unnumbered Bonus episode. Our growing RSS feed now has sixteen episodes, but only ten of them are numbered.

After that, the final five Full episodes publish over the next few weeks. And, as a literal bonus, the creator decides to do a Q&A episode. Nifty, but also not part of the main story, so that one is also unnumbered. Our RSS feed—at least for this first season—now has four Trailers, three Bonus files, and fifteen Full episodes, for a total of twenty-two episodes.

Now, those who were listening “live” as the episodes of the show were being released week-to-week would have been presented with each of those twenty-two episodes as they were released. Regardless of how the episodes were tagged as they were released—Full, Bonus, Trailer, numbered or unnumbered—listeners who were “caught up” would get each and every one of those. As it should be for those listening to episodes at the same cadence the creator is releasing episodes.

But what about the listener who discovers the show months or years after the season finale or series conclusion was posted? Should they also have to listen to the three teasers, the official Trailer, six Full episodes, then the unscheduled break announcement, then the remaining five, and also the Q/A episodes? In a word; no.

A better experience is to present the Full episodes to the listener, and get those non-story files—those Trailers and Bonus episodes—out of the way. They should still be associated with the show and the season, but they don’t need to be listened to in the order in which they were originally published. Below is a simple table of what I mean, comparing both ways.

The left side shows the feed order. The right side shows using episode number, which would first play the trailer, then all 15 Full episodes, then the other trailers and bonus content below. — Fig 2: Listening by feed order vs Episode Number order

Clearly, the experience on the right is the best experience for the brand-new listener.

(In the interest of fairness, there’s a bit of hand-waving after Episode 15 on the right side, as we podcasting doesn’t have a good system to sort un-numbered episodes. Chances are, those will actually be listed by publish date. But from the point of view of the new listener, those are all optional—and very likely skippable—episodes anyhow.)

Only two podcast-listening apps from the comparison chart do a good job of this and actually help the new listener stay focused on the main story content by moving unnumbered Trailer and Bonus episodes out of the way: Apple Podcasts and Podverse. The rest rely on the order episodes appear in the feed, resulting in an unoptimized listening experience as demonstrated on the left side of the table above.

Displays Season and Episode number tags

Not only are Season Numbers and Episode Numbers helpful for app developers to better organize the episodes of fiction podcasts in their apps, but they’re quite helpful as visual cues for listeners, letting them feel comfortable that the episode they are listening to is the correct episode they should be listening to!

Fiction podcast creators are… creative, let’s say, when it comes to how they title their episodes. And that’s not from laziness. Some fiction podcast episodes have distinct titles for the episodes of their shows. Some are repurposing book content and wind up splitting up the contents of a “chapter” across multiple episodes. Or even combining a small chapter with a longer one to make a single episode. Creative choice, for the win!

In a perfect world, the listening sequence of an episode would be completely divorced from the title of the episode. We do not live in a perfect world. In the case of The White Vault, the creators use titles like “Episode 5.08 :: Old Friends”. But they also include Season Number and Episode Number tags, so their episodes are presented to listeners in Apple Podcasts thusly:

Screen shot of an episode in Apple Podcast showing repetitive Season 5 and Episode 8 on top of the title, which is Episode 5.08 :: Old Friends — Fig 3: Duplicate season/episode numbers are possible

Now, maybe you don’t think that looks all that bad. While I don’t disagree, it can look a lot better. Here’s one from a friend of mine—and client—Scott Sigler, that shows how a properly titled and tagged episode will appear in Apple Podcasts:

Screen shot of episode in Apple Podcasts. Season 3 and Episode 41 are displayed by Apple Podcasts, and the correct title just says "A Tasty Burger." No dupes! — Fig 4: No dupes!

Nice and clean! Just the title of the episode, with the Season/Episode metadata where it belongs—out of the way!

Only three of the apps in our comparison chart do this: Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and Podcast Republic. The rest don’t bother.

Skips Trailers once following

This is the last of my highest-importance criteria, and it’s one that is hard to appreciate unless you, like me, prefer to binge a show starting with Season 1 and going until the series conclusion, if possible. Yes, that sometimes means dozens of hours of listening to the same show—though spread out over a week or so. I still gotta do real-world things!

Trailers serve a singular purpose—to entice a new person to listen to a show. Once a person has followed the show in their preferred podcast listening apps, trailers are no longer helpful to that listener. They’re in. They’re following. They’re listening. The hook has been set.

Forcing them to listen to or skip trailers for subsequent seasons isn’t helping anyone. It’s a speed bump in their listening pleasure, and no one likes driving over speed bumps. So the right thing to do is to not push trailers after someone has subscribed. Easy, right?

If only. As you can see in the comparison chart, only three apps do this today: Apple Podcasts, Podverse, and Podfriend. The rest leave those speed bumps right where they are, impeding what could be a more seamless listening experience.

We now turn to the medium-important attributes I feel a great fiction podcast-listening app should have. These are elements that don’t severely impact the listening experience but, when missing, present challenges for enjoying more of the show than just the audio. That fact causes a lot of developers to care a lot less about these things, and can’t fault them for caring more about the actual experience of listening in their apps than anything else. But I care about the overall listener experience, and these help with that. Let’s dive in.

Description of show well formatted

Fiction podcasters are, by definition, creative people. With few exceptions, they’re also creative writers who are capable of writing excellent descriptions of their shows. Compete with line breaks, links, and occasionally some simple formatting, like bold or italic. The RSS spec allows for these little flairs and flourishes.

But far too many podcast-listening apps ignore special formatting of descriptions altogether, causing what would have been a new paragraph to be shoved right next to the previous sentence, with no space. Links are mangled. Text is truncated. It’s… bad. It makes the creators look like they struggle with basic sentence structure and formatting. Which is quite maddening, I assure you.

The apps that get this right—if leaving well enough alone can be considered “right”—are Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Podcast Guru, and Castbox. Spotify gets close but fails to add spacing after each paragraph, which looks weird. Though not as weird as YouTube Music—recently-killed Google Podcast’s replacement—which oddly chooses to center align the show description. That’s really weird.

Episode details well formatted

Everything I wrote about the show description holds true for Episode details. Or, as they are called in podcast parlance, show notes. I hate that term. But I know how to pick my battles.

Only, this attribute is even more important for apps to get right. Because in-app episode details are the first place a listener turns to when they want to get more information about the episode. Or, quite likely, the podcaster themselves told the listener to “get more information in the episode details right here in your app!”

The good news is that all but five of the apps in this comparison do an excellent job of preserving the formatting of the episode details. Which ones don’t? Amazon Music, Goodpods, Player FM, Fountain, and YouTube Music.

Link to show website

Every fiction podcast has a website. Not always (or even often) a good website, but there is a website. For every single show. And on those websites is often—though, again, not always—more information than what exists for the show in the podcast listening apps. Things like a complete list of credits and bios. Contact information. Live tour dates. Fan artwork. Videos of the recording process. And so much more. Best of all: that link to the website is embedded in the RSS feed that the listening apps are already using.

All the app developers have to do is make it available in their app. Listeners will click through. Certainly not most, but some. If they are given that option.

But in most of the apps in this comparison study, listeners are not given that option. Only Apple Podcasts, Podfriend, Overcast, and Player FM allow for this. Which is a shame.

Links to episode pages on show website

Again, everything I wrote in the above section holds true for the apps linking back to episode-specific pages on the show’s website. And is, perhaps, even more important than linking to the overall show website.

There’s a limit to how much quality information a creator can put inside of in-app episode details—”show notes.” But there is virtually no limit on the amount of information that can be added to a webpage, article, or blog post about the episode. For fiction podcasters, that might be the performance script of the episode. Or some episode-specific artwork. A detailed cast list for just that episode. And a lot more.

Apple Podcasts, Podverse, and Spotify all facilitate an off-app click at the episode level. But only those three. The rest? Nope.

One-click download: entire show

This has become less important as internet connectivity becomes more ubiquitous. For many of us, it’s rare when we’re not connected to the internet, either by wifi or our phone’s mobile network.

But take it from this binge listener: dead spots happen, especially when traveling. And traveling is one of the best times to binge fiction podcasts! “Sorry, this episode can’t be accessed right now” means my plans to listen to an 18-hour complete series are hosed. Boo!

The developers of Pocket Casts, Podbean, Podcast Republic, and Overcast all know that making a one-click-to-download-it-all makes users who travel very, very happy because they’ll never have to rely on their network connectivity to keep binge-listening. Sadly, the rest don’t, assuming their user will just click download on 50 podcast episode listings in the app, I guess? I’ve done that. It’s rife with problems.

One-click download: entire season

As an extension to the section above, it’s quite nice to have the option to download just the episodes of a particular season. If I only need the last two seasons of a six-season show, there’s no need for me to fill up my phone’s storage with a few extra gigs of full seasons' worth of episodes I’ve already heard.

Yeah… not a single app from the comparison list does this. Boo. First-mover opportunity right here, devs.

And while I’m on the topic of things that are nice to have but not mission-critical in a fiction podcast listening app, here are two more:

Displays Episode artwork during playback

As mentioned previously, fiction podcasters are creative people, and many of them either have or have access to creative design skills as well. I’m blown away by the amazing episode-level artwork created for shows like Midst and The Love Talker.

Fortunately, the app I use to listen to fiction podcasts lets me see that episode-level artwork as I’m listening. In fact, most of the apps in this comparison study do. But not Pocket Casts, Overcast, or Castro.

Recommends other fiction podcasts

The final item on my wish list would greatly benefit all fiction podcast listeners, but I know it’s probably among the hardest for developers to implement. But it would be really, really nice if the apps recommended fiction podcasts to people who use their app to listen to fiction podcasts.

Proving my point as to the likely complexity of this: it’s mostly the big media company apps that support this, namely Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Though Podbean and Player FM have figured it out, so maybe it’s not as difficult as I’m imagining it to be. Or their suggestions to me when I tested this just happened to be fiction podcasts. Regardless, this would be nice.

Of note: There’s a new-ish RSS tag making the rounds, <podcast:podroll>, which could help here. If not completely change how recommendations are made. It’s how creators add their own recommendations directly in their shows’ RSS feeds. More podcast hosting companies are supporting this Very Good Idea, and it’s my hope that more podcast apps will start supporting them.

So… which app is the best for listening to fiction podcasts?

Again, it’s Apple Podcasts. Which doesn’t help Android users, I know. And it may not be the app you currently use and love. I know you have plenty of reasons you’re just begging to tell me about that demonstrate why your particular favorite app is the best. Those are great reasons for you. I won’t argue against them. Nor will I ever suggest that you change listening apps. The fact that we listeners are not locked into a single app experience is one of the many things I love about podcasting.

This article, all 4,153 words, was written with the brand-new fiction podcast listener in mind, helping them make the right choice for them. (And sure, to give all the app developers who read it a different perspective on an underserviced audience. It’s a smaller audience, but a fiercely loyal one.)

Thanks for reading. Feel free to share this article with your favorite app developer if you wish your preferred app would do better for your fiction podcast listing. I’m rooting for you!

- Evo

Articles & Info for Audio Fiction Creators & Listeners

More than 1,000 finished audio fiction shows in The End!

Packaging Your Fiction Podcast To Maximize Your Listeners’ Experience

1. Is your title the right title?

2. Is your artwork right for your show?

3. Is your show’s description actually descriptive?

4. Is your website linked in your podcast feed?

5. Is your “show type” correct?

6. Is there a trailer to preview your show?

7. Are your episodes properly numbered?

8. Are your episode descriptions actually descriptive?

9. Is your season finale/series final episode clearly marked?

10. Have you cleaned up your feed?

How To Optimize Podbean for Your Fiction Podcast

Settings > General

Podcast Title

Brief Description

Podcast Category

Podcast Website

Author / Owner

Podcast Type

Settings > Feed

Apple Podcasts Summary

Podcast Website

Episode Link

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Distribution > Podcast Website

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Podcast Info - Podroll - Recommend Podcasts to Your Audience

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Custom Episode Webpage

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All Podcasts > [Your Podcast Title]

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CONTACT EMAIL

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