Letters from Us: Some Closure
/Hello Everyone,
So, as you might or might not have been aware, We’ve deliberately been taking time off our work, realising that pushing ourselves to get podcasts done wasn't working. We said we'd start making decisions about where we're going next in June, and that decision’s been made. We thought it best to give our reasons individually, so let’s talk.
From Erin
For the last six months, Lee and I have been on hiatus from making podcasts or doing any podcast work (aside from some speaking/workshop gigs). We were both burnt out, and needed time to rest and figure out what comes next.
I’m only going to be speaking for myself from here, Lee can tell you where he’s at in his own words.
So. I’ve had six months of rest. Where am I at?
The short answer is still burnt out. I was actually very afraid that I might have to give up on the podcast industry completely. But then something happened that made me realise that wasn’t required.
The something that happened was a job listing, for a salaried podcast production job. I read the listing, realised that I fit all the requirements (save for being able to handle full time work, my disability isn’t that nice to me sadly), and realised that I was suddenly excited about podcasts again. The possibility of proper paid compensation for my work was all it took to completely turn me around - suddenly I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I could do, all the projects I could take on, all the people with great ideas and skills I could contact. I felt all the passion reignite in my body.
And that was what made me realise what I was actually going through: I wasn’t burnt out on podcasts. I was burnt out on free labour.
I haven’t made a single dollar of profit from my work in podcasting (quite the opposite in fact). I’ve made a little pocket money from speaking gigs related to it (the occasional workshop or panel, for example), but in terms of the actual output of my work, in terms of the hours and years of hard work making shows that people like (and I know they like them, LNL has over a million downloads!) - I have made exactly $0. Those that followed Lee’s financial year roundups on our studio blog already know this.
“But Erin!” I hear you cry, “What about Patreon?”
Patreon (mostly) covered our costs. It paid for our hosting fees, our token payments to our actors, and some needed resources (equipment, software, etc). But it was never enough to make a profit.
It also creates an unbearable pressure to churn out work on a regular schedule to keep supporters invested; which means little to no downtime. Which, again, wouldn’t be so bad if I was being paid, but we didn’t make enough for that, and we were already hustling as hard as we could.
The other problem with Patreon is that our audience is almost entirely marginalised people, and I am so tired of poor trans people passing the same ten dollar bill between us. We deserve institutional support.
So what happens now?
We’re going to close the Patreon, to start. We’ll pause this cycle so we can leave this information up for a month, but then we’ll deactivate.
Immediate work will be finished, delegated or cancelled.
But this isn’t the end.
In the future, I still want to make art, I still want to produce podcasts. I’m good at it, too. But I can’t do it for free, or for peanuts, anymore. I need my knowledge, experience and skills to be fairly compensated.
So, I guess if you know of a well paying, less than 20ish hours a week job going (especially in fiction audio) that might suit me (and is flexible enough to work with a severely disabled person), let me know.
But I’m not expecting that. So instead, in coming years I will most likely turn to what most Aussie artists turn to: grants.
I’ve actually sat on grant assessment panels in the past, so I’ve got a good idea what a winning grant application looks like. So I think my chances will be decent when I start applying.
And hey, maybe I’ll make some pitches to the ABC or Spotify or Audible or some such too. Why not, right?
What this means for the audience we’ve gained is simply this: there will be more work from us in future. We just don’t know what or when yet. But I hope you don’t mind waiting a bit, and I hope you’ll enjoy it when it arrives.
From Lee
Erin’s Letter already went through all the stage-setting, so I guess it’s best to get straight to the point.
It’s true - after nearly a year off from Patreon money, and six months of proper, actual break from podcast work, It’s still next to impossible to get work done. Honestly, I’ve been angry and frustrated about it a lot - It has felt really frustrating that I’ve not been able to get back on the horse. While Erin has realised that he’s mostly burned out about unpaid work, I’ve been identifying a different problem that’s been stopping me from working.
Thing is, I followed Erin into podcasting - Erin wanted to make Love and Luck, and I was happy to help make it, happy to help produce it. When I wanted to make a show myself, when Seabrooke was what I wanted to make, Erin was there with me as well - in fact, he pointed out that since he was helping, I couldn’t back out - he wouldn’t let me. It was going to get finished.
I’m gonna be honest with you - Erin is probably the reason Seabrooke S1 exists at all, and we didn’t really understand why I had so much trouble self-motivating until last year, when I got diagnosed with ADHD. After that, everything fell into place. The reason I so often just… left projects unfinished was because I didn’t really have much ability to motivate myself. For Seabrooke, Erin has been, effectively, my prosthetic motivation - forcing me to get shit done, but Erin being in that role, on a show where I was supposed to be the lead, just lead to so much conflict, and unsurprisingly with all the burnout, Erin just was not willing to perform the same role for this season.
It turns out, I’m really not suited to be a showrunner - I really need a partner to help make decisions, because I’m pretty bad at making decisions myself. So, with Erin's decision, mine had to come pretty quickly - I can’t run the show on my own.
Does that mean Seabrooke is over?
Well, I’m hoping not. I’m currently putting feelers out for someone else to act as showrunner, with me as co-producer, or at the very least creative consultant. (hence the “delegation” bit in Erin’s letter. There’s a bunch of really good scripts that I really do want everyone to hear, but I know I’m going to need help getting it done. I’m hoping that myself and whoever steps up will be able to get the second season in your ears, because some of these scripts need to be recorded!
And of course, where Erin goes, I’ll almost certainly be coming along for the ride. I love working with Erin (as long as he’s in charge, of course), so Erin’s journey into paid work means I’ll be there as well, supporting him in whatever endeavour he chooses. And just because I’m not running things myself, doesn’t mean I won’t still be around the podcast scene - I love voice acting, and assuming I can get my act together enough to audition, I’d love for you to hear me elsewhere!
Also, we haven’t made full decisions about what’s going to happen with all our Patreon content - much of it is available elsewhere, (our livestreams are hosted on YouTube, even if they’re unlisted), but the pieces that aren’t available elsewhere? We’ll figure out what to do with them later on, but we’ll do our best to make sure we still have them.
Oh, one last thing - even if Patreon didn’t quite work out the way we wanted, I still want to thank everyone for the support you’ve given us - it has at least meant that we didn’t need to worry so much about keeping everything running. All our websites will still be around, and the merch store will stay open (guys, we still have so much merch, of course you’re welcome to buy more of it!). It’s been fun, and I’m glad you’ve been with us for the trip. Even if I don’t know exactly when you’ll see me, I look forward to showing you whatever our next project turns out to be.