[Podfic Meta] Thoughts on Podfic Cover Art and the Unnecessary Barriers to Podficcing

[itsadrizzit]

For the audio version of the post below, please click HERE.

Thanks must go to kaixo and analise010 for their invaluable contributions to this post.

This has been crossposted to Tumblr and AO3.


Fellow podficcers, from newcomers tp those who have been around even longer than me, I have some thoughts to share. There has been some discussion lately about podfic covers and the way that we all say they aren’t expected, yet also rarely post without them--even going out of our way to commission them from others if we don’t have the time/inclination to do them ourselves. I want to empower us all to change this.

My part of this discussion came about while watching someone get into podficcing for the first time. She is a prolific writer and I've recorded many of her fics. She's friends with several podficcers and has embraced the art and championed the cause of transformative works statements amongst other writers. She's undertaken podfic a bit as an academic exercise in that she wanted to try it so she could better understand the process of creating podfic and what goes into it. She's set a goal of a target number of hours of work and a target number of fics to record in order to understand the process and see whether or not podfic is for her. Watching someone undertake podficcing from a scientific perspective and posting detailed notes about what she struggles with along the way has really opened my eyes to all the little things involved in creating podfic that I take for granted. Most of these things have a pretty steep learning curve. Reading about her undertakings, I'm struck by the thought that podfic doesn't have the low barrier to entry that I thought it did.

 

 

As background, I've been podficcing for five years now (as of 1 May). It's been a long time since I went through the process of "making my first podfic," and I already knew a fair bit about sound engineering and audio production going in, so it's hard for me to recall a time when I didn’t “just know” how to podfic. I think that's likely the case for a lot of us. It can be difficult, in general, to remember how hard it was to learn things once we've been doing them for a long time and have started to master them. To those of us who have been podficcing for five or ten years (or more!) the process of making a podfic might seem easy enough. We've figured out how to record and the best ways to elevate the podfic from reading to performance. We've learned all the ins and outs of Audacity or GarageBand (and associated other software such as Chapter and Verse or Audiobook Builder or even file conversion in iTunes or other software). We've developed our workflow from record to edit to covers to posting. I admit that when someone new wants to try podfic the first thing I say is "oh, it's EASY. The barriers to entry are super low!"

The reality is...they aren’t. We, as podficcers, are asked to understand: vocal performance, how to set up a microphone/recording space to make the audio as good as we can, what kind of microphones work for us, audio editing (how to use Audacity and/or GarageBand or equivalent programmes, occasionally Auphonic--this includes all the filters and tools we make use of in addition to just simply recording and cutting mistakes, sound leveling, exporting audio to multiple formats and the differences between those formats), web hosting (how and where to host audio files for download and streaming), HTML/CSS in order to post the work on AO3 or on a blog (especially if you want to use one of the fun work skins or do something more than just post a short bit of text with a link), and, on top of all of that, graphic design in order to make covers.

At its core, the bare minimum requirements for a podfic seem easy--a reading of a fic shared in a format that is accessible via internet download. Thing is, that already requires most of the things I mentioned above (performance, tech, programming), which is not an insubstantial amount of knowledge and learning. To post A SINGLE PODFIC that may be nothing more than a fic title and a link to some site where the file is hosted, you’ve already had to go through a lot.

Looking at all the skills and programmes and knowledge of how to best use those programmes--it is DAUNTING. It's sort of a miracle that there are as many of us committed to this art as there are. We're pretty amazing, basically. Look at all these things we all do ON THE REGULAR! We should own that. We should say, yeah, podfic isn't that easy to do, but we can show you.

But! Podfic also doesn’t need to be as complicated as we make it.

We make it harder for ourselves than it needs to be sometimes. This is fine, since many of us like that challenge, but when we start adding on additional skills and knowledge, that only INCREASES the already higher-than-we-think-they-are barriers to entry for newcomers.

By this, I’m talking about things like cover art and fancy AO3 work skins and all the flashy shiny bits we put on our podfic because they look nice and are nice to have. I love covers. I love cover art. It’s fun to make and I like to see it all lined up in my iTunes or on my iPod or on my phone.

But--when did the podfic community evolve to the point where cover art was seen almost as a requirement? Now, I know, it's not. Many people have told me many times that cover art is not mandatory. The only mandatory parts of a podfic are an audio reading of a fic that I can download and play on most devices. A posted podfic can be as simple as an html link without many other frills or explanations. That is a valid podfic. But how many of us post things that way? For as much as I hear people say they struggle with cover art or cover art is time consuming or even, in the case of new podficcers, that cover art feels like just one more thing they HAVE to learn and do before they can post this podfic.

Many new podficcers I've spoken with feel that they ARE REQUIRED to make a cover, usually because they see a challenge that says, “Cover-art is not required, but we really like it. You may ask an artist or cover-artist to make one for your podfic, you can make one yourself, or we will make one for you.” It's just one more thing standing between them and a posted podfic. They’ve already been through the hell of learning a whole bunch of complicated things and now they need to learn graphic design as well? It’s enough to make many of them give up and say “I’ll never be able to do this”.

Hell, I like making covers and I feel that way sometimes. This year for #ITPE I made fourteen podfics while I was also trying to write a fic on a deadline and do holiday things out of town, and the entire idea of making covers for all those podfics just felt like one more huge item on an already overloaded to-do list. I knew that I didn't need to make covers. I understood perfectly well that covers are not a requirement for that exchange. But I also had this voice in the back of my head screaming at me that if I didn't make covers my podfics wouldn't be "complete.” I felt I would be doing a disservice to the recipients of my podfics if everyone else received these beautiful, thoughtful covers and I was like, “Well, sorry, I couldn't be bothered to do that.” I know that when the masterlist is posted and there are podfics without cover art my eyes often skim right over them like they aren't even there. I didn't want my podfics to be those that everyone disregarded because they didn't have art. So I buckled in and did some covers and I leaned on the mods to help me commission some covers and through our efforts combined, every single one of those podfics had covers. And that is great...except I could have stopped at "I don't feel like it" and they would still have been valid podfics. But for some reason, even though I knew this, I couldn’t be “the only one to not have covers” as I kept telling myself.

I'm not blaming anyone but me for my choice to push forward and post cover art for those podfics. It was my decision. I made it with all the information in hand. But! I will say that I felt some degree of peer pressure as it were from the podfic community--not because anyone told me I had to have cover art, in fact, quite the opposite; many people said "post without it, it's the podfic that's important, if people need to have cover art they can make their own, I just want your reading." But I did it anyway because "everyone else is doing it."

I have nothing against cover art. I like it. I love making it. I know there are people in the podfic community whose main contribution to the fandom is creating cover art. I see you. I love you. You all are wonderful. Some of us would be lost without you, tbh. The challenge for newcomers, who may not want to or know how to make their own covers, is how to find you, or even knowing that it is okay to ask someone else to make the cover if you feel like you need it but aren’t able to do it yourself. I will admit, even after five years I still don't feel connected to the podfic community all the time. I don't know a lot of people well enough to know the protocol for asking for a cover. I am someone who only reads fics with BP so I never have to ask permission if I want to podfic a thing, because that gives me anxiety. Having to approach even a podfic-friendly stranger and say, "Hi I don't know you and you're probably not in this fandom AT ALL, but can you make me cover art. I have nothing to offer you in return but my thanks." is a bit terrifying. Many newcomers are even less connected and wouldn't know who to ask to make them cover art even if they didn't have anxiety around the ask.

By always posting our podfic with cover art, even though we all have a tacit understanding that we don’t HAVE to, we can making newcomers (and even established podficcers) feel like if they don’t have covers they aren’t valid. By not giving newcomers the resources to know they can reach out to someone and ask for said covers, we then place the burden of creating this (unnecessary) cover art on the already overwhelmed new podficcer.

So here is my call to all of you. Let's show our fellow podficcers (new, old, or those who haven't joined us yet) that you don't NEED to have all this fancy glitz and glamour to post podfics. Post without cover art. Post on a whim. Make your post nothing more than the metadata required by AO3, some info on the length/audio formats, and a link to an HTML file. If you get something done and you think "I have no idea what to make the cover for this" or "I don't want to make a cover" or "I don't want to find someone to make a cover" or "I have no time for cover art/to commission cover art" or even “I have no fucks to give about cover art” then just...don't. It's easy enough for us to say "you don't have to make cover art", but until those of us who are established podficcers actually demonstrate that podfic doesn't need cover art in order to be posted, then those looking in from the outside won't be convinced that their work is good enough until they have made cover art as well.

I'm not saying "let's all stop making covers." I will continue to do so, because I enjoy it. I just know that in the future, when I have fourteen podfics to post and life is already running me ragged, I'm going to listen to my inner voice that says "you know what, these are good enough. This is a freely distributed art and I have met minimum requirements." Check. Post. Done. And I encourage you to do the same should that voice rise up in you as well.

Feel free to leave comments and add to the discussion on this post. This is a community and I'm just trying to empower us and shed a little light on the, frankly, AMAZING work we all do just by showing up.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Lots of Love,
Sari (ItsADrizzit)