← The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Writing And Directing Audio Drama And The Constant Creator Mindset With Alison Haselden
01:00:13
How do you turn a big-budget TV show idea into an audio drama you can produce yourself? What does it take to create a 10-hour, 30-actor historical drama? And how can guerrilla marketing in airport bookstores help find your audience?
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- [00:01]
Joanna Penn
Welcome to the Creative Pen Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more@thecreativepenn.com and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives, I'm Johanna Penn and this is episode number 821 of the podcast and it is Saturday 26th July 2025. As I record this in today's show, I'm talking to Alison Hazelden about writing and producing an audio drama as well as the constant creator mindset and moving between different projects in an intuitive manner. It's a really encouraging discussion. So that's coming up in the interview section in Writing and Publishing Things. Well, one of my favourite poets and in fact favourite writers about soulful things is David White and spelt with a Y W H Y T e. And he is interviewed this week on David Perel's How I Write podcast. Now, yeah, they're both called David, but David White is an old soul, I think, and a wise soul. Perhaps all poets are or become so over time because of their poetry practice, I guess. And the discussion is on going deeper into our writing. And often what you want to write lies deep inside you, but you can't articulate it as yet and it feels like it's buried in your body somewhere. And they talk about this and the practice of writing involves dropping below that line of discomfort, not taking the easy route. This kind of deep writing is a process of self discovery and true depth in writing necessitates a willingness to abandon control and confront the uncomfortable. And yes, of course we can write for fun and pleasure and write fast and write genre books to market. That is of course valid and for some people that is a job. But if you want your writing to change your life and perhaps change someone else's, then maybe have a listen to this interview and go deeper into your writing. That's David White on How I Write podcast. I also really like his audiobook. It's called Midlife and the Great Unknown. It's more of an audio program. It's available as an audiobook. So that's Midlife and the Great Unknown. And that helped me a lot when I was struggling a few years back now and was part of my inspiration for Pilgrimage and also writing the Shadow, which both encourage deeper writing. So it is good to revisit those soulful areas sometimes. And also from another wise poet this week, my friend Orna Ross on her Go Creative podcast shares her thoughts on this how can I do my creative work when I'm so worried about the world? And I know this is something that a lot of people feel there are many things to worry about, particularly if you read the news in any form. Orna talks about some grounding practices and also shares a hopeful poem about the changes around us. So it was good to listen to that this week for me too, because although I am a default positive person, I did have a nightmare this week. The kind where you wake up gasping because you think you're dying and I was being buried by an avalanche and basically suffocating. And no, the cats were not on my head and I wasn't under the covers. I just think I need to balance my input at the moment with more walking. I I have a recurring thing that pops up on my Things app which is where I put all sort of just everything really I put to do stuff, but I also put quotes and things to remind myself. And one of the things that popped up was I am happiest and most calm when I am walking a lot. So I clearly just need to walk more or has her practices and my practice is basically to walk in nature every day. So I'm going to go do that after recording this. But yes, Orna's Go Creative podcast might help you as well. Okay, and then three books that are essentially not deep and meaningful but may be useful. The first one is my own successful self publishing 4th edition which is on free for a limited time on all the stores. All the ebook stores. Obviously it's only the ebook that's on free and also on creativepenbooks.com so if you want the updated paths to self publishing or some tips around marketing or how to use the AI tools to help you with all the admin side Check it out. That's Successful Self Publishing 4th Edition. All the links@thecreativepen.com SSP4 so the ebook is free. It's also an audiobook and paperback. Then the next One is the 2025 edition of the Simple Path to Wealth by J.L. collins. If you are in the fire community then you will know the book and that's financial independence. Ret early. You know, not that I'm planning to retire, but I was was very interested. I'm still interested in financial independence. I've had a few episodes on this show over the years, but essentially investments and money management are a huge part of being an independent creator and thinking about your future. But if you're someone who wants to learn about money if you're just starting out or I bought this latest edition as well, just to revisit all the practical stuff, not just the mindset stuff, then the Simple Path to Wealth is useful. If you are not in the US I still think it's useful. Just use ChatGPT or something to translate the US specific things into your country's variation. For example, the Roth IRA in the US is an ISA here in the UK. So that is the type of thing you can translate into your specific situation. But as I've said many, many times, I think as authors, some people say oh my books are my pension. And I'm like yeah, I'd prefer to have my pension or my superannuation being the thing that I'm building up separately. Multiple streams of income is always so important and I know many of you have already sorted this, but if you haven't or if you just want some reminders the Simple Path to Wealth Also this week I've been reading Reshuffle who Wins when AI Restacks the Knowledge Economy by Sangeet Paul Chowdhury. So it's called Reshuffle. It is excellent. I've I would normally go quite quickly through a non fiction book like that, but I've taken like three different sessions to read it because I've been taking notes and also I have my phone and I I do chat to chatgpt about various things while I'm reading. So the book for example is not about the publishing industry, but it's about lots of other industries. And I will say to ChatGPT okay, so here's a quote from this book or here's some of my underlines. How does this apply to publishing and writing and my area art? And I will be putting together some thoughts on this once I've processed it myself. I'll put that in my Patreon over the next few weeks. I guess the idea of value is tackled in it. So there are things that have great value to us personally that may not have economic value or where economic value is diminishing and what does that mean for our work and our meaning in the years to come? And I guess that's partly why I was revisiting poetry there and David White because poetry is usually the classic example of writing that is very valuable to individuals and can have great value to the person listening or reading it as well as the poet, but may not have great economic value, does not diminish its power or its importance in any way. But we all have to think about this. So it is just also going beyond shifting tasks to AI tools and more about systems thinking. So how will the whole ecosystem change under what's coming with with AI? And of course this week or last week as this goes out, we had the AI action plan in the US which is accelerating things even more. So I'm thinking about all this stuff and I absolutely recommend this book called Reshuffle. If your income depends on knowledge work and that does not mean just writing it is anything where you use a computer in your day to day work, then you are essentially a knowledge worker. So yeah, reshuffle who wins when AI restacks the knowledge economy. And I've as usual links to everything, all the show notes. There's lots of links to everything I talk about and you can find those@thecreativepenn.com podcast. So in personal news, it has been a flurry of formatting. I think that's. Is that the collective noun for formatting? A flurry of formatting. I finished the edits on the buried and the drowned and then and this is my short story collection. Then Jane, my book designer, did the interior for the special hardback. When we're including photos from my book research in various places, we also did the COVID Now I've done the images again with midjourney for the COVID the interior art, the end papers and the spreadges, which I learned this week. So spreadges is the term being used for sprayed edges, if you hadn't heard that yet. It is definitely going around. So spreads. I'm not sure I like it, but that's what's being talked about. And this time they will be patterned. So I'm really quite excited about this. This will be my first patterned sprayed edge. I've done sprayed edges before, but they've been plain color. And I'm also going to include head and tail bands again. Now why am I talking about the actual features of a print book? Well, we're print geeks, I think. You know, we love books for the content of the book, of course. But I think also being book geek, it's good to know what you can do with books. And we can do everything. And I am once again including head and tail bands in black and green. Now, most books do not include head and tail bands, even most hardbacks. In fact, most of my hardbacks don't. I did include them on blood vintage. So if you have the blood vintage hardback and look on the spine, so kind of turn it sideways and you can see it essentially adds strength to the spine. And it means the hardback has greater longevity. Of course, it does add some cost, but I think they look really cool. But more importantly, they add longevity. And what I really love about doing these special hardbacks is that the. There was a study done. I. I can't cite my source on this, but it's something like hardbacks will go through seven pairs of hands. Because if you have a beautiful hardback in your house and then you decide, okay, I'm maybe not to going, I don't want to keep this anymore, you'll give it to you like a charity shop or you might sell it as a yard sale or whatever and people. Somebody else will buy it because it's a lovely book. And so it could potentially go through seven different pairs of hands in its lifetime. And I guess if, if it lasts longer, then it might go through more hands. So that's why I'm doing it. I. I really want these books to last and be beautiful objects. Obviously, if you like short stories, you might enjoy the content. Maybe next week I'll actually tell you about the stories. But yes. So we uploaded all the files to Book Vault and I thought this might also be useful for you because it's about timing with the Kickstarter. Now, with Kickstarter, it's not like on Amazon, KDP or Kobo or Apple where you upload an ebook and it can be live within a few hours. You really do need to do proofs and all of this now for a Kickstarter. I also need to do the cost, figure out the cost of the book, which you only get when you upload all the files, and then the shipping costs. So I now can do the shipping costs which all need to be added into the Kickstarter. And of course that's based on the weight of the book and the size of the book and all that. So again, you can't really do that until you've uploaded the book. And printing costs obviously change over time, as do shipping costs. So I have ordered one, but again, because it's bespoke, it has a ribbon.
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Alison Hazelden
2.
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Joanna Penn
Gotta have a ribbon, a lovely green one. And we're gonna have green foil on the wraparound cover and the interior cover. And yes, so it will now take a couple of weeks to get to me because the bespoke books obviously take longer. They have to be done on various things, whereas a paperback you can get quite quickly. So. And I have uploaded the paperback and the large print and then I will get those books sent to me sometime by mid August. Then I can take the photos. So that is the other thing for the Kickstarter campaign is actually need the beautiful hardback in order to do the photos for the campaign and also to make the video. And so the launch for the campaign will be 1st of September. But that's why I thought I would tell you a bit about the timings on things, because some people, I mean, obviously if you're doing digital only in a Kickstarter, you don't need to do all this. But if you're doing gorgeous hardbacks or anything that's physical, then you need to allow time for ordering, for doing the marketing material and all of that. So if you're interested, you can sign up to be notified about the launch on jfpen.com buried although let's face it, if you listen here every week, you are going to know that the launch is on. So I've also been back on my Gothic Cathedral project, reading books and writing up my notes. Also on my books and travel podcast, Andrew Ziminski talks about stone masonry. He is a stonemason here in England and we geek out on Gothic cathedrals and in the video, so there is videos on YouTube now fpenauthor. And he shares his bookshelf, which is really cool. And the last episode on Books and Travel was with Becky Doughty and we talked about what does it mean to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time? How can travel shape our sense of self? And how do we find our way home when faced with unexpected grief abroad? So, yes, those are the last couple of episodes on my Books and travel podcast, which is quite different to this one. And it's a different, different side of me, I think. Just search Books and Travel Podcast wherever you're listening to this or find the backlist at booksandtravel page, along with articles about various places and my research trips. And in fact, over the next month I've got trips to York, Durham, Rochester and back to Canterbury again, Gothic cathedrals and stonemasonry and sense of place and all this. So I am in creatively, I'm in this expansive, chaotic phase. I am not constraining myself, I am just learning. And if I'm like, oh, that book looks interesting, then I'll read that and at some point something will emerge, trust, emergence, as I have on my wall here in my study, which is sometimes I don't know what this book is going to be, and I've said that multiple times, but I trust emergence. And at some point it will come to me and I'll be able to create something. And in fact I think trust emergence will be our theme this week because Alison talks about it too. This trust in her intuition about what to write and how to put it into the world and then also letting go of chasing any particular kind of success but just creating and trusting that the path ahead will emerge. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week. Lynn said Jo's information on book reviews was so helpful and insightful. Going to buy the book now? Yes, podcasts sell books and Alex said on Betsy Lerner's interview this was fantast. I had to keep pausing it to take notes. What a cool woman Betsy is. She totally is. I thought the same thing as I was interviewing her an am Jeeva sent pictures from selling in person and her setup for her post apocalyptic books and it looks great. She says there is an investment to start up, but it's not necessary to have all the bells and whistles. I approach events as a way to connect with readers, raise my profile and grow my mailing list. I like to make money, obviously, and sometimes I do. Sometimes I just break events and my most loyal, enthusiastic fans are the ones I meet in person. I can't tell you how many times someone stops at my table with absolutely no intention of buying a book. But you talk about your books, what they like to read, what books in your genre you'd recommend, and they like you and decide to buy a book. I am an extrovert, so that helps. Events can be tiring, especially those that are two to three days. So that was great. Thanks for that. And that was in reference to Johnny B. Truant's interview last week on the Artisan Author. Okay, so please leave a comment on the podcast show notes@thecreativepenn.com or on the YouTube channel. Or email me, send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. JoannaTheCreativePenn.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation. So this episode is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, Kobo's free, fast and easy self publishing platform favored by independent authors all over the world. And yes, including me. I've been on Kobo since the beginning. KWL was built by Authors for Authors, and their mission is to help you reach digital readers wherever they are, however they want to read or listen. Because they do audiobooks too. Are you an indie author looking to reach readers around the world? With Kobo Writing Life, global distribution is at your fingertips. Their platform allows you to publish ebooks and audiobooks and make them available in over 190 countries. Whether your readers are in North America, Europe, Asia or anywhere else, Kobo Writing Life ensures your stories are accessible to a truly global audience. Yes, and personally, I've sold more books in more countries through Kobo than anyone else. Plus, with their easy to use dashboard, you can track your international sales and see where your books are making an impact. Expand your reach and grow your readership with Kobo Writing Life today by visiting thecreativepen.com KWL thecreativepen.com this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my community@patreon.com TheCreativePen thanks to the five new patrons who've joined this week. Thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. You're fantastic. If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering writing, craft and author business, as well as AI tools. So last week I did my usual Q and A where I answer questions from patrons. It's essentially an extra solo episode of the podcast every month where I do that. And then coming up this week I'm doing my live office hours, which are on zoom and so I can do video stuff as well. We hang out for like 90 minutes and I answer questions live and do demos and stuff. So the Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com TheCreativePenn Right, let's get into the interview.
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Interviewer
Alison Hazelden is an author, screenwriter and actor. Her latest project is historical fiction audio drama Wicked Dames. So welcome to the show, Alison.
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Alison Hazelden
Thank you so much for having me, Jo.
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Interviewer
Now, I'm excited to talk to you today. So first up, tell us a bit more about you and your creative background.
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Alison Hazelden
Yeah, absolutely. I have been in a creative world, I think, since the day I was born, and I'm so grateful to have had a very supportive family who realized they had absolutely no choice and that I was going to be singing and dancing and acting and putting on plays in the neighborhood whether they wanted me to or not. But I grew up in Orlando, Florida, which has always had a bit of a pipeline between Los Angeles. You know, in the 90s we had all the boy bands and The Mouseketeers and all of that. So there was a lot of opportunity there. I actually started working in professional acting at age 6 and I was really fortunate to be able to work and to train throughout my entire childhood in Orlando. And I was able to go to Los Angeles a bit there as well. But I was also a really avid reader and writer. Like my, my entire life. I just love stories and every kind of medium I could get my hands on, which is so funny that that's kind of continued into my adult life. But I did go to university for journalism and marketing, which really honed my writing skills. And kind of coming out of university, I worked in content marketing for seven years. So that really helped me get my reps in for building writing stamina as well as learning some of those marketing skills that now help me so, so much in my acting and my writing careers. So yeah, it's been just like a beautiful journey. I think I'm at the place really this year where I'm able to look back and so many of my years in life where I thought I was just treading water. I was actually building some really, really useful skills that now I'm so grateful for, even though they felt maybe like detours at the time. So yeah, so now I quit the corporate world. I work for myself now, marketing consulting for creative executives. That kind of keeps the lights on while I pursue my acting and writing careers. So I act primarily in film and TV now. I actually just wrapped on my first series, regular role in a limited series that should hopefully be coming out end of this year or 2026. And we released Wicked Dames in fall of 2024 and I just finished writing my YA fantasy. So we've got a lot of projects going on.
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Interviewer
Yeah, yeah, I love that and I love how you outlined that you also did jobs that I guess you said maybe felt like you were treading water, but you were building on the side and doing all these things. I think some people think that you do just go from child actor to TV shows to multimillionaire.
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Joanna Penn
That is.
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Alison Hazelden
Yeah, that is a common misconception. Most of us are what I call middle class actors.
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Interviewer
So yeah, something like mid list authors basically.
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Alison Hazelden
Yes, yep, exactly. It's the same thing where I'm, you know, most, most folks that, that I work with, we all have something el on on the side because this career is so inconsistent and it's the same with writing. So I think we all kind of have to have multiple irons in the fire these days.
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Interviewer
Yeah. Yeah. Well, on that because obviously you're juggling freelance work as well. So with all these different projects, all these different interests, how do you manage your time with this sort of portfolio career?
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Alison Hazelden
Yeah, you know, I think I, and I have to be honest with you, I, I used to be such like a white knuckle it kind of person and I would hyper schedule myself and try to pack every minute of every day with a box to check off. And in the past two years I have really shifted away from that and it's weirdly worked out better than I could have ever imagined. And there's just some kind of little divine intervention there I think. But somehow I rarely have competing deadlines and I kind of follow my intuition in terms of what my priorities should be. If I do have a deadline on something, of course that gets put to the top of the pile. But I've been so fortunate that it's just kind of worked out. I mean this year, like the past six months even I was focusing solely on wicked dames from about oh, let's say April 2024 through the beginning of November 2024. And then I kind of took a little break and naturally found myself just this idea came to me and I put my head down and wrote this whole YA fantasy I'm working on about witches in Nantucket. And right when I finished that up and needed a little break came this TV show opportunity. So I couldn't really write while I was on set. I did a little bit, but it really is pretty demanding of like your brain space. So but it worked out because I needed to have a little bit of time away before coming back in for edits. So I think the less I try to control things it actually weirdly works out in a way that is more supportive of my creative process because, and you know this, there's so many different sides of our brain. So I can't just be creatively brainstorming 24 7. You know, I kind of need to switch the other side of my brain and do some more logistical things. So I think with the way that my energy works and this obviously won't work for everyone because we're all different, but being able to switch out the hats kind of helps me recharge in, in the process where I'm not over functioning in one way for too long at any given time. So then I'm actually excited to go back and check back in on another project.
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Interviewer
Yeah, I'm quite similar. I guess it's project based work where as you say sort of focus in on one thing and then like for me, after I've written a novel, I will often write non fiction or you know, batch a whole load of these interviews like we're doing and just kind of do all research and then go into the next project after a bit of a gap. So not, and it sounds like you, you never do the same thing back to back. You're kind of switching all the time.
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Alison Hazelden
Time, yes. Which, that, that part of it has been just pure chance. I don't, I don't know how that's worked out so far and maybe it won't be that way forever. But yeah, I, I really have been lucky enough to, to get the opportunity to have quite a bit of variety and that kind of cycles through throughout the year, which is nice.
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Joanna Penn
So.
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Interviewer
Well, let's get into Wicked Dames then. So why, I mean you mentioned there this YA fantasy, but actually Wicked Dames is a historical story, so why write that? And why make it an audio drama.
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Joanna Penn
Instead of a book?
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Alison Hazelden
Yeah, so I think one of the things that is unique with my background is that my brain doesn't really like, I don't sit down and say, okay, I want to write a film script or okay, I want to write a novel. My ideas kind of download in my brain and I really know when they come to me what format I want to lead with. So I do write almost everything in multiple forms of ip. So I'm working on two different books right now and I will probably write a pilot episode or like a spec sheet for each of those books. But both of those came to me very much as novel first. Right. Wicked Dames, however, came to me and I saw it as a TV show. I saw the visuals of it so clearly. I saw how it would be shot and it felt just like a TV show. So I have written the book version of Wicked Dames, but I really felt my intuition really wanted me to get it out there in as close to a TV format as possible. And anyone who knows anything about film and TV knows that historical fiction is very, very expensive to make. So rather than try to scrounge together an opportunity to make it as a pilot episode or as a TV show, I wanted to get the IP out there as soon as possible. But I wanted it to feel very experiential. I wanted the audience to feel like they were really in that world. And so an audio drama was the perfect solution to that. Unlike an audiobook, which is typically just one voice reading the book verbatim from the text, an audio drama is essentially a TV show with Everything but the visuals. So you get that more immersive experience with all the different actors playing all the different characters. You get music, you get sound effects.
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Joanna Penn
So.
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Alison Hazelden
So it's much more immersive and all you're missing is the actual visuals on the screen. So it seemed like just the right medium to get the story out in the world. And I'm so glad that I did it that way. I learned so much. I think for me too, it's funny. So I write mostly. I do write a lot of historical fiction. I write fantasy and I write some contemporary rom com. And I think those could sound very like, different. But to me, they all have an element of magic to them that I think is kind of like the through line. So historical fiction like that was just. I've always loved it. I've always loved historical fiction. I think it's so magical. It's such a. An escape, but also feels so grounding in a way because we know that parts of it are. Are real and really happened. And yeah, it was just. It just all kind of flowed in that way, which was interesting.
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Interviewer
Yeah, I love that these things come to you in these different forms because of all your. Your background. So explain then a bit about. Because I've had a listen to a bit of the audio drama. I've listened to lots of audio dramas. I'm sure people. People listening probably have two, but in terms of writing one. So people in their mind might be able to picture a TV script which is camera directions and dialogue and not much else. So do you format an audio drama script like a film script? And how do you add in things like sound effects and. So how does it. How do you actually write that?
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Alison Hazelden
Yeah, that's a great question. And I kind of feel this about almost every format. There's a lot of people who want to have a lot of strict rules, but really there's no rules. And I think there's even less rules for. For an audio drama script. I write it like a cross between a novel and a TV script. So it kind of sits in the middle where the formatting on the page is structured like a TV script. So it doesn't read like a novel. It's not paragraphs and paragraphs of text. We have the breakdown for all the characters, we have the action, we have the header that outlines where the setting is. But I do add a lot more to the action and description sections than I would for a traditional film or TV script. So in the format of this story in particular, the narrator is doing a lot not all audio dramas are like that. But I wanted there to be a lot of that description. So, yeah, so it sits kind of in the middle of the two formats. I try to, you know, on my edit passes for Wicked Dames was really thinking very much from the audience's perspective of, okay, if they are just listening to this, they have absolutely no vision. Visuals what could be communicated via a sound effect and what cannot. And that was where I would decide what kind of narration would be added. And that was really, really helpful. But I didn't start like that. I think I just kind of let myself go with the idea. I knew what it was going to be, but I didn't nitpick those kind of details until the second or third editing pass. And that really helped because again, like, that's a different part of your brain where you, you're. You're going from being a storyteller to being more of a strategist of how can I ensure that my listeners have the best experience possible? So definitely, I would say make sure you break up, break that up in your process.
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Interviewer
And of course, you were both acting and producing this, weren't you? So it was really for you, I guess.
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Alison Hazelden
Yeah, yeah. I wore a lot of hats on this. So I wrote it, I directed it, and I am a voice actor in it. And it was a lot of hats. But again, I think I was uniquely qualified to kind of step into those roles. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that to all authors unless you do have a desire to learn some of those things. But for me, it was. I really wanted the opportunity to flex those skills. I really, you know, one day would love to be a showrunner of a TV show. And so this was a really good kind of training ground for that for me.
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Interviewer
Yeah, I imagine there's so many things. Well, let's get into the challenges then, because. And again, people should definitely go and have a listen to Wicked Dames and appreciate the amount of work because I listened to it and I'm like, oh, my goodness. Knowing you're an independent and you're not funded by some big studio like so.
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Joanna Penn
Many of them are.
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Interviewer
So talk about the challenges of doing an audio drama compared to, say, an audiobook.
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Alison Hazelden
Absolutely. I'm going to just share all my secrets because I think, yeah, this was something. Again, like, I don't think I would have had the confidence to do something like this if I didn't know about some of these tools and opportunities available. So. So I. Because I'm a multi hyphenate, I had a lot of this information at my fingertips, or I had friends of friends who knew how to do some of these things. I think one of the biggest barriers to entry that a lot of people who don't work in entertainment imagine is just finding actors. Right. But the beautiful thing is that there are actors at all levels out there. And especially right now. It's been a really hard time in the entertainment industry between Covid and then we had our writers strike and our actors strike in 2023, and our industry is still really struggling to recover from that. So there are actually more actors than you think who really are just so passionate about the work. They're looking for something to do and would love to be part of projects like this. Whether they're trying to build up their voiceover reels or they're trying to get access to a new kind of character that they don't have on their reel, or they just want the experience. It is very possible to find incredible actors who will do things within your budget. So the best place to go to find those actors are sites like Actors Access or Backstage. You do have to do a little bit of admin to get your account set up to post a casting, but I cast all my actors through there. And you can be very transparent about the budget that you're working with. You set up in the system the pieces from your script that you'd like them to audition with, and then you're able to look at everyone's profiles and review their submission submissions and cast from there. And it, it seems like a lot, but it's I, I promise easier than you might think. There's lots of great tutorials and you can find some incredible actors. Now, there's a little nuance here. I ran my project through the actors union, SAG aftra because I wanted to have access to a wider net of actors. Right. You don't have to do this. You could do it as completely non union, but only non union actors will be able to be part of your project, which is totally fine. There's so many of them out there as well.
- [35:28]
Interviewer
And that was pretty US specific, though.
- [35:30]
Alison Hazelden
Yes, yes. So in the United States, you really have to stick to the SAG AFTRA rules if you want to have access to actors who are part of that union. If you don't, you can kind of do your own thing. And those websites, Actors Access and Backstage, are open to a union project or non union project. So that is just kind of up to you and what you're looking for and your budget as well. So this is Where. Where I think too, people get a little, a little nervous about projects like this because then we get into like the technology of it, right? So you have a few options and this is something that you want to consider before you start casting. So you kind of want to think about your budget and the way that you want to produce it. So you could limit, like make a note in your casting that you're only considering actors who already have recording equipment in house, or they have access to a specific, specific level of microphone or have their own access or coverage for a recording studio. Or you could make it open to all actors, but you would probably have to accommodate some way to record them. Either paying for their studio time wherever they live, or inviting them into a home studio that you have or a studio that you're renting out. So that is where you. You kind of. Again, there's a lot of ways to make this fit different budgets, depending on what you're working with and how involved you want to be in that way. But there's a lot of actors who do voiceover all the time and they have microphones in their house and they are super professional. They'll work with you over zoom and they can send you the files. So that is probably the easiest way to do it. You just have to have more filters on the kind of actors who can participate. If you have a gorgeously large budget though, and you want to rent a studio, then you're going to get also the advantage of having their staff help you out as well. So that's something to consider. But honestly, once you make that decision, it's kind of straightforward from there. I would say the biggest challenge for me, which this was the part that I was the least familiar with, was hiring an editor. The editing is everything. Especially if you have a pretty large cast and you want to have a lot of sound effects and things. The editor is the one who puts all that together. And so I would recommend and saving up a decent amount of budget for that because they put in a lot of hours. Again, you can always reach out to local colleges who have an arts program and a media program who maybe some of their students are looking for portfolio opportunities. They might be able to give you a discounted rate. There's also obviously amazing super high level performing editors as well. It kind of just depends on what you're looking for. But I would say that's the part that takes the most amount of time, the most budget, and the most back and forth to make sure you're getting the final product that you really enjoy vision. So those are kind of like the main steps. I think those are probably the biggest barriers to entry that I hear other writers worry over. But it really is just like anything, I think a lot of this information, it's hidden in plain sight. Like it just takes a little bit of research and a little bit of experimenting and you can make something really incredible.
- [38:37]
Interviewer
Yeah, yeah.
- [38:38]
Joanna Penn
And interesting.
- [38:39]
Interviewer
I thought you were going to say you edited it. No.
- [38:42]
Alison Hazelden
Oh, my gosh. I wear a lot of hats and I knew from the get go go that that was not a skill that I'm ready to learn.
- [38:50]
Interviewer
Yeah. Because as you say, it's a big job. I mean, I just edit the podcast and I've edited my own audiobooks, but without some sound effects, multiple voices, all of that kind of thing. So. So that's interesting then. So, I mean, then let's just talk about the money. You don't have to give us any numbers, but it's more like a sort of an idea for people because a lot of authors listening will have hired professional narrators who say, might be, let's say, US$300 per finished hour of audio. That would kind of be as, let's say a standard audiobook rate. So just give us, tell us how long the Wicked Dames series is and then how many hours of work went into that.
- [39:33]
Alison Hazelden
Yeah. So we have 10 episodes in Wicked Dames, and all of them range between 35 to 60 minutes. So it is a lot of content, about 10 hours of content. And we had over 30 actors participate in this.
- [39:50]
Joanna Penn
Oh, my goodness.
- [39:51]
Alison Hazelden
Yeah, so they're all. And they're all at different, different sizes of characters and things like that. Right. So I paid my talent hourly, and I was paying talent $25 an hour, or sometimes I would pay them per session. It just kind of depended on how much, much work they were doing. And we kind of figured out rates. But I did disclose, like, I was super upfront. I did not have a big budget and this was a big undertaking. So I included all of my. My financial information for my actors up front. I paid my editor US$3,500, which was a good deal because he was looking.
- [40:28]
Interviewer
That sounds great.
- [40:29]
Alison Hazelden
Yeah, he was looking for the experience and for his portfolio. So like I said, I got really, really lucky. It did take me, you know, a lot. I was putting in a lot of my own effort though. Right. So I didn't have a production coordinator. I didn't have a lot of, like, assistance. So I was saving a lot of money, but I was putting in Some of those hours myself. So, yeah, I was able to produce the audio drama for under $6,000, which is very much on the lower side of this again, because I was kind of picking up a lot of things myself. Like I was directing myself, I was coordinating talent, and I had a really tight recording schedule. So I recorded the entire month of June last year. Every single day, the month of June. I had different actors in and out of my home studio and we were putting in a lot of time. I was having at least eight hour days pretty much every day. But, you know, like I said, I was able to find a group of actors who were really excited about the project. They were really excited to deepen their own artistry. And it was a slow season, so everyone had a little bit of extra free time. But. But yeah, I got, I got so lucky. I mean, all the people who were part of the project were really meant to be part of it. And they brought just so, so much life and fun and they were surprising me. It was, that was the beautiful thing of direct, of getting to direct something that I wrote for the first time was like seeing how they brought their own take on the characters. And it was, it was just a joy. It was, it was wonderful. Yeah.
- [42:01]
Interviewer
Yeah. Well, yeah, 6,000 and it's amazing for a budget. But as you said, you worked for basically a month. You weren't paying yourself. So let's. Yeah, let's just talk about the income side because again, when we as authors pay audiobook narrators or we narrate ourselves like I have, we get money as people buy the audiobook or we get streaming money. But audio dramas are difficult. So what is the income on audio drama? Like how are you distributing it and how do you make money on.
- [42:33]
Alison Hazelden
Yeah, so there's a lot of routes with this and it really depends on what your goals are and also like your. Your broader situation. Right. So for me, this, my main goal for this was to get my IP out there and to really have a strong portfolio of my work as a writer, actor and director all in one. I wanted to hopefully break even and then start to build community around my project and my work. So those were my main goals, which are pretty, pretty, pretty low level goals. Right. And I think that was helpful because it helped me to just stay curious. I am very happy to say I was able to break even and we've been able to build a lot of community. So my TikTok grew exponentially because of this. We're up to like 24,000 followers. And I knew that that was going to be valuable to me down the road because I have a very. I'm in this for the long haul. So I knew I had other projects I was working on, knew I had other things coming out. And with the end goal to hopefully one day make this a TV show, it was more important for me to get the IP out there than it was to turn this particular audio drama into a business. However. So because of that, I chose to release it for free. Right. I do have donation links in the show notes for all the episodes for those who enjoyed the show to donate and show their appreciation for it. But if I was in a different situation, there were lots of other options there. So I could have put up a paywall kind of, of like, like, like a Patreon moment or a substack or things like that to have people get access to it, which would probably have made more money but would have lowered the visibility overall, which for me in this situation, I wanted visibility more than I wanted a financial gain in the short term. So you can put up a paywall. Of course. You can also try to get ads on it as well, which you can do that through the, the hosting platforms or you can reach out yourself to try to find aligned partnerships. One of the ways that I was really, again, I was trying to build community, so I made it free. But I did host several in person events that allowed for profit share opportunities with those businesses. So we were working with coffee shops, we were working with bars, and we had themed events all throughout the launch period this past fall. And so that worked really well to not only bring in a little bit of money, but also really help build community and build fans around what we were doing, which is something that I think is really relevant right now. I know everyone always says events are so, so hard, but I think if you know your audience and you come up with an event that really has incentive for people to want to go to it, they can be successful. So yeah, I think especially if you have other paid offerings out there, if you're going the route I did with visibility, bringing in a lot of that traffic, especially if it's traffic that is on target for what your offers are. Even if, say this vehicle is a free one, if you have other paid offers, you can really see a boost in those as well. To kind of cross promote.
- [45:37]
Interviewer
Yeah, I think that's really interesting. But you did say you broke even. So was that from streaming revenue or is that from the events and all of that kind of thing?
- [45:46]
Alison Hazelden
Yeah, so that would be from the Donations because we had traffic. So people were loving the show, making it all the way through. And then they would send us basically kind of like the same concept of like the Patreon and subsack. They would send us a little basically like tip if you enjoyed the show and through those events. So it was very unexpected. Like I really, like I said, my goals were so clear cut because this was like one piece and a longer puzzle for me. So it was just, it was very heartwarming to see that people just really enjoyed what they were listening to. And I wanted to donate to our production.
- [46:20]
Interviewer
No, that's great. And so what platform are you publishing from? How do people publish an audience drama?
- [46:27]
Alison Hazelden
Yeah, it's the same, it's the same as any other podcast. There's so many different opportunities out there. So I just used the Spotify creators platform for this one, obviously. I mean, there's a million these days.
- [46:40]
Interviewer
So you use the Spotify and did you put it on YouTube or anything as well?
- [46:44]
Alison Hazelden
Yeah, so it's cross posted. So it's on Spotify, it's on Apple, it's on Amazon, it's on iHeartMedia, it's on YouTube, it's accessible and free on all of those platforms. And I also have like my own webpage for it where I have all the, the additional content. We filmed a whole video trailer for it which was really fun and tried to kind of add more elements to it. There is like a bit of a mystery in the story. So on the website you can get some of the materials that the girls discover and use to put together the clues. So I really like making things very interactive where I can.
- [47:19]
Interviewer
Oh, well, now you've started, you better tell us a bit more about the actual story so people know which. Whether they want to go have a listen.
- [47:26]
Alison Hazelden
Yes, absolutely. So Wicked Dames is about young women who seduced and killed Nazis during World War II. I was inspired by very, very real stories of many young girls and women who did this. Some girls were as young as 13 years old, which is crazy to me. But they, you know, some of them worked alone, some of them worked with local rebel resistance groups, some of them were working with official intelligence groups. But I had read some of these stories, stories over years and years and years and I thought it was crazy that no one had done anything with it. We have so many World War II stories out there. But of course most of them are about the primary combat and all the men. And I thought it was about time someone did something with it. At the same time, my Fiance's grandmother was a Holocaust survivor and her mother really did some incredible things to keep her family alive. And so I was hearing those stories at the same time and I think they just kind of combined together in my head, spit out wicked dames. So I really wanted to explore like the shades of gray. Right. I think it's very easy with war stories to make it feel very cut and dry. And I think for folks, especially in a demographic like this, young women in Berlin, Germany, during this time, there were a lot of different nuances to what was going on, what their experiences were. So each of our girls comes from a bit of a different background and has their own personal challenges that lead them to working together. We, we have also a bit of like a serial killer moment. One of the girls in the group is a serial killer who is just benefiting from being alive during this time of war. I always thought that that was, you know, when you hear about serial killers, I'm like, when would the best time to be alive and be a serial killer is probably during a world war. So I thought that was kind of interesting to play with. And she's mixed in with these girls who some of them are actually just quite innocent and trying to do what's right and others have their own vendettas and revenge that they're out, out to get bores. So there's a lot of layers, a lot of shades of gray, a lot of mystery that they're trying to figure out. And I think it's a pretty fun ride. I like to say it's a cross between Little Women and Peaky Blinders with a dash of Inglorious Bastards.
- [49:31]
Interviewer
Great. Oh, that is so funny because, yeah, I think Peaky Blinders is very violent.
- [49:38]
Alison Hazelden
Yes, we have a lot of. Yeah, there's a lot of action, a lot of violence in here, but the girls themselves, themselves are probably more reminiscent of, of the Little Women.
- [49:49]
Joanna Penn
Brilliant.
- [49:50]
Interviewer
No, I, I love the concept. So you mentioned, I guess you mentioned Tick Tock earlier and you mentioned doing events, but obviously you also come from a marketing background and marketing these things is really, really hard. So how are you marketing the audio drama?
- [50:05]
Alison Hazelden
Yeah, so I definitely like to use a mix of tactics. I am not a put your edge and all, all in one basket kind of gal. So digitally we have the website, we have an email list, and of course social media promotion on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube and threads, we had those in person events and of course partnering with podcasts and other media outlets who wanted to chat about it. I also Though I think my favorite thing that I did that's a little bit outside of the norm was a bit of a guerrilla marketing effort. So I ordered a bunch of bookmarks with QR codes and I also wrote a lot of handwritten secret notes on like old looking paper, antique looking paper. And I travel a lot and I actually have quite a few people in my family who travel a lot for work. So I kind of distributed those amongst everyone and anytime we went to the airport we were stuffing these in the airport bookstore books. So that was a lot of fun. Like obviously we tried to pick relevant ones like other historical fictions or world World War II texts and things, but it was kind of fun and I would go to my local libraries here too and do that as well with those handwritten ones. And I just think like it's kind of a delightful little surprise right. If you, if you pick up a book at your library or at a bookstore and there's a little secret note for you in there. So I would kind of frame it as like you've been recruited by the wicked dames, like learn more and go and go check out the website. And it was really fun to get to see, to track through the QR code where in the world the bookmarks ended up and who is was joining in on the fun.
- [51:45]
Interviewer
So I love that it seems like a really fun thing that probably didn't pay off in terms of like the actual click throughs or whatever. But it sounds like amazing.
- [51:56]
Alison Hazelden
Yeah. And it, and it made also for really great social media content. Right. So even if there were times that the bookmarks themselves didn't pay off, people online thought that the idea was really cool. So those posts I made about me doing that got a lot of engagement and a lot of traffic. So it's all connected.
- [52:16]
Interviewer
Yeah, I think that that is excellent. And then I guess you started by saying that you want this to be a TV show and so you've made this and obviously there's tons of work work in it and you've made it. Now what happens next? So are you trying to pitch it? How, how does the next step work for you or are you just expecting someone to call you?
- [52:37]
Alison Hazelden
Yeah, so I think for me, like I said at the beginning, I am so intuitively led now. And with everything that's been going on in the entertainment industry right now, I, and I'll tell you, I sat long and harmon at hard and I was brainstorming like okay, what are the next steps? And my next steps that came to me was to Write more historical fiction is really a really difficult sell. And especially right now it's a very, very difficult sell. So obviously I think that's part of why like this IP is going to sit out there and it's going to hopefully continue to build community and maybe it will come across the desk of someone who is excited by it. But I'm more focusing right now on getting my foothold in through some of my other projects that I think would have an easier time getting a green light like the contemporary ROM com or even fantasy. Fantasy, even though it is big budget, is a little bit more popular and a little bit of an easier sell these days. So I'm focusing on those two projects which I've written those. Well, my YA fantasy is, is completed and in edits and then I'm about halfway done with my first draft for my ROM com and I actually already am talking with one network about that project and I'm not even done with it, which is crazy, right? But I. If I hadn't listened to my intuition and I'd just been like continuing to pour all my energy into Wicked Dames, I wouldn't have been able to make the headway on these projects which I think are going to open up more opportunities and get me to a place where I'll be able to be like, oh, and by the way, way I have Wicked Dames here. Would love to share that with you too. Right. I think that's one of the things that's a little, I've noticed opposite between the publishing industry and the entertainment industry. So a lot of times in publishing they tell you to kind of like focus in on one genre that you really, really get really good at and known for. Whereas with the, you know, me straddling both worlds, I've noticed it's actually good to have a few different, different genres. But maybe they're related to each other, maybe they're cousins. But having options like that actually helps when it comes to adjusting your sales with the industry's kind of ebb and flow because sometimes when pickings are slim, they want something that can be made very low budget and other times when we're in an abundance period, you could pitch your really high budget projects and you're gonna have an easier time. So I've kind of let myself dabble in all those arenas for that reason and I'm really glad because it just kind of keeps things flowing and moving. And in an industry that's so flaky, I think both sides are so flaky. Nothing's Guaranteed, like, literally until it's on the screen or until the book is in your hands like it is. Everything's up in the air. So I kind of have taken that as permission to do whatever I want.
- [55:30]
Interviewer
Which is great, because some people get really disheartened. Disheartened by that. And they feel like, oh, well, you know, this. This project is so perfect. Why does nobody want it? I guess I'll give up. But you seem to sort of take that in your stride and just carry on creating. Do you ever get disheartened, or how do you deal with that?
- [55:48]
Alison Hazelden
I certainly do. I think I would be in trouble if I didn't ever get disheartened. But I think I just. Again, one of the blessings of having grown up in this world and having grown up working from such a young age is I realize, truly having how impersonal it is. And that can sting sometimes, but it also is freedom, right? You know, timing is everything. And so I think it's very easy to think that, like, if something that we love doesn't take off when we want it to, that it's never going to work out. And yet there's so much evidence of the opposite. There's so much evidence of projects that we started 10 years ago ago. It wasn't the right timing. And then you pick it up, you know, this year, and suddenly all the pieces are in place for it to work out better than it ever could have when you first came up with the idea or when you first put it out in the world. And I've seen so much evidence of that, that that is what I turn to when I'm having a hard day, or when I'm feeling like the world is against me, or I feel like I'm climbing uphill, which there are a lot of days and months and years where I have felt that way. I look at those stories from other artists, and that is really what gives me hope. I've never been person. Like, I'm competitive with myself and only myself, because I really believe that when we see other people's success and their journeys, like, it is proof to us of what is possible. So that is always something that's really encouraging to me. And then kind of like, I feel like I've said this whole time, like, I really allow myself to indulge in what genuinely lights me up creatively. I'm always happier with that work. And people always like that work better, too. So on the days when I'm feeling down, like, I remind myself that I actually genuinely delight in the work. Like I love the process and it's the times when we have to deal with other people. Like not the creative process, all the business side of it. That's. That's the sucky part. That's the part none of us like. So I let myself go back into my creative cave and like that's where I recharge.
- [57:46]
Interviewer
So yeah. Oh, that's super encouraging. Thank you. So where can people find you and wicked dames and everything you do online?
- [57:54]
Alison Hazelden
Yes. Thank you. So all of my updates on all the different multifaceted aspects of my career are on my website alisonhazelden.com A L I S O N H A S E l d e n.com I'm also pretty active on social media over on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Threads. And that is just my name as well, Alison Underscore Hazelden. And I also have a really fun new series out on YouTube called the Showrunner Note series where I walk through my picture of adapting popular books into TV shows or films. So if you are a fellow book and you know, film and media lover, that might be something fun. I love to chat with people on their ideas as well. So I'm around, would love to connect.
- [58:43]
Interviewer
Well, thank you so much for your time, Alison. That was great.
- [58:46]
Alison Hazelden
Thank you. Thank you so much for me having having me.
- [58:52]
Joanna Penn
So I hope you found the discussion with Alison interesting, whether you want to create an audio drama or not. I love her enthusiasm for creating without holding on to a potential future outcome and her trust that putting her ideas into the world will pay off somehow. Let me know what you think. Please leave a comment on the podcast show notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel or even email me joannathecreativepenn.com send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. Next Monday I'm talking about researching and writing family history OR genealogy with T.L. whelan, which is a fascinating conversation and you'll get a little insight into my family history as well. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it out helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show notes@thecreativepen.com podcast and you can get your free author blueprint@thecreativepen.com blueprint if you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and X hecreative pen or on Instagram and Facebook fpenauthor. Happy writing and I'll see you next time.