Burgold

Well, one aspect of Xistance that I want to pursue (btw, it's pronounced just like existence. Someone recently got it wrong though most all get it) is the media story telling angle. We are starting with our podcast and I have two different guys producing two different angles. One is doing some different themes related to collecting family history information and telling one's own story. The other guy is doing the traditional story telling angle interviewing people and getting their stories or their family history story. 

I can envision not having one host of this Xistance storytelling podcast. I can envision storytelling content that may be broader history than just of an individual. I wouldn't be opposed to video podcasts and I hope with success that this leads to documentary storytelling. No matter what I want to stick to non-fiction work for now. 

I'm just kind of brainstorming so if there is something that interests you along those lines we can try flesh something out.

Could be fun. I always do have to ask the money question. Does this pay or is it being done on spec (once Xistance becomes a huge success will it then pay). Do you assign pieces? How are subjects identified/cultivated? How many per week, per month is your expectation? What is your preferred run time? Have you chosen music that will for the intro and outro... or music that should be used to bubble underneath the narratives. I'd imagine that there should be some good general domain stuff out there, but you want some consistency in sound. So, that the pieces have a uniform feel to them.

Sorry for the abundance of questions

All good questions. We do pay for this content. Without looking specifically, it's been between $1,200-$1,500 for a podcast. We don't specifically assign pieces as we want to allow some creativity and hear from the interviewers what they think. This allows for some flexibility on how subjects are identified/cultivated so long as we are focusing on non-fiction story telling. I want to say that the first couple of podcasts have been about 30 minutes and I think that works, but again there is flexibility though we aren't going to pay $1,500 for 5 minutes. We do have an intro but once we get there I turn it over to my marketing manager. Of course we have contracts with people creating content so it's not just a wink and a nod and we want to use this as a way to get the Xistance name out there.

BTW, I'm Sam Hershey.

Let me know if you have thoughts on what you would do if we did a couple of podcasts/videocasts/etc.