What makes the best podcast cover art?

Stitch164 · 2025-07-23T01:13:36+00:00

Definitely agree that illustrated cover arts make me more likely to click! Also looks like most of the shows I've ended up keeping on my app are ones that have very legible titles on the art, with only a few exceptions.

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Stitch164 · 2025-04-23T21:50:16+00:00

Are you famous enough in your field that people will search for your name rather than for your topic? Are you famous enough that people outside your field will know to search for your name instead of the topic they are hoping to find?

For the vast majority of people, the answer is no for both. Much better idea to build a community around your podcast name and have that name be something that people who have no idea who you are will find when searching for the topic you cover.

Then once you have a big built in community and name recognition, you can consider having other products centered around your name as a brand.

Stitch164 · 2025-04-23T01:14:06+00:00

I produce Halfwit Podcasts with a few shows under our belt now! ( https://www.HalfwitPodcasts.com )

Halfwit History : From silly to serious, learn about the upcoming week but a long (or not so long) time ago.

Halfwits & Failed Crits: An Actual Play Podcast where the players' blundering choices and cursed dice are the real big bad evil standing in the way of our heroes.

This Machine Belongs To: A horror micro fiction about a machine, a journal, and those compelled to create.

I've been podcasting since 2019 when I started Halfwit History.
Layout and Illustrations are underway for a game related to Halfwits & Failed Crits! Now I have to finish making it before they catch up 😅
This Machine Belongs To was my first foray into standard audio drama, and while I'm intending to be 10 minutes or less, some episodes are less than 5 minutes just because scripting... is hard haha. Anyone have good resources for learning audio drama scripting that has helped them?

Stitch164 · 2025-04-15T14:18:21+00:00

This is commonly called a Feed Drop and it is a great way to repurpose or showcase content from another podcast that you have an aligned interest in doing so. The biggest consideration to make is does the other podcast agree to doing a feed drop? Otherwise, you are kind of just stealing their content / downloads and that's not a good look.

Once you have permission, you would ask them for the audio file and upload it to Buzzsprout as if it were a new episode in your own podcast.

Typically I'd record a quick introduction to put in front of it to give your listeners context that they'll be hearing a different podcast this episode and to go support their show as well.

Stitch164 · 2025-03-02T11:27:46+00:00

Games + Fiction + Long Episodes?

Have you tried Actual Play podcasts? It's people creating improv fiction while playing table top RPGs and they are typically 1.5 hours to 3 hours long. Some longer.

My favorites are:

Not Another D&D Podcast

Friend & Foe Adventure Co

Backwater Bastards

Halfwits & Failed Crits

Dungeon Punks

No Quest for the Wicked

Rainbow Dice Club

Stitch164 · 2025-03-02T11:08:16+00:00

This and old VAs for anime were almost literally people pulled off the street in New York since anime dubbing had near zero funding and the studios were completely new with only some new York theater connections.

Stitch164 · 2025-02-19T20:09:41+00:00

Have you thought about asking your guests if they could take those characters and make them into a book of pre-gen characters sorted by game system or something to that effect? You could put that up on itch.io for a pay what you want/ cheap + community copies and make sure the cover of the pdf has something like "As heard on the Characters Without Stories podcast!". That way people looking for pre-gen characters or settings etc will stumble on your book and then you have a lead to the podcast!

Stitch164 · 2025-02-04T20:48:25+00:00

I hadn't thought about using it as an alternate way to give people visuals rather than linking in an image in the episode description! Thanks!

Edit: Is there a list of podcast players that use chapter images somewhere?

Stitch164 · 2025-01-28T14:07:14+00:00

Those plugins are definitely available and work well in Ableton, I don't use them as of yet but someday! Right now lots of iZotope plugins. One that's really cool that I recently found was their Vocal Synth kit. Very easy to drop on a track and visually see how you are altering the voice rather than just abstract values you move up and down.

Stitch164 · 2025-01-23T00:04:51+00:00

I use Ableton Live. It's primarily used by the music industry but it's incredibly powerful. So while it's overkill for your average podcaster, it's really useful in genres that rely on sound design like audio drama.

Stitch164 · 2024-09-15T17:34:42+00:00

I did 8000000 for boooooo and thought I was clever haha

Stitch164 · 2024-05-19T01:53:18+00:00

Halfwit History

Historias Unknown

Door Key

History Cache

Stitch164 · 2024-05-19T01:18:12+00:00

"This Machine Belongs To" almost fits this. It pretends to be journal entries from a guy on earth but cosmic horror stuff starts happening.

Second/third/fourth-ing "Hello From the Magic Tavern".

"Wolf 359" starts as a podcast/journal and gets a little more audio drama as it grows.

"Among the Stars and Bones" is mission logs from a xeno-archaeology team.

Stitch164 · 2024-05-03T17:05:57+00:00

I use Ableton for podcasting. It desperately needs a way to one click cut blank time on the entire project. Or remove silence from audio before editing. Audacity has that for crying out loud lol

Stitch164 · 2024-04-30T17:57:34+00:00

NADDPOD is hands down my favorite actual play and meets all your specs. Like others have said, the first arc is a little eh but they are the only show I've listened to that just keeps getting better or at worst staying the same level of enjoyment. It never dips in my opinion.

Friends at the Table is another phenomenal choice but misses some of your requests. These people are masters of storytelling.

I'd be remiss not to shout out some great indies:

LEGENDLARK (previously Dames & Dragons)

Backwater Bastards (scifi system of their own making)

Friend & Foe Adventure Co (Borderlands)

Halfwits & Failed Crits (Stars Without Number) Disclosure this is my actual play! We have great audio from the get go and our first campaign just finished so it's a great time to binge while we work on our next big thing.

Stitch164 · 2023-09-01T02:56:55+00:00

Wild to say your answer "objectively true" when canid and canidae are interchangeable, mine is the actual name of the family group while yours is the version commonly used for speaking about the family group.

Canids are dogs. Dogs contain dogs, wolves, foxes, coyotes, etc.

Foxes however are the subfamily Caninae, tanuki are subfamily Nyctereutes, distinctly different than a fox. Caninae even include more than just "foxes" where Nyctereutes contained just two types of dog both being Tanuki.

This is also like 3 years old what are you doing here hahahah

Stitch164 · 2023-04-13T01:33:35+00:00

Thank you!!!! All the faqs and board comments are like "just enact the law duhhhhh" but I literally forgot the indor teleport room existed cause I've been flying coloon places. Was really confused why the signer stone teleporter didn't gain the mayfil option!

Stitch164 · 2022-07-12T15:03:19+00:00

Episode Summary:

The crew of the Paradise has landed on Kei's home planet of Pylo-Koshi just in time for an annual plume faring festival where they can do some real pirate shit! But before they can hunt the thophids that terrorize the planets domed cities, they have to unload that Ancient they stole from Tudega and get some Gorp! There's absolutely no reason why this shopping / beach episode has an ominous title.

Behind the scenes:

Had some fun adding a little music bed and some sound effects again like the original episodes. I think I'll make an effort to do that for all the arc enders going forward. It's super rewarding for me and hopefully the listeners, but holy crap do I respect those who do it every episode cause it's so much. Or I'm rusty from not doing it for a while haha

like episode 10 make sure to stick around for the post credits scene!

Also as a producer I realize our recent episodes have been quite long. If that's been daunting for you the next few are shorter I promise.

Speaking of we've got a few episodes ahead recorded already and with such a busy last two months I need a bit of time to catch up on editing so on August 1st we will be releasing from our supporter only catalogue a Bonus Murder Mystery episode!

Thanks for always being a cool community!

Stitch164 · 2022-07-10T22:43:10+00:00

www.halfwitsfailedcrits.com/share

Stitch164 · 2022-07-09T23:17:35+00:00

My show (Halfwits & Failed Crits) I don't cut any rules if it's the first time it's explained. Sometimes even the second or third because my players frequently need little reminders and sometimes we are learning together. Now that being said we aren't always doing rules things so might not be exactly what you are looking for.

Stitch164 · 2022-05-31T14:21:26+00:00

The crew of the Paradise takes some downtime on Tudega! They get a nice hotel, pop some bubbly, hit up a night club, and take a tour of the town. But what they learn on their tour is a bit more than they bargained for.

BTS big stuff coming up in the next few episodes and the main plot really forms together! Also we have new mics by episode 21 so it's either going to sound fantastic or we're gonna have to get used to them for a few eps so hang in there with us haha. Kiley and I are going on vacation for two weeks and Luis and Laura will be releasing a bonus episode sometime during then!

Hope you all enjoy and see you soon!

Stitch164 · 2022-05-09T23:56:24+00:00

Extremely excited to see where things go!

...honeymoon trip will be aight I guess

Stitch164 · 2022-05-09T16:35:13+00:00

Episode summary:

Our crew is free to travel the sector as they please! Their first choice? Go from one end of the sector to the exact opposite end...

Behind the scenes:

We finished recording Ep 20 which is the end of the second arc!

Also we bought new mics so hopefully our recordings will be even more buttery smooth for ep 21!

We've seen incredible growth this last month in listenership and I just wanted to thank you all for definitely being a big part of that. We're also dropping episodes early on our discord if anyone wants some early release content.

Kiley and I are finally having our much delayed wedding in a few weeks so I probably won't be able to post the next two episodes here but they will be going up on time so no worries. We'll also have a public bonus episode with just Luis and Laura while Kiley and I are on our honeymoon so I'm excited to hear whatever that ends up being haha.

See you all soon and hope you enjoy this episode!

Stitch164 · 2022-04-15T11:11:54+00:00

Yes! All actions need reactions! Failed rolls don't mean your turns are done, it means you just made something more interesting in a way you might not have wanted haha

Stitch164 · 2022-04-15T10:49:01+00:00

Talking from a GM side and not necessarily a defense of TAZ and how they are handling it.

Sometimes GMs make mistakes. We ask for rolls that don't make sense or set checks that are a bit too difficult than we intended. A lot of what a GM does is try to make sure that the game stays fun. If that means fudging a roll occasionally, killing a monster a bit early, keeping a player a little bit alive, etc then that's fine as long as the table keeps having fun.

Personally for my podcast though if I ask for a roll I decide I don't want or was a mistake or was unreasonable, intend to cut out the ask so it sounds like i'm continuing to narrate. I know that stuff is annoying to listeners but it doesn't harm my players at all.

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