Episode 213 - Melding Words and Animation - Exploring Storia with Todd Gallet
November 21, 2023
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Todd Gallet discusses MELDING WORDS AND ANIMATION - EXPLORING STORIA, including the growing interest in multimedia and bingeable content; accommodating different preferences in consuming content; the opportunity for introducing new readers and viewers to our work; the kinds of stories Storia is looking for and the downside of basing Storia work on an established series; IP considerations; tapping into cross-promotional opportunities with your co-creators; involving the reader / viewer in the creative process; and the opportunity to interact with those who are enjoying your content.
If one of those topics piques your interest, you can easily jump to that section on YouTube by clicking on the flagged timestamps in the description.
If one of those topics piques your interest, you can easily jump to that section on YouTube by clicking on the flagged timestamps in the description.
"Our hope is that we can bring in new audiences that don't consider themselves readers by layering in this animation. There's obviously a huge fan base there, and they certainly are fans of this type of content. But maybe they don't consider themselves readers, so they're not seeking out this short form content, which we believe they will enjoy once it's kind of presented to them in a more exciting, visually stimulating way." —Todd Gallet
Todd Gallet has spent the past eight years helping independent content creators monetize their work across video, audio, and now short fiction. This is the third venture of the founding team, leveraging their expertise in scaling content marketplaces and advertising to build engaged audiences.
Links
Todd's Links:
https://www.storia.io/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddgallet/
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
https://www.storia.io/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddgallet/
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Todd! Do you think one of your stories would lend itself to the Storia treatment? If yes, what about it makes you think it would be a good fit? If no, what changes do you think you’d need to make to it? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Please post your comments on YouTube--and I'd love it if you would subscribe while you're there!
Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!
AI-generated Summary
Exploring the Fusion of Narrative, Animation, and Multimedia: An Inside Look at Storia
In our continuous journey to embrace innovations and challenge the conventional ways of storytelling, a new realm has captured our attention. Welcome to Storia - an immersive platform blending narrative, animation, and multimedia. It's a creative hub that sees written stories come to life through dynamic animations. Exciting? We thought so too.
In a recent conversation, we explored this intriguing world further with Todd Gallet, one of the brains behind Storia. We delved into its concept, potential, and what it could mean for the future of storytelling.
Storia - Writing Meets Animation Meets Multimedia
Storia's primary aim is to revamp how narrative content is presented and consumed. It's a platform designed to accommodate a short, immersive, and mobile reading experience layered with visual effects. With Storia, stories stretch beyond the confines of text and mindfulness to present a multimedia experience complete with animation, original score music, and sound effects.
Launching in December, Storia isn’t just focused on one genre; it aims to layer short fiction across all genres to attract a new wave of readers and potential readers. With original animations ranging from 2D, 3D to gaming realism, this platform holds promising potential to revolutionize reading.
The Interplay of writing and Animation
Creating a story for Storia does demand a tweak in a writer's traditional approach. The platform encourages writers to stay true to their narrative voice while integrating enough visual points and creative pacing. This mixture enables creators to maximize the animation component and the effectiveness of the final content. The goal is to keep the process collaborative, drawing from the strengths and style of both writers and animators to make the stories both enchanting and engaging.
But does a writer need to be a fan of visual platforms to create for Storia? No! Instead, it's about finding great stories that could be accommodated into the new format. Stories that resonate, provoke emotional responses, introduce compelling characters, and can be brought to life with animation.
Building a Community of Creators and Readers
Building a thriving community of creators who can cross-promote their work is pivotal for Storia's journey. With the inclusive framework of this platform, creators can collaborate on new ideas and bring them to life. Furthermore, as Storia publishes the work, authors are credited and can interact with their fan base on various social media platforms.
While Storia doesn't dictate that authors engage on social media, they note that the platform provides an exciting opportunity for authors to reach new demographics and interact with a broader audience. In turn, this exposure could potentially drive more fans to the author's future works, thus expanding their influence and reach within the literature world.
In essence, Storia has one foot in the familiar world of written narrative and another in the not-so-familiar realm of animation and multimedia. This potent mix promises to breathe new life into the texture and pace of storytelling. Its launch is anticipated as a potential game-changer in the literary landscape — a playground for innovative content creation beyond the bounds of conventional writing or animation.
In our continuous journey to embrace innovations and challenge the conventional ways of storytelling, a new realm has captured our attention. Welcome to Storia - an immersive platform blending narrative, animation, and multimedia. It's a creative hub that sees written stories come to life through dynamic animations. Exciting? We thought so too.
In a recent conversation, we explored this intriguing world further with Todd Gallet, one of the brains behind Storia. We delved into its concept, potential, and what it could mean for the future of storytelling.
Storia - Writing Meets Animation Meets Multimedia
Storia's primary aim is to revamp how narrative content is presented and consumed. It's a platform designed to accommodate a short, immersive, and mobile reading experience layered with visual effects. With Storia, stories stretch beyond the confines of text and mindfulness to present a multimedia experience complete with animation, original score music, and sound effects.
Launching in December, Storia isn’t just focused on one genre; it aims to layer short fiction across all genres to attract a new wave of readers and potential readers. With original animations ranging from 2D, 3D to gaming realism, this platform holds promising potential to revolutionize reading.
The Interplay of writing and Animation
Creating a story for Storia does demand a tweak in a writer's traditional approach. The platform encourages writers to stay true to their narrative voice while integrating enough visual points and creative pacing. This mixture enables creators to maximize the animation component and the effectiveness of the final content. The goal is to keep the process collaborative, drawing from the strengths and style of both writers and animators to make the stories both enchanting and engaging.
But does a writer need to be a fan of visual platforms to create for Storia? No! Instead, it's about finding great stories that could be accommodated into the new format. Stories that resonate, provoke emotional responses, introduce compelling characters, and can be brought to life with animation.
Building a Community of Creators and Readers
Building a thriving community of creators who can cross-promote their work is pivotal for Storia's journey. With the inclusive framework of this platform, creators can collaborate on new ideas and bring them to life. Furthermore, as Storia publishes the work, authors are credited and can interact with their fan base on various social media platforms.
While Storia doesn't dictate that authors engage on social media, they note that the platform provides an exciting opportunity for authors to reach new demographics and interact with a broader audience. In turn, this exposure could potentially drive more fans to the author's future works, thus expanding their influence and reach within the literature world.
In essence, Storia has one foot in the familiar world of written narrative and another in the not-so-familiar realm of animation and multimedia. This potent mix promises to breathe new life into the texture and pace of storytelling. Its launch is anticipated as a potential game-changer in the literary landscape — a playground for innovative content creation beyond the bounds of conventional writing or animation.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello, and welcome to the Indie Author Podcast. Today, my guest is Todd Gallet. Hey, Todd, how are you doing?
[00:00:06] Todd: Hello, pleasure to chat with you.
[00:00:08] Matty: It is my pleasure as well.
Meet Todd Gallet
[00:00:09] Matty: To give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you. Todd Gallet has spent the past eight years helping independent content creators monetize their work across video, audio, and now short fiction. This is the third venture of the founding team, leveraging their expertise in scaling content marketplaces and advertising to build engaged audiences. I heard about the topic we're going to be talking about today, Storia, from Josh Pachter, who I was talking with at dinner one night at the Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity Conference. Josh had been involved in this platform, and it's sort of focused on short fiction. Everybody knows I love everything related to short fiction.
What is Storia?
[00:00:44] Matty: So, Todd, let's start out just talking about what is Storia, and what made you see this as an opportunity that you wanted to pursue?
[00:00:52] Todd: Absolutely. So, Storia will be launching in December. It is a new immersive reading experience, which is going to layer short fiction, as you mentioned, across genres. So we can get into that, but pretty much across all genres, we'll be launching with, layering that with animation, across different types of animation, from 2D, 3D, gaming realism, etc., anime, and original score, music, and sound effects. So again, a multimedia platform really trying to attract the new and next generation of readers and potential readers.
The growing interest in multimedia
[00:01:25] Matty: We were talking a little bit before we got started about your background in, interest in podcasting as well, and I think that all of these are, and Storia is just another example. All of these platforms are now finding ways to bring in other components, so, you know, what people might have thought of five years ago as a podcast is now maybe a multi-actor recreation of a fictional story or so on and so on. I'm guessing that kind of thing led into your interest in a platform like Storia.
[00:01:51] Todd: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you mentioned podcasting; we'll talk a little bit about our history and how that led us to today. But even with podcasting, again, even with the recording of this, it's not just an audio component anymore. There's a video component and a visual component to podcasting, which historically was an audio medium. Now, most of the consumption of podcasting is done on YouTube because people like to watch, as well as listen to this content. So, you know, that's always been of interest to us, is how we can blend the different media platforms.
Our expertise, historically, over the last eight, nine years, has been in scaling original content. Marketplaces. So, helping independent creators. First with video, we were in the early days of YouTube when YouTube creators were just getting started, and influencers were just starting to be a thing. We knew that there would be millions of creators who have quite a bit of talent but will have a hard time scaling their audiences, collaborating with other creators, monetizing that content. So, we became the largest independent marketplace for YouTubers and then sold that to YouTube in 2016. And then, as you mentioned, we got into the audio space for a few years and sold that company in 2020.
Opportunities in Top-Heavy Verticals and Fragmented Platforms
[00:02:59] Todd: As we were looking for our next venture, we always look for verticals where there are a lot of talented creators, but it's very top-heavy, meaning that a few people make quite a bit of money, get quite a bit of marketing push, and receive a lot of attention. However, the long tail typically has a hard time breaking through, which is the case for most creative ventures. You can say the same thing about anything, you know, music, etc. But that's typically the way it is, but also in industries where the distribution is very fragmented. And, you know, unlike YouTube where there's one distribution, one platform, and many creators, in the literature space, it's quite fragmented in distribution, which makes it even harder for a writer to find an audience, to find a publication, to monetize their content, etc. So, that certainly was of interest.
And then when you look at the other side of this, which is animation, you know, once again, you have creators worldwide who are very talented across their particular type of animation, 2D, 3D, etc. But for them, very few have an opportunity to create their own content. Most of them end up working for a bigger studio, where they do a very specific thing for a year or two and then don't get any specific credit. They are just a cog in the animation wheel, and for many of them, they want the ability to express themselves creatively, to create new characters, create new worlds, but what they don't have are those characters and worlds to develop off of, right? Many of them just create a monster and put it out with no real narrative behind it. So we felt there would be an exciting opportunity to combine these two creatives and create a new output, which in the literary space, there hasn't been much new age innovation, like you mentioned, kind of a multimedia innovation in quite some time.
Introducing New Readers and Viewers to Our Work
[00:04:41] Todd: So, our hope is that we can bring in new audiences that don't consider themselves readers by layering in this animation, which there are quite a few fans of, in anime, and comic books, and the explosion of comic cons. There is obviously a huge fan base there, and many of them might not consider themselves fiction readers. But they certainly are fans of this type of content, whether it be in live action or Marvel movies, etc. So they certainly love fiction, they love sci-fi, etc. But maybe they don't consider themselves readers, so they're not seeking out this short form content, which we believe and we're confident they will enjoy once it's presented to them in a more exciting, visually stimulating way. And our goal here is to bring all these creatives together.
[00:05:26] Matty: I think that the idea of people, the creators themselves not really recognizing the possible overlap is interesting from the point of view of fiction authors because I know until pretty recently, in fact, until I did a podcast episode with someone who had written and produced a graphic novel, I was not a graphic novel fan. Because I still thought of them as comic books, and I hadn't kind of made the jump to understand that, yes, there were comic books, but there was a whole spectrum of genres and approaches and levels of readership and so on. So do you feel as if an author is wanting to combine their written words with more visual aspects, is it something that they need to participate in, like, do they have to be readers of those more visual platforms in order to understand what is needed from a story point of view?
[00:06:17] Todd: No, I don't think so. You know, in fact, again, as we work with writers across genres, we are really excited to work with them in their own voice. We don't ask them to write any differently than they normally would. Obviously, there are some formatting things because we are layering animation, so there are certain formatting considerations on how we can maximize the animation component. But on the textual side, we really want them to express themselves as they normally would, and that's usually how we look at submissions. We want original voices, original ideas, etc. So, they don't necessarily have to be comic book fans or graphic novel fans to understand what we're trying to do here. Really, what we want to do is find great stories—some that have great subtext, some that have emotional pull at your heartstrings, some that just have great monsters, and our job is to go through them and adapt them into our new format, which again is basically just layering in animation. It's not completely animating the short stories.
Our goal here is that it is a reading experience; it'll be a mobile reading experience where someone controls the speed at which they read the text. But we are going to layer in the animation, either behind the text. So if you think of the opening to Star Wars, right, where you're reading and you're also seeing space behind it in a spaceship. It's very similar, right, so you're kind of reading and watching at the same time, or there'll be portions where someone is done reading that section, and it might just be a 20-30 second animation, full screen for them to kind of enjoy. So they're kind of bouncing back and forth; part of it they're imagining in their own head, some of it we're providing to them what it actually looks like. So it is quite an interesting experience, plus with the audio and the pacing music, etc.
So, you know, the impetus of this, we actually found is that with anime—and I don't know if you watch any anime or if your audience does—but quite a bit of anime is subtitled, right? It's in Japanese, but there's a huge number of Americans that don't speak Japanese that consume this content globally. Actually, not just Americans, but globally. So they're already used to reading the English subtitles along with an anime cartoon, right? So they're kind of already experiencing this, and it was when we started realizing that there's quite a bit of that on Netflix or on other platforms. People are already used to this behavior where they're kind of watching and reading and consuming at the same time. But nothing that's been kind of cross-genre that's typically done in the anime space.
But, we think we could bring that across genres, and to your point, blend some of these audiences. So it's not that if I like sci-fi, I have to go to a specific website because they have sci-fi content, or mystery thriller content, or romance novels. Those already seem to be niche in the distributions. There are specific websites or apps that focus on those types of content. We believe that there is an opportunity to blend those audiences. You know, once again, there are fans of Marvel movies that also consume rom-coms, and also consume, you know, when you think about streaming platforms. So it really is an opportunity to kind of provide just great stories and let people pick and choose what stories draw them in, and the types of art they like, the types of writers that they like. And in the end, hopefully, it drives more fans to the novel of that writer. You know, all of our stories are credited, so our goal, in a way that's mutually beneficial to everyone, is that they write a great story for us, it finds a home, it finds an audience. And then they can build a new fanbase for their next novel that is completely independent of our platform. I mean, that would be a win for both of us. What kinds of stories is Storia looking for?
[00:09:35] Matty: So, what kind of stories are you looking for? Like if someone is listening to this, a short fiction writer is listening to this and they're intrigued, are there characteristics of their own pool of short stories, because I understand you publish both original works and reprinted works, is that correct?
[00:09:49] Todd: Correct. Typically, with the reprints, you know, again, candidly, it has to be something that we just really love. And there have been. We definitely have licensed reprints. But with those, again, we want to find it a home. You know, typically with all of our stories, we really want to find a home for it as we kind of invest in the animation and marketing. So obviously originals are always preferable. Even working with writers to work, you know, some of the writers you have spoken to, they've worked with us on originals just for our platform. But across all genres, I guess to answer your question, it's across all genres. For us, we already work, as I mentioned, in sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mystery thrillers, romantic comedies, historical fiction, so anybody in your audience should feel comfortable submitting work.
I think for us, more importantly, is that it is... Visual, quote unquote, in nature, meaning it's descriptive and can be imagined in a way that is visual. It's not overly heavy in dialogue. Many times we'll get great stories that are heavy in dialogue, and what that does, it makes it difficult for us to animate. If there's three pages of dialogue for us, with two people sitting at a table, even if that dialogue is amazing, it's very difficult to animate in a way that's really exciting because it's just two people sitting at a table talking. So when people are writing or submitting work, for us, it's to keep the pacing of this story visually exciting. You know, every page or so has something new and exciting happening that we can bring in to life in an animation.
Outside of that, it's fairly open. You know, like I said, we were, in fact, intentionally looking to explore new categories, new storylines. How do we bring subtext into some of these and deeper messages in a way that's entertaining? So we're very open to, you know, reading anyone's story. The downside of tapping into an established series
[00:11:34] Matty: And do you have any preferences in terms of if someone has a series? I'm assuming it's okay for them to write a short story based on the characters of that series?
[00:11:44] Todd: Again, certainly open to it. You know, we actually just had a conversation with a writer earlier today who has a novel and a series of novels with the same IP. You know, for us, we're very open to it. Once again, similar to the reprint, I think it's often preferable that we start with a clean slate. What we've run into with having these discussions, especially if it's an IP, characters, world, etc., that have a significant fan base, is that we don't want to have pushback, where it should be a good thing, right, where we can market to these audiences that they could have a new visual experience. What you often find is that they're disappointed because they've imagined characters a certain way for the last five years. And now our artists are reimagining it in a way that they don't feel comfortable with. And that's actually where we ended up in that conversation, is that it might not be worth it because our artists are going to imagine it based on the short story description, and the characters might not look the way that they were described in a novel from years ago.
And you see this with other properties, right? Sometimes, fans are not happy with the way that the real, live-action version is presented, right? So, that is a bit of our concern. Though again, we're always open to conversations, and if it makes sense, but candidly, that's where we've netted out so far, that maybe it makes sense to just start with a clean slate, and then hopefully bring them into a new world where we can write those into novels or the author can write those into novels in the future with a new world.
[00:13:07] Matty: So, if somebody wanted to spin up a new world for Storia submission, would there be an expectation or an opportunity to make that a series of stories? And then you had also mentioned novel-length work, so can you talk about that a little bit?
[00:13:21] Todd: Yeah, no, absolutely. So we are starting with short fiction. So, you know, again, I would say two-to-four-thousand-word stories. Two to three is probably our sweet spot. A lot of it comes down to the animation component, which, as anyone might imagine, gets very costly the longer the story gets. Because even with our short stories, there's about three or four minutes of animation.
The power of bingeable content
[00:13:42] Todd: And we also want to make this bingeable. Again, as we bring in new audiences, we want to make this bingeable content and exciting content. So, for us, we are starting with stories that are standalone, though oftentimes we encourage writers to leave it a bit open-ended, like you just said, that there could be new stories that are brought into these worlds. If a story is successful, we want to be able to come back to that writer and let's see what happens with this character after that initial short story. Let's bring in new characters, new exciting adventures in this world; we certainly are open as we continue to grow and see what the demand is to do lengthier productions. Full-length novels eventually, potentially, if there's a fan base and an interest for it.
But we do think the quickest path to building that audience is with kind of the short, bingeable fiction, so that's where we're starting. As we grow and as we explore, we might be exploring other things. So, to answer your question, we certainly want to be able to revisit episodic opportunities, though typically our first kind of go at it with a story and a world is going to be fairly standalone.
[00:14:40] Matty: I know you're not launching until December, but do you have an expectation about to what extent authors who find an audience, probably a new audience, well, maybe a new audience on Astoria, could expect to have those visually oriented fans, then follow them on to other works? If they have a back list of unanimated text, textual books, do you have an expectation that there will be, that it will, in a way, kind of act as a reader magnet for their other works?
[00:15:09] Todd: We certainly hope so. As I mentioned, all of the writers are credited in will be credited in the app, and then also when you look, again, very early days, but in just the explosion and the reception and engagement of our content on social platforms, you know, we're going heavy on TikTok, but also on Instagram, but we're launching short trailers of our stories, think movie trailers on TikTok, and some of them are getting millions of views, and engagement, and the writers and authors are tagged in those.
So as we go into this new medium, if your writers don't have Instagram and TikTok and some of these platforms, it'll be a great opportunity, like you just said, to attract new audiences and fanbases that they might not even be going after at this point, so this could be an exciting opportunity for writers to not only reach a completely different audience, but let's say our trailer for this story has two million views or a million views, and the author's tagged. Of course, it's an opportunity for them to leverage that and also co-market it. All of our agreements have the opportunity for our writers to co-market this content, to drive people to the app, and to talk to their fan bases, etc. So, we certainly hope it's an opportunity for them to increase their personal audience and fanbase for their other work.
IP considerations
[00:16:20] Matty: I'm interested in this IP aspect, which I think is always important, in 'Taking the Short Cut,' which is the book I co-wrote with Mark Leslie Lefebvre about short fiction. We talk about this a little bit, but also, I think another great resource is Douglas Smith's 'Playing the Short Game,' which talks more about legal considerations. And, I'm thinking through, you know, what you were saying about maybe it's not ideal to have it be a character that already has an established fan base and book form, but I just had a conversation with a podcast guest about series, and we were talking about spin-off characters and how sometimes a character that is fun as a secondary character is too much as a primary character, but I can imagine a character in my Ann Kinnear suspense novels that I think would be great in two to three thousand word chunks, and would also be very fun to see an animation. And I think he's described in such a way that probably the animators and my readers would have the same expectation about what his appearance would be because I'm pretty explicit about it. Is that more attractive to you than an established protagonist? And if so, what are the IP considerations there since there is some overlap between an established series and a story?
[00:17:30] Todd: Yeah, I mean, that is a great point, and I actually think we'd be much more interested probably in that. Even when you think more broadly, as we work with other existing IPs, video games, or movie characters, or novels, we're actually very interested in the idea of let's fleshing out some of the secondary characters that haven't had backstories of that secondary character. I think that's like a perfect opportunity. I think you just made a great point that maybe 3,000 words are perfect to just establish a backstory on a character that people want more of, right, and start building out that world. So I think that is certainly an opportunity that we'd be open and interested in.
And from an IP perspective, of course, that's an important question, and we can segue to it here. We're very open to those conversations. You know, we have various opportunities to work with writers, whether it be original story content or existing stories in IP, on how we work with them from an agreement perspective. We have everything from, you know, full rights, like almost like a right-for-hire situation. Typically, those tend to be on originals that we collaborate on, that are kind of intended to be on the Storia platform, to license agreements, where we are licensing the story for a period of time. I mentioned, ideally we try to extend that exclusivity on the story itself, for as long as possible as we invest in the animation. But on the characters, we are open to the writer kind of continuing to explore that in published work, in extended work, etc. You know, novels, etc. So, you know, we've co-written these agreements. It's in conjunction with writers, various writers across various genres. So we feel, and the writers so far have felt that they're all like very fair and transparent and allow them to decide the direction that they want to go with the story.
So I think there are opportunities for all these different things, whether it be existing stories, existing IP, or, you know, original content that we can find a home for and explore.
[00:19:16] Matty: I have a little homework assignment to write up a two to three-thousand-word story.
[00:19:20] Todd: Yes, we're going to get you for that; we're going to get you on the story. I promise you that.
A valuable craft exercise
[00:19:24] Matty: I hope so. It is interesting, though, two to three thousand words. I think this is a really interesting thought exercise or creative exercise for writers because I'm actually pursuing a guest who can address the question or the comment I get a lot from novel writers, which is, I'll talk about the opportunities that short fiction offers, and they'll say, "Oh, that all sounds really good, but I can't write that short." So, knowing how to write short is one skill set, but then knowing how to write short in two to three thousand words for a story that is going to be animated is a really different thing. You have to bring a really different mindset to that, I think.
One of the reasons I'm thinking that this character would be very good for an animated presentation is he's kind of exaggerated. He's very tall and very thin, has sunken eyes, and, you know, I think it would be a more interesting visual experience than my protagonist. But some of those things almost go against what writers have been trained to think about. You know, they're trained to think not in terms of exaggeration. Do you have any thoughts about that? How writers could or should get over the hump to make their work as appropriate for a platform like Storia as possible.
[00:20:32] Todd: Yeah, absolutely. And I think most of the writers, again, having conversations with them, most of them don't typically write two to three-thousand-word stories, right? Even for them, short fiction is longer than two to three thousand. When they consider what short fiction is, or again, like you said, they're working on novels or, you know, whatever it might be. I think it is an interesting exercise. One, how do you give something depth in two to three thousand words because again, you know, we don't want it to just be very surface? It's not typically our stories; the ones we have enjoyed and found the most successful are not just kind of a single scenario single scene short story. A lot of them do have, even if a single protagonist, multiple characters or some level of character development or in a mystery thriller some level of build-up.
But for them, the exercise is, again, how do you cram that in a way that still is digestible. How do we raise the stakes without giving a ton of exposition? How do you care about a character on the first page without kind of telling readers why they should care about that character? This is part of the exercise that I think writers have found fun, and a good opportunity for them to work on this kind of more niche skill set, right? I mean, how do you cram in visual description in a way that isn't necessarily overkill but gives the animator enough, you know, description to really bring to life what they're expressing? To build relationships without a ton of dialogue? These are the kind of things, again, that we have been working with writers on.
And also collaboration with our editor. You know, as we read thousands of these stories, and we produce, you know, what we'll be launching with 50, but, you know, as we end up producing hundreds of these, that process will only continue to improve. You know, as we read more of these and as we see what is successful, it is a continual learning process in conjunction with the writers and animators. We kind of started from scratch, so to be fair, the first couple were a complete learning process. We didn't really know—I mean, to your point—how does this all mesh together? What's the appropriate length of dialogue? Or, how much description is too much description?
So, all of this stuff is what we continue to learn, and I think once we launch and readers can, and writers can read the final content, I think it'll only improve and streamline because they'll have a better idea of what the output is. So I think this is an exciting time for writers to kind of collaborate with us and find the right mix of all these things. You know, again, it is a new medium. So no one's an expert, not even us. We're very open about that. We're open to the collaboration. What we really want is just to find good voices, good writers, good ideas because from there, we're going to find—we actually handpick the animators.
So, once again, this is a complete collaboration where if you write about a certain type of environment, or you have a monster, or you are a romantic comedy, all of these are brought to life in different formats. So we're not trying to fit it into a certain pot. We are actually handpicking an animator that can bring it to life in an appropriate way based on how you're describing things, right? So, you know, our goal here is to make it work in the most authentic and organic way possible.
The Experience of Creative Collaboration
[00:23:35] Matty: The idea of the creative collaboration is really important. I think that probably our listeners would have most experience possibly with audiobooks. And I know that the experience of listening to a professional narrator read my work has been both very gratifying, but also a learning experience. I can see her emphasizing things that I didn't expect to be emphasized, and I can carry that learning forward to the next book to make it clearer what my intent was there.
I think there's a tendency for an author to want to say, "Oh, no, no, that's not what I meant. I want you to redo it," but they need to recognize that the narrator is also a creative professional and you need to give them some latitude in how they depict it. And I think it might be even more extreme when someone's seeing an animation of their work. Can you describe a little bit—do the writers have any input, little input, a lot of input into the animation? And can you provide any guidance on how people should absorb the animated rendition of their story when they finally see it if they are accepted as a story?
[00:24:36] Todd: I think coming into this with an open mind is probably going to be the most successful because like I said, we are all kind of learning and collaborating on the fly on this work. And also want to be respectful of both sides, the writer's work and the writer's voice, but also the animator's creative freedom and creativity and their style, etc.
So to date, we are pretty much the middleman between the writer and the animator. As we grow and expand our tech platform, there will be opportunities for our more established writers and animators on Storia to potentially collaborate, but right now, we are managing that process, to be fair. What we do always encourage is if a writer has any thoughts, notes, etc.
From an animation perspective, including the mood, colors, and style, we're certainly open to receiving feedback. However, what we do is pull out the animation notes, with our editor having the final say in creating the vision shared with the animator. As our team expands, dedicated art teams will handle this process. We take your writing as is and create a visual representation, providing the animator with creative freedom based on those notes.
There is collaboration in the process, and when we return to the writer, most edits focus on format rather than content. Occasionally, we may suggest trimming the conversation for a smoother reading experience or making structural changes to enhance the animation flow. The goal is to streamline the reading experience once the animations are incorporated.
Expect some back and forth in the editing process. While we may accept the story as is, there could be tweaks after animations are added. We act as intermediaries in these conversations and appreciate the writers' efforts. We credit the writers and aim to maintain the story in their voice, making changes based on their notes.
Our interactions with writers have been positive, and we aim to be respectful of their time and effort. We strive to accomplish as much upfront as possible, reducing the need for extensive edits later in the process. Our goal is to streamline the overall process and create the best possible product.
Reactions and Early Days
While there haven't been many animations released on our social platforms yet, writers have expressed excitement. Seeing their stories garner over a million views on TikTok is thrilling, and we understand that there may be different interpretations. We hope writers are happy and excited about the outcomes, recognizing that this is an exploration with some expected variations from their initial visions.
I mean, you're basically giving your story, but in a way, that's kind of cool, right? Because that's how readers interpret. When you get, when you put your story out there, every reader envisions a character in their own mind, in a very different way. And this is basically what's happening here—our artists are reading your story, and our editor is reading your story totally objectively, bringing to life what they envisioned it to be based on your description.
So, I think it'll be a very cool exercise, and my estimation is that writers will be really excited once they see people providing feedback on a story that they might not otherwise have read or been exposed to. So, I think it's, most of the writers are very excited to see what comes out of it.
Involving the reader/viewer in the creative process
[00:29:15] Matty: A past podcast guest, Robert Blake Whitehill, I remember him mentioning that he has a relationship with an art school, and he often has art school students who are interning for him. But one of the things they do is they illustrate scenes from his books, and he'll use those on social media. It's very interesting because they're freakishly different. Some are quite realistic, and some are very cartoonish in a stylistic way, or, you know, it's just all over the place. And I've never seen any pushback from people saying, "That's not how I saw it." It's an interesting analogy—the still picture, you know, it's a still picture, not an animation, but still seeing different people's interpretation of it. And I think it draws the reader, viewer, listener into the creative process in a way that can be very appealing.
[00:30:06] Todd: Yeah, and again, as we explore the visual medium of it, there are so many ways. You know, when you think about fan art as an entire category of creative content, right? People create their own interpretation of video games or movies, etc. Cosplay, all these different mediums where people are just providing their own interpretation of someone else's creative content.
So, we expect worlds of that, right? From our interpretation of someone's writing, someone will then reinterpret our interpretation into a cosplay or into fan art, and then we encourage that. That's kind of part of this whole medium—it's just to drive more interest in the characters, the world, etc.
Accommodating different preferences in consuming content
[00:30:47] Matty: I had a question that's, I'll probably just clip this out and use it as a standalone thing on social media and YouTube, but can you just describe how people listen to podcasts on YouTube? Because I have my podcast on YouTube, but I honestly don't understand the mechanics of how people are doing that.
[00:31:06] Todd: You know, it's funny, having worked at YouTube and then, you know, working on my own podcast company, I only consume podcasts on YouTube. So I guess maybe I'm most appropriate to answer this. You know, for me, it's all behavior-driven, right? Before becoming a quote-unquote podcast listener, I was a heavy YouTube consumer.
So whatever the content was, I, that's part of my behavior, to go to YouTube at certain times of the day and just watch stuff. Even with music, I listen to music on YouTube. So much of that is behavior. I do find myself liking the visual component. If I were to watch this interview, I liked seeing people and, you know, talking and seeing their facial expressions, etc.
And that's when I consume podcasts. I like the visual version. I guess it draws me in. I guess that's part of our business model—is that the visual draws people in, beyond the single medium, right? Just the audio. I think the visual is another layer of kind of engagement that draws people in. Also, really kind of focuses the attention a little bit more, right?
On YouTube, you have to kind of sit and watch it. Many times, people aren't running or doing the dishes or whatever they're doing. With a podcast, you could put it in your pocket, or if you're in the car, you could do something else. That's a positive aspect of podcasting, but it also splits the attention.
I actually find on YouTube that you have to be a little more focused because most people consuming it are sitting and watching and listening. So, my assumption is that they're a little more engaged. Also, when you look at the numbers, the engagement numbers on YouTube for podcasts are crushing it.
I mean, they also have a very large audience, right? So, the algorithm and the audience base on YouTube help build podcasts faster than on an audio platform just because of the algorithm and the discovery. YouTube is so massive in that way. So, I don't know if that answered your question, but that seems to be my behavior.
And even when I was working in advertising on podcasts, the visual component is certainly a positive. I mean, the content itself being the same, the engagement on the YouTube side seems to be really valuable.
[00:33:13] Matty: Yeah, well, it's interesting because I was applying too much of my own preference to my misunderstanding of what was going on. To me, podcasts are by definition what I do when I'm multitasking, when I'm walking the dog or driving somewhere. So, I was thinking, well, people must be somehow downloading the audio. I wasn't making that leap to say, no, they actually are sitting and watching it.
[00:33:37] Todd: Yeah, no, exactly. It's funny; whenever I hear, and my wife says it often, that when she listens to an audiobook, she considers it reading. It kind of draws that same analogy. A podcast doesn't necessarily have to be audio. That's how it started, right? But it could be multi-dimensional. So, you could be watching a podcast on YouTube. It's all about the content and how you're consuming it and engaging with it. There's a social element to these platforms.
It would be the same thing as you chopping up your podcast; you just said you'd chop this up and put it on social—on TikTok, on Facebook, on Instagram. People would be able to engage with it in a social component that on a podcast platform, they wouldn't be able to as much. Depending on where they're consuming their podcasts.
On Apple Podcasts, there really isn't much of a social element to it. You could write a review, but there isn't much social sharing, discussing, commenting. But if you chopped it up and put it on social, there is that for the same content. So, there are definitely pros and cons to leveraging all these different platforms for one single interview. We need a better phrase than "consuming content."
[00:34:41] Matty: I think that there's definitely a language lacking to cover the fact that the only way to describe what you were talking about—absorbing different content in different media—is consuming content, which sounds horrible. It sounds very medical and kind of like a problem. I think people do stumble over if I'm listening to an audiobook, am I really reading? And I wish that there were a better way to say consuming content in a way that sounded more appealing than consuming content because it does get awkward to say, "So, readers, listeners, and viewers," and stumble through all that, the lack of the appropriate language to use.
The opportunity to interact with those who are enjoying your content
[00:35:20] Todd: Yeah, I mean, that's part of our exploration of this new medium. What draws people in? Is it the reading, the animation, or the audio? What do people respond to throughout the story? This is that part of it, right? And like, how do you draw them in? Is it promoting it to readers or animators? We're very excited to see, you know, like you said, what drives the engagement. At the end of the day, we just want content creators to be able to share their content, you know, whatever that content is, if it's long form, movies, or books. Whatever you want people to consume, you want people to enjoy it. Let's change "consume" to "enjoy." That's, you know, you said, well, let's change the language. We want people to enjoy it. And if you can't get people to enjoy it, then it's unfortunate, right? There are so many great stories to be told, but people have to, you know, find it and engage with it for it to find, you know, to find that audience. So, you know, that's our goal here is to see where we can expand that into.
[00:36:24] Matty: That's great. I can see there are two sets of... two different kinds of work for an author to do. One is to write the story and submit it and see what happens. And then if it's accepted, whether it's on Storia or they're finding some other way to expand beyond words on the page, audio or video or animation or whatever that might be, then there's the opportunity to interact with people on social media just as you're describing. And I can imagine that could be a huge time suck. I can totally see how this kind of thing would be very popular on TikTok, but I really have no desire to spend any time on TikTok. So, do you set expectations, or do you have hopes about the extent to which the story authors will interact with their fans on the different social media platforms that you would post the animations on?
[00:37:09] Todd: To say we have an expectation? No, not currently. I mean, it's really up to the writers, and again, we probably will, as we grow and evolve, have opportunities to help maybe writers that aren't kind of heavy on some of these social platforms so they can maximize that opportunity, but we don't currently or we haven't currently kind of leaned in to provide any insight there. Again, as I mentioned, I think the animators are probably a little more involved on social. Many of them have kind of social presences or posting their content there, their portfolio. So those probably a little more. A lot of the writers to date aren't on, let's say, TikTok, but might be on Facebook and Instagram or they don't have a huge following there.
So I think it'll be part of that evolution is to see how they can tap into some of that and leverage it. I think part of the exciting conversations I've had is with writers that are excited about reaching a new demographic, right? And then part of this whole experience is writers across genres that, you know, they don't think their fan base is 18 to 24 gamers, right? That's not an audience base that they thought that they'd be reaching. But we have a story that has 1.4 million views on TikTok that is a younger demographic audience. Our audience on TikTok is, you know, 18 to 24 US, you know, male-female split. So I think there is this exciting kind of evolution that will happen with a lot of these writers to find... And hopefully engage with, I mean, again, as part of that exploration is how do they engage with those new audiences? Because as they continue to put out new work, you know, my hope is that they will be able to leverage that.
Tapping into cross-promotional opportunities with your co-creators
[00:38:46] Matty: Well, one thing I think is really positive in what I'm hearing is that it seems like there's an opportunity for cross-promotion between the authors and the animators in a way that I don't see a lot in the audiobook world. I love my audiobook narrators, but I have to say, they've never been a promotional channel for me. Like, I thought, oh, well, you know, once, if I post about the audiobook and I flag them and I mention their name, then obviously they're going to be sharing, and it may just be, you know, coincidental to the audiobook narrators I have, but, The animators, I would think this would apply to audiobook narrators too, but the animators have a clear incentive to also be sharing this work, you know, both a creative pride incentive, but also probably a financial incentive because it would no doubt lead to more work for them, but I think any of those areas where you can collaborate with another creator and not only get the satisfaction of the new creation, but also The cross-promotional opportunities is really valuable.
[00:39:39] Todd: Yes, absolutely.
[00:39:41] Matty: Well, Todd, thank you so much. This has been so interesting, and please let the listeners and the viewers know where they can go to find out more about you and everything you do online, including Storia.
[00:39:50] Todd: Absolutely, so our website is Storia.io. There you can find submission forms for writers and or animators, and also examples of our work, etc. You can also go on all social platforms, Storia Originals, on TikTok, on Instagram. There, as I mentioned, we're posting behind-the-scenes animations, we're posting excerpts from our stories and trailers, and it's a great place to kind of keep track of some of the work that we're putting out as we head towards our launch and also on our website if you want you can sign up for early access on our waitlist so we will be giving people access to kind of check out the early stories and give feedback and we're excited to start getting that feedback as we kind of get closer to our more formal launch so hopefully we'll have an opportunity to work with and speak to all of your listeners at some point along the way.
[00:40:40] Matty: That was great. Thank you so much.
[00:40:41] Todd: My pleasure, we'll talk soon.
[00:00:06] Todd: Hello, pleasure to chat with you.
[00:00:08] Matty: It is my pleasure as well.
Meet Todd Gallet
[00:00:09] Matty: To give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you. Todd Gallet has spent the past eight years helping independent content creators monetize their work across video, audio, and now short fiction. This is the third venture of the founding team, leveraging their expertise in scaling content marketplaces and advertising to build engaged audiences. I heard about the topic we're going to be talking about today, Storia, from Josh Pachter, who I was talking with at dinner one night at the Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity Conference. Josh had been involved in this platform, and it's sort of focused on short fiction. Everybody knows I love everything related to short fiction.
What is Storia?
[00:00:44] Matty: So, Todd, let's start out just talking about what is Storia, and what made you see this as an opportunity that you wanted to pursue?
[00:00:52] Todd: Absolutely. So, Storia will be launching in December. It is a new immersive reading experience, which is going to layer short fiction, as you mentioned, across genres. So we can get into that, but pretty much across all genres, we'll be launching with, layering that with animation, across different types of animation, from 2D, 3D, gaming realism, etc., anime, and original score, music, and sound effects. So again, a multimedia platform really trying to attract the new and next generation of readers and potential readers.
The growing interest in multimedia
[00:01:25] Matty: We were talking a little bit before we got started about your background in, interest in podcasting as well, and I think that all of these are, and Storia is just another example. All of these platforms are now finding ways to bring in other components, so, you know, what people might have thought of five years ago as a podcast is now maybe a multi-actor recreation of a fictional story or so on and so on. I'm guessing that kind of thing led into your interest in a platform like Storia.
[00:01:51] Todd: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you mentioned podcasting; we'll talk a little bit about our history and how that led us to today. But even with podcasting, again, even with the recording of this, it's not just an audio component anymore. There's a video component and a visual component to podcasting, which historically was an audio medium. Now, most of the consumption of podcasting is done on YouTube because people like to watch, as well as listen to this content. So, you know, that's always been of interest to us, is how we can blend the different media platforms.
Our expertise, historically, over the last eight, nine years, has been in scaling original content. Marketplaces. So, helping independent creators. First with video, we were in the early days of YouTube when YouTube creators were just getting started, and influencers were just starting to be a thing. We knew that there would be millions of creators who have quite a bit of talent but will have a hard time scaling their audiences, collaborating with other creators, monetizing that content. So, we became the largest independent marketplace for YouTubers and then sold that to YouTube in 2016. And then, as you mentioned, we got into the audio space for a few years and sold that company in 2020.
Opportunities in Top-Heavy Verticals and Fragmented Platforms
[00:02:59] Todd: As we were looking for our next venture, we always look for verticals where there are a lot of talented creators, but it's very top-heavy, meaning that a few people make quite a bit of money, get quite a bit of marketing push, and receive a lot of attention. However, the long tail typically has a hard time breaking through, which is the case for most creative ventures. You can say the same thing about anything, you know, music, etc. But that's typically the way it is, but also in industries where the distribution is very fragmented. And, you know, unlike YouTube where there's one distribution, one platform, and many creators, in the literature space, it's quite fragmented in distribution, which makes it even harder for a writer to find an audience, to find a publication, to monetize their content, etc. So, that certainly was of interest.
And then when you look at the other side of this, which is animation, you know, once again, you have creators worldwide who are very talented across their particular type of animation, 2D, 3D, etc. But for them, very few have an opportunity to create their own content. Most of them end up working for a bigger studio, where they do a very specific thing for a year or two and then don't get any specific credit. They are just a cog in the animation wheel, and for many of them, they want the ability to express themselves creatively, to create new characters, create new worlds, but what they don't have are those characters and worlds to develop off of, right? Many of them just create a monster and put it out with no real narrative behind it. So we felt there would be an exciting opportunity to combine these two creatives and create a new output, which in the literary space, there hasn't been much new age innovation, like you mentioned, kind of a multimedia innovation in quite some time.
Introducing New Readers and Viewers to Our Work
[00:04:41] Todd: So, our hope is that we can bring in new audiences that don't consider themselves readers by layering in this animation, which there are quite a few fans of, in anime, and comic books, and the explosion of comic cons. There is obviously a huge fan base there, and many of them might not consider themselves fiction readers. But they certainly are fans of this type of content, whether it be in live action or Marvel movies, etc. So they certainly love fiction, they love sci-fi, etc. But maybe they don't consider themselves readers, so they're not seeking out this short form content, which we believe and we're confident they will enjoy once it's presented to them in a more exciting, visually stimulating way. And our goal here is to bring all these creatives together.
[00:05:26] Matty: I think that the idea of people, the creators themselves not really recognizing the possible overlap is interesting from the point of view of fiction authors because I know until pretty recently, in fact, until I did a podcast episode with someone who had written and produced a graphic novel, I was not a graphic novel fan. Because I still thought of them as comic books, and I hadn't kind of made the jump to understand that, yes, there were comic books, but there was a whole spectrum of genres and approaches and levels of readership and so on. So do you feel as if an author is wanting to combine their written words with more visual aspects, is it something that they need to participate in, like, do they have to be readers of those more visual platforms in order to understand what is needed from a story point of view?
[00:06:17] Todd: No, I don't think so. You know, in fact, again, as we work with writers across genres, we are really excited to work with them in their own voice. We don't ask them to write any differently than they normally would. Obviously, there are some formatting things because we are layering animation, so there are certain formatting considerations on how we can maximize the animation component. But on the textual side, we really want them to express themselves as they normally would, and that's usually how we look at submissions. We want original voices, original ideas, etc. So, they don't necessarily have to be comic book fans or graphic novel fans to understand what we're trying to do here. Really, what we want to do is find great stories—some that have great subtext, some that have emotional pull at your heartstrings, some that just have great monsters, and our job is to go through them and adapt them into our new format, which again is basically just layering in animation. It's not completely animating the short stories.
Our goal here is that it is a reading experience; it'll be a mobile reading experience where someone controls the speed at which they read the text. But we are going to layer in the animation, either behind the text. So if you think of the opening to Star Wars, right, where you're reading and you're also seeing space behind it in a spaceship. It's very similar, right, so you're kind of reading and watching at the same time, or there'll be portions where someone is done reading that section, and it might just be a 20-30 second animation, full screen for them to kind of enjoy. So they're kind of bouncing back and forth; part of it they're imagining in their own head, some of it we're providing to them what it actually looks like. So it is quite an interesting experience, plus with the audio and the pacing music, etc.
So, you know, the impetus of this, we actually found is that with anime—and I don't know if you watch any anime or if your audience does—but quite a bit of anime is subtitled, right? It's in Japanese, but there's a huge number of Americans that don't speak Japanese that consume this content globally. Actually, not just Americans, but globally. So they're already used to reading the English subtitles along with an anime cartoon, right? So they're kind of already experiencing this, and it was when we started realizing that there's quite a bit of that on Netflix or on other platforms. People are already used to this behavior where they're kind of watching and reading and consuming at the same time. But nothing that's been kind of cross-genre that's typically done in the anime space.
But, we think we could bring that across genres, and to your point, blend some of these audiences. So it's not that if I like sci-fi, I have to go to a specific website because they have sci-fi content, or mystery thriller content, or romance novels. Those already seem to be niche in the distributions. There are specific websites or apps that focus on those types of content. We believe that there is an opportunity to blend those audiences. You know, once again, there are fans of Marvel movies that also consume rom-coms, and also consume, you know, when you think about streaming platforms. So it really is an opportunity to kind of provide just great stories and let people pick and choose what stories draw them in, and the types of art they like, the types of writers that they like. And in the end, hopefully, it drives more fans to the novel of that writer. You know, all of our stories are credited, so our goal, in a way that's mutually beneficial to everyone, is that they write a great story for us, it finds a home, it finds an audience. And then they can build a new fanbase for their next novel that is completely independent of our platform. I mean, that would be a win for both of us. What kinds of stories is Storia looking for?
[00:09:35] Matty: So, what kind of stories are you looking for? Like if someone is listening to this, a short fiction writer is listening to this and they're intrigued, are there characteristics of their own pool of short stories, because I understand you publish both original works and reprinted works, is that correct?
[00:09:49] Todd: Correct. Typically, with the reprints, you know, again, candidly, it has to be something that we just really love. And there have been. We definitely have licensed reprints. But with those, again, we want to find it a home. You know, typically with all of our stories, we really want to find a home for it as we kind of invest in the animation and marketing. So obviously originals are always preferable. Even working with writers to work, you know, some of the writers you have spoken to, they've worked with us on originals just for our platform. But across all genres, I guess to answer your question, it's across all genres. For us, we already work, as I mentioned, in sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mystery thrillers, romantic comedies, historical fiction, so anybody in your audience should feel comfortable submitting work.
I think for us, more importantly, is that it is... Visual, quote unquote, in nature, meaning it's descriptive and can be imagined in a way that is visual. It's not overly heavy in dialogue. Many times we'll get great stories that are heavy in dialogue, and what that does, it makes it difficult for us to animate. If there's three pages of dialogue for us, with two people sitting at a table, even if that dialogue is amazing, it's very difficult to animate in a way that's really exciting because it's just two people sitting at a table talking. So when people are writing or submitting work, for us, it's to keep the pacing of this story visually exciting. You know, every page or so has something new and exciting happening that we can bring in to life in an animation.
Outside of that, it's fairly open. You know, like I said, we were, in fact, intentionally looking to explore new categories, new storylines. How do we bring subtext into some of these and deeper messages in a way that's entertaining? So we're very open to, you know, reading anyone's story. The downside of tapping into an established series
[00:11:34] Matty: And do you have any preferences in terms of if someone has a series? I'm assuming it's okay for them to write a short story based on the characters of that series?
[00:11:44] Todd: Again, certainly open to it. You know, we actually just had a conversation with a writer earlier today who has a novel and a series of novels with the same IP. You know, for us, we're very open to it. Once again, similar to the reprint, I think it's often preferable that we start with a clean slate. What we've run into with having these discussions, especially if it's an IP, characters, world, etc., that have a significant fan base, is that we don't want to have pushback, where it should be a good thing, right, where we can market to these audiences that they could have a new visual experience. What you often find is that they're disappointed because they've imagined characters a certain way for the last five years. And now our artists are reimagining it in a way that they don't feel comfortable with. And that's actually where we ended up in that conversation, is that it might not be worth it because our artists are going to imagine it based on the short story description, and the characters might not look the way that they were described in a novel from years ago.
And you see this with other properties, right? Sometimes, fans are not happy with the way that the real, live-action version is presented, right? So, that is a bit of our concern. Though again, we're always open to conversations, and if it makes sense, but candidly, that's where we've netted out so far, that maybe it makes sense to just start with a clean slate, and then hopefully bring them into a new world where we can write those into novels or the author can write those into novels in the future with a new world.
[00:13:07] Matty: So, if somebody wanted to spin up a new world for Storia submission, would there be an expectation or an opportunity to make that a series of stories? And then you had also mentioned novel-length work, so can you talk about that a little bit?
[00:13:21] Todd: Yeah, no, absolutely. So we are starting with short fiction. So, you know, again, I would say two-to-four-thousand-word stories. Two to three is probably our sweet spot. A lot of it comes down to the animation component, which, as anyone might imagine, gets very costly the longer the story gets. Because even with our short stories, there's about three or four minutes of animation.
The power of bingeable content
[00:13:42] Todd: And we also want to make this bingeable. Again, as we bring in new audiences, we want to make this bingeable content and exciting content. So, for us, we are starting with stories that are standalone, though oftentimes we encourage writers to leave it a bit open-ended, like you just said, that there could be new stories that are brought into these worlds. If a story is successful, we want to be able to come back to that writer and let's see what happens with this character after that initial short story. Let's bring in new characters, new exciting adventures in this world; we certainly are open as we continue to grow and see what the demand is to do lengthier productions. Full-length novels eventually, potentially, if there's a fan base and an interest for it.
But we do think the quickest path to building that audience is with kind of the short, bingeable fiction, so that's where we're starting. As we grow and as we explore, we might be exploring other things. So, to answer your question, we certainly want to be able to revisit episodic opportunities, though typically our first kind of go at it with a story and a world is going to be fairly standalone.
[00:14:40] Matty: I know you're not launching until December, but do you have an expectation about to what extent authors who find an audience, probably a new audience, well, maybe a new audience on Astoria, could expect to have those visually oriented fans, then follow them on to other works? If they have a back list of unanimated text, textual books, do you have an expectation that there will be, that it will, in a way, kind of act as a reader magnet for their other works?
[00:15:09] Todd: We certainly hope so. As I mentioned, all of the writers are credited in will be credited in the app, and then also when you look, again, very early days, but in just the explosion and the reception and engagement of our content on social platforms, you know, we're going heavy on TikTok, but also on Instagram, but we're launching short trailers of our stories, think movie trailers on TikTok, and some of them are getting millions of views, and engagement, and the writers and authors are tagged in those.
So as we go into this new medium, if your writers don't have Instagram and TikTok and some of these platforms, it'll be a great opportunity, like you just said, to attract new audiences and fanbases that they might not even be going after at this point, so this could be an exciting opportunity for writers to not only reach a completely different audience, but let's say our trailer for this story has two million views or a million views, and the author's tagged. Of course, it's an opportunity for them to leverage that and also co-market it. All of our agreements have the opportunity for our writers to co-market this content, to drive people to the app, and to talk to their fan bases, etc. So, we certainly hope it's an opportunity for them to increase their personal audience and fanbase for their other work.
IP considerations
[00:16:20] Matty: I'm interested in this IP aspect, which I think is always important, in 'Taking the Short Cut,' which is the book I co-wrote with Mark Leslie Lefebvre about short fiction. We talk about this a little bit, but also, I think another great resource is Douglas Smith's 'Playing the Short Game,' which talks more about legal considerations. And, I'm thinking through, you know, what you were saying about maybe it's not ideal to have it be a character that already has an established fan base and book form, but I just had a conversation with a podcast guest about series, and we were talking about spin-off characters and how sometimes a character that is fun as a secondary character is too much as a primary character, but I can imagine a character in my Ann Kinnear suspense novels that I think would be great in two to three thousand word chunks, and would also be very fun to see an animation. And I think he's described in such a way that probably the animators and my readers would have the same expectation about what his appearance would be because I'm pretty explicit about it. Is that more attractive to you than an established protagonist? And if so, what are the IP considerations there since there is some overlap between an established series and a story?
[00:17:30] Todd: Yeah, I mean, that is a great point, and I actually think we'd be much more interested probably in that. Even when you think more broadly, as we work with other existing IPs, video games, or movie characters, or novels, we're actually very interested in the idea of let's fleshing out some of the secondary characters that haven't had backstories of that secondary character. I think that's like a perfect opportunity. I think you just made a great point that maybe 3,000 words are perfect to just establish a backstory on a character that people want more of, right, and start building out that world. So I think that is certainly an opportunity that we'd be open and interested in.
And from an IP perspective, of course, that's an important question, and we can segue to it here. We're very open to those conversations. You know, we have various opportunities to work with writers, whether it be original story content or existing stories in IP, on how we work with them from an agreement perspective. We have everything from, you know, full rights, like almost like a right-for-hire situation. Typically, those tend to be on originals that we collaborate on, that are kind of intended to be on the Storia platform, to license agreements, where we are licensing the story for a period of time. I mentioned, ideally we try to extend that exclusivity on the story itself, for as long as possible as we invest in the animation. But on the characters, we are open to the writer kind of continuing to explore that in published work, in extended work, etc. You know, novels, etc. So, you know, we've co-written these agreements. It's in conjunction with writers, various writers across various genres. So we feel, and the writers so far have felt that they're all like very fair and transparent and allow them to decide the direction that they want to go with the story.
So I think there are opportunities for all these different things, whether it be existing stories, existing IP, or, you know, original content that we can find a home for and explore.
[00:19:16] Matty: I have a little homework assignment to write up a two to three-thousand-word story.
[00:19:20] Todd: Yes, we're going to get you for that; we're going to get you on the story. I promise you that.
A valuable craft exercise
[00:19:24] Matty: I hope so. It is interesting, though, two to three thousand words. I think this is a really interesting thought exercise or creative exercise for writers because I'm actually pursuing a guest who can address the question or the comment I get a lot from novel writers, which is, I'll talk about the opportunities that short fiction offers, and they'll say, "Oh, that all sounds really good, but I can't write that short." So, knowing how to write short is one skill set, but then knowing how to write short in two to three thousand words for a story that is going to be animated is a really different thing. You have to bring a really different mindset to that, I think.
One of the reasons I'm thinking that this character would be very good for an animated presentation is he's kind of exaggerated. He's very tall and very thin, has sunken eyes, and, you know, I think it would be a more interesting visual experience than my protagonist. But some of those things almost go against what writers have been trained to think about. You know, they're trained to think not in terms of exaggeration. Do you have any thoughts about that? How writers could or should get over the hump to make their work as appropriate for a platform like Storia as possible.
[00:20:32] Todd: Yeah, absolutely. And I think most of the writers, again, having conversations with them, most of them don't typically write two to three-thousand-word stories, right? Even for them, short fiction is longer than two to three thousand. When they consider what short fiction is, or again, like you said, they're working on novels or, you know, whatever it might be. I think it is an interesting exercise. One, how do you give something depth in two to three thousand words because again, you know, we don't want it to just be very surface? It's not typically our stories; the ones we have enjoyed and found the most successful are not just kind of a single scenario single scene short story. A lot of them do have, even if a single protagonist, multiple characters or some level of character development or in a mystery thriller some level of build-up.
But for them, the exercise is, again, how do you cram that in a way that still is digestible. How do we raise the stakes without giving a ton of exposition? How do you care about a character on the first page without kind of telling readers why they should care about that character? This is part of the exercise that I think writers have found fun, and a good opportunity for them to work on this kind of more niche skill set, right? I mean, how do you cram in visual description in a way that isn't necessarily overkill but gives the animator enough, you know, description to really bring to life what they're expressing? To build relationships without a ton of dialogue? These are the kind of things, again, that we have been working with writers on.
And also collaboration with our editor. You know, as we read thousands of these stories, and we produce, you know, what we'll be launching with 50, but, you know, as we end up producing hundreds of these, that process will only continue to improve. You know, as we read more of these and as we see what is successful, it is a continual learning process in conjunction with the writers and animators. We kind of started from scratch, so to be fair, the first couple were a complete learning process. We didn't really know—I mean, to your point—how does this all mesh together? What's the appropriate length of dialogue? Or, how much description is too much description?
So, all of this stuff is what we continue to learn, and I think once we launch and readers can, and writers can read the final content, I think it'll only improve and streamline because they'll have a better idea of what the output is. So I think this is an exciting time for writers to kind of collaborate with us and find the right mix of all these things. You know, again, it is a new medium. So no one's an expert, not even us. We're very open about that. We're open to the collaboration. What we really want is just to find good voices, good writers, good ideas because from there, we're going to find—we actually handpick the animators.
So, once again, this is a complete collaboration where if you write about a certain type of environment, or you have a monster, or you are a romantic comedy, all of these are brought to life in different formats. So we're not trying to fit it into a certain pot. We are actually handpicking an animator that can bring it to life in an appropriate way based on how you're describing things, right? So, you know, our goal here is to make it work in the most authentic and organic way possible.
The Experience of Creative Collaboration
[00:23:35] Matty: The idea of the creative collaboration is really important. I think that probably our listeners would have most experience possibly with audiobooks. And I know that the experience of listening to a professional narrator read my work has been both very gratifying, but also a learning experience. I can see her emphasizing things that I didn't expect to be emphasized, and I can carry that learning forward to the next book to make it clearer what my intent was there.
I think there's a tendency for an author to want to say, "Oh, no, no, that's not what I meant. I want you to redo it," but they need to recognize that the narrator is also a creative professional and you need to give them some latitude in how they depict it. And I think it might be even more extreme when someone's seeing an animation of their work. Can you describe a little bit—do the writers have any input, little input, a lot of input into the animation? And can you provide any guidance on how people should absorb the animated rendition of their story when they finally see it if they are accepted as a story?
[00:24:36] Todd: I think coming into this with an open mind is probably going to be the most successful because like I said, we are all kind of learning and collaborating on the fly on this work. And also want to be respectful of both sides, the writer's work and the writer's voice, but also the animator's creative freedom and creativity and their style, etc.
So to date, we are pretty much the middleman between the writer and the animator. As we grow and expand our tech platform, there will be opportunities for our more established writers and animators on Storia to potentially collaborate, but right now, we are managing that process, to be fair. What we do always encourage is if a writer has any thoughts, notes, etc.
From an animation perspective, including the mood, colors, and style, we're certainly open to receiving feedback. However, what we do is pull out the animation notes, with our editor having the final say in creating the vision shared with the animator. As our team expands, dedicated art teams will handle this process. We take your writing as is and create a visual representation, providing the animator with creative freedom based on those notes.
There is collaboration in the process, and when we return to the writer, most edits focus on format rather than content. Occasionally, we may suggest trimming the conversation for a smoother reading experience or making structural changes to enhance the animation flow. The goal is to streamline the reading experience once the animations are incorporated.
Expect some back and forth in the editing process. While we may accept the story as is, there could be tweaks after animations are added. We act as intermediaries in these conversations and appreciate the writers' efforts. We credit the writers and aim to maintain the story in their voice, making changes based on their notes.
Our interactions with writers have been positive, and we aim to be respectful of their time and effort. We strive to accomplish as much upfront as possible, reducing the need for extensive edits later in the process. Our goal is to streamline the overall process and create the best possible product.
Reactions and Early Days
While there haven't been many animations released on our social platforms yet, writers have expressed excitement. Seeing their stories garner over a million views on TikTok is thrilling, and we understand that there may be different interpretations. We hope writers are happy and excited about the outcomes, recognizing that this is an exploration with some expected variations from their initial visions.
I mean, you're basically giving your story, but in a way, that's kind of cool, right? Because that's how readers interpret. When you get, when you put your story out there, every reader envisions a character in their own mind, in a very different way. And this is basically what's happening here—our artists are reading your story, and our editor is reading your story totally objectively, bringing to life what they envisioned it to be based on your description.
So, I think it'll be a very cool exercise, and my estimation is that writers will be really excited once they see people providing feedback on a story that they might not otherwise have read or been exposed to. So, I think it's, most of the writers are very excited to see what comes out of it.
Involving the reader/viewer in the creative process
[00:29:15] Matty: A past podcast guest, Robert Blake Whitehill, I remember him mentioning that he has a relationship with an art school, and he often has art school students who are interning for him. But one of the things they do is they illustrate scenes from his books, and he'll use those on social media. It's very interesting because they're freakishly different. Some are quite realistic, and some are very cartoonish in a stylistic way, or, you know, it's just all over the place. And I've never seen any pushback from people saying, "That's not how I saw it." It's an interesting analogy—the still picture, you know, it's a still picture, not an animation, but still seeing different people's interpretation of it. And I think it draws the reader, viewer, listener into the creative process in a way that can be very appealing.
[00:30:06] Todd: Yeah, and again, as we explore the visual medium of it, there are so many ways. You know, when you think about fan art as an entire category of creative content, right? People create their own interpretation of video games or movies, etc. Cosplay, all these different mediums where people are just providing their own interpretation of someone else's creative content.
So, we expect worlds of that, right? From our interpretation of someone's writing, someone will then reinterpret our interpretation into a cosplay or into fan art, and then we encourage that. That's kind of part of this whole medium—it's just to drive more interest in the characters, the world, etc.
Accommodating different preferences in consuming content
[00:30:47] Matty: I had a question that's, I'll probably just clip this out and use it as a standalone thing on social media and YouTube, but can you just describe how people listen to podcasts on YouTube? Because I have my podcast on YouTube, but I honestly don't understand the mechanics of how people are doing that.
[00:31:06] Todd: You know, it's funny, having worked at YouTube and then, you know, working on my own podcast company, I only consume podcasts on YouTube. So I guess maybe I'm most appropriate to answer this. You know, for me, it's all behavior-driven, right? Before becoming a quote-unquote podcast listener, I was a heavy YouTube consumer.
So whatever the content was, I, that's part of my behavior, to go to YouTube at certain times of the day and just watch stuff. Even with music, I listen to music on YouTube. So much of that is behavior. I do find myself liking the visual component. If I were to watch this interview, I liked seeing people and, you know, talking and seeing their facial expressions, etc.
And that's when I consume podcasts. I like the visual version. I guess it draws me in. I guess that's part of our business model—is that the visual draws people in, beyond the single medium, right? Just the audio. I think the visual is another layer of kind of engagement that draws people in. Also, really kind of focuses the attention a little bit more, right?
On YouTube, you have to kind of sit and watch it. Many times, people aren't running or doing the dishes or whatever they're doing. With a podcast, you could put it in your pocket, or if you're in the car, you could do something else. That's a positive aspect of podcasting, but it also splits the attention.
I actually find on YouTube that you have to be a little more focused because most people consuming it are sitting and watching and listening. So, my assumption is that they're a little more engaged. Also, when you look at the numbers, the engagement numbers on YouTube for podcasts are crushing it.
I mean, they also have a very large audience, right? So, the algorithm and the audience base on YouTube help build podcasts faster than on an audio platform just because of the algorithm and the discovery. YouTube is so massive in that way. So, I don't know if that answered your question, but that seems to be my behavior.
And even when I was working in advertising on podcasts, the visual component is certainly a positive. I mean, the content itself being the same, the engagement on the YouTube side seems to be really valuable.
[00:33:13] Matty: Yeah, well, it's interesting because I was applying too much of my own preference to my misunderstanding of what was going on. To me, podcasts are by definition what I do when I'm multitasking, when I'm walking the dog or driving somewhere. So, I was thinking, well, people must be somehow downloading the audio. I wasn't making that leap to say, no, they actually are sitting and watching it.
[00:33:37] Todd: Yeah, no, exactly. It's funny; whenever I hear, and my wife says it often, that when she listens to an audiobook, she considers it reading. It kind of draws that same analogy. A podcast doesn't necessarily have to be audio. That's how it started, right? But it could be multi-dimensional. So, you could be watching a podcast on YouTube. It's all about the content and how you're consuming it and engaging with it. There's a social element to these platforms.
It would be the same thing as you chopping up your podcast; you just said you'd chop this up and put it on social—on TikTok, on Facebook, on Instagram. People would be able to engage with it in a social component that on a podcast platform, they wouldn't be able to as much. Depending on where they're consuming their podcasts.
On Apple Podcasts, there really isn't much of a social element to it. You could write a review, but there isn't much social sharing, discussing, commenting. But if you chopped it up and put it on social, there is that for the same content. So, there are definitely pros and cons to leveraging all these different platforms for one single interview. We need a better phrase than "consuming content."
[00:34:41] Matty: I think that there's definitely a language lacking to cover the fact that the only way to describe what you were talking about—absorbing different content in different media—is consuming content, which sounds horrible. It sounds very medical and kind of like a problem. I think people do stumble over if I'm listening to an audiobook, am I really reading? And I wish that there were a better way to say consuming content in a way that sounded more appealing than consuming content because it does get awkward to say, "So, readers, listeners, and viewers," and stumble through all that, the lack of the appropriate language to use.
The opportunity to interact with those who are enjoying your content
[00:35:20] Todd: Yeah, I mean, that's part of our exploration of this new medium. What draws people in? Is it the reading, the animation, or the audio? What do people respond to throughout the story? This is that part of it, right? And like, how do you draw them in? Is it promoting it to readers or animators? We're very excited to see, you know, like you said, what drives the engagement. At the end of the day, we just want content creators to be able to share their content, you know, whatever that content is, if it's long form, movies, or books. Whatever you want people to consume, you want people to enjoy it. Let's change "consume" to "enjoy." That's, you know, you said, well, let's change the language. We want people to enjoy it. And if you can't get people to enjoy it, then it's unfortunate, right? There are so many great stories to be told, but people have to, you know, find it and engage with it for it to find, you know, to find that audience. So, you know, that's our goal here is to see where we can expand that into.
[00:36:24] Matty: That's great. I can see there are two sets of... two different kinds of work for an author to do. One is to write the story and submit it and see what happens. And then if it's accepted, whether it's on Storia or they're finding some other way to expand beyond words on the page, audio or video or animation or whatever that might be, then there's the opportunity to interact with people on social media just as you're describing. And I can imagine that could be a huge time suck. I can totally see how this kind of thing would be very popular on TikTok, but I really have no desire to spend any time on TikTok. So, do you set expectations, or do you have hopes about the extent to which the story authors will interact with their fans on the different social media platforms that you would post the animations on?
[00:37:09] Todd: To say we have an expectation? No, not currently. I mean, it's really up to the writers, and again, we probably will, as we grow and evolve, have opportunities to help maybe writers that aren't kind of heavy on some of these social platforms so they can maximize that opportunity, but we don't currently or we haven't currently kind of leaned in to provide any insight there. Again, as I mentioned, I think the animators are probably a little more involved on social. Many of them have kind of social presences or posting their content there, their portfolio. So those probably a little more. A lot of the writers to date aren't on, let's say, TikTok, but might be on Facebook and Instagram or they don't have a huge following there.
So I think it'll be part of that evolution is to see how they can tap into some of that and leverage it. I think part of the exciting conversations I've had is with writers that are excited about reaching a new demographic, right? And then part of this whole experience is writers across genres that, you know, they don't think their fan base is 18 to 24 gamers, right? That's not an audience base that they thought that they'd be reaching. But we have a story that has 1.4 million views on TikTok that is a younger demographic audience. Our audience on TikTok is, you know, 18 to 24 US, you know, male-female split. So I think there is this exciting kind of evolution that will happen with a lot of these writers to find... And hopefully engage with, I mean, again, as part of that exploration is how do they engage with those new audiences? Because as they continue to put out new work, you know, my hope is that they will be able to leverage that.
Tapping into cross-promotional opportunities with your co-creators
[00:38:46] Matty: Well, one thing I think is really positive in what I'm hearing is that it seems like there's an opportunity for cross-promotion between the authors and the animators in a way that I don't see a lot in the audiobook world. I love my audiobook narrators, but I have to say, they've never been a promotional channel for me. Like, I thought, oh, well, you know, once, if I post about the audiobook and I flag them and I mention their name, then obviously they're going to be sharing, and it may just be, you know, coincidental to the audiobook narrators I have, but, The animators, I would think this would apply to audiobook narrators too, but the animators have a clear incentive to also be sharing this work, you know, both a creative pride incentive, but also probably a financial incentive because it would no doubt lead to more work for them, but I think any of those areas where you can collaborate with another creator and not only get the satisfaction of the new creation, but also The cross-promotional opportunities is really valuable.
[00:39:39] Todd: Yes, absolutely.
[00:39:41] Matty: Well, Todd, thank you so much. This has been so interesting, and please let the listeners and the viewers know where they can go to find out more about you and everything you do online, including Storia.
[00:39:50] Todd: Absolutely, so our website is Storia.io. There you can find submission forms for writers and or animators, and also examples of our work, etc. You can also go on all social platforms, Storia Originals, on TikTok, on Instagram. There, as I mentioned, we're posting behind-the-scenes animations, we're posting excerpts from our stories and trailers, and it's a great place to kind of keep track of some of the work that we're putting out as we head towards our launch and also on our website if you want you can sign up for early access on our waitlist so we will be giving people access to kind of check out the early stories and give feedback and we're excited to start getting that feedback as we kind of get closer to our more formal launch so hopefully we'll have an opportunity to work with and speak to all of your listeners at some point along the way.
[00:40:40] Matty: That was great. Thank you so much.
[00:40:41] Todd: My pleasure, we'll talk soon.
