Every Wednesday we gather around the campfire to tell ghost stories.

"Do you wanna hear a ghost story?" was born out of my love of oral storytelling and using audio as a medium to enhance the story. My family loved telling ghost stories around a campfire at night when I was growing up, and that is something I wanted to continue doing and share with others.

I don't have a background in entertainment or podcasting. I am learning how to do this on the fly and strive to improve every week, so feedback is greatly appreciated (even if you don't like my show - I just ask that you be respectful even if telling me you don't like it).

If you are interested in the paranormal, ghosts, horror movies, or Halloween, I think you'd really like my show. Each week, a short story is submitted by a listener. I try to use audio to make my show as immersive as possible - for Halloween, I am working with someone who submitted a story to make a 1-episode ~30-minute fictionalized audio drama based on their experience and the story they submitted. Sparking off a new tradition of the "Do you wanna hear a ghost story?" Halloween Special.
 

I love spooky content; in my opinion, there can never be enough. I have listened to various podcasts for years and finally decided to do my own. I really leaned into the sound design to enhance the story and also found inspiration in my childhood memories of telling stories at a campfire to design the "vibe" of my show.

My goals for the show are twofold: short-term and long-term. In the short term, I want to become better at producing the show so that it is enjoyable for everyone who is interested. This goal is a pretty large task for someone with no background in doing anything like this. But so far, it's incredibly fun to learn about the world of voiceovers and sound design concerning podcasting.

I started my show a little over two months ago; I am on episode 10. I threw most "conventional podcast wisdom" to the wind and published my first episode about an hour after I finished it. I have fortunately worked ahead and have a few episodes in the queue, but by turning around from "I want to do this" to doing it to posting, it was about a week.
 

I release every episode every week. I spend about 10-12 hours on my podcast a week. I think primarily because I am so new to this. But my workflow is to turn the stories into a script, record, edit, add a score, and SFX.

This has become a night and weekend project for me outside of my job. Between hosting and marketing, I am on track to spend, I think, 300 dollars per year on the show. Right now, I am covering all the costs of my show.
 

I would take a sponsorship; I currently have a Patreon with three members totaling $31 monthly. (Not a lot, I know, but ten weeks in, I am incredibly grateful).

However, my end goal is to continue increasing production value and the number of stories per show. So, in the short term, I am recycling most of my income into marketing spending while I take online classes and read up on how to get better. In the long term, I will purchase equipment that makes production faster.

My show is still growing pretty steadily, but in the last 30 days, I have 1,667 downloads.
 

Stories are sent to me, and I offer submitters two options:

1 - I work with them to turn their story into a compelling narrative to tell on the show, allowing me to balance the listener's experience with faithfully recounting their story.

2- I catalog it, and when I get enough similar stories, I will do an episode on that phenomenon and read all of them precisely as emailed in.

So far, everyone has chosen #1 - so my writing process begins with me meticulously going through their story to understand what makes it tick, where we could use backstory, etc. I send those notes back to the submitter to answer my questions. I then create drafts and email them to the submitter until they give the OK on the story; I will make any changes they suggest - after all, it is their story, and I just want to tell it engagingly. Depending on how busy the submitter and I are, sometimes this takes days; in one case, it has taken three weeks.

I use Audacity to record and edit; I add my sound design and scoring via Freesound.org.
 

I think the majority of my listeners come from Instagram and TikTok.

~65% Apple Podcasts
~25% Spotify
~10 Misc Podcast Apps
 

The barrier to entry is far lower than you think; go ahead and get started. Pick one thing each week to improve, and never lose that mentality. You will have a great show in just a couple of months.
 

@wannahearaghoststory on Instagram and Tik Tok.

Website:
https://do-you-wanna-hear-a-ghost-story.castos.com/?_gl=1*1ug1q1d*_gcl_au*ODk1NDE4ODQxLjE3MTc0NDM3MzE.