Crowd-Funding a Sci-Fi Audio Drama

Written for Pen-to-Print and later published by the Writers & Artists Yearbook, this article delves into the crowdfunding process

Emily Inkpen talks us through the process of turning her sci-fi drama, The Dex Legacy, into a successful audio series, and funding Season Two via the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.

Making money from creative projects can be an uphill struggle, especially for indie writers and producers. As getting our work out into the world inevitably takes a certain level of investment, these funds must be found in our own pockets, or through creative methods. As a science fiction and fantasy writer of novels and audio drama, I have plenty of experience with the former and some with the latter – and the latter is a challenge.

I work with Write On! Audio’s producer, Chris Gregory, on sci-fi audio drama, The Dex Legacy. Season one has been an incredibly successful indie project. We’ve had over 70,000 downloads around the world, we’re a top five per cent global podcast and we’ve just been signed with Apollo Podcasts as part of their premium offering. Following this success, we’ve embarked upon the creation of season two, which will bring a new set of financial challenges. Season one was recorded throughout the Covid pandemic and lockdowns, so we recorded asynchronously and covered actor fees ourselves. Now, we want to step up our production and studio time is expensive!

Why Crowdfund?

As long as it’s spent well, having a budget means quality. If you can get some capital behind you, you can get artists, composers, professional actors, advertising. This means more options for you as a creator, and often a better-quality product for the consumer…