The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast - Sleepless Sanctuary Announcement

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Join host David Cummings for a short announcement episode where he explains in more detail our new premium subscription platform called the “Sleepless Sanctuary”.

Hello, sleepless listeners, David Cummings here, creator and host of the No Sleep Podcast. This is going to be a short announcement-style episode so I can explain in more detail our new Sleepless Sanctuary subscription program for Season 20 and beyond. I mentioned the new platform on the most recent episode, so I'm going to take a few minutes to go into more details about the new system. So, to begin, let me explain the three ways you can enjoy the No Sleep podcast. It's via one of the three tiers we'll be offering you. The first is our traditional tier.

This is the free ad-supported feed that the vast majority of our listeners subscribe to. There's really no change happening to our traditional free tier. You'll get your weekly Sunday releases, each episode running 60 or more minutes, with usually one or two short ads during the episode. So if this is how you've been listening to us in the past, well, you're all set. Get ready for the start of season 20 on October 1st. But I hope you'll stick around to the end of this to hear what we're offering in our other two tiers. Maybe you'll be tempted to check out our premium episodes.

Wink, wink. The second tier we offer is on our new platform, and it's called our sleepless tier. Now, for many of you, in the past, you've been a season pass member. Our season passes were ways for people to pay one price to access the full-length ad-free episodes, and bonus content each season. I'll explain more about what's going to happen to past season passes a bit later, but for now, let's think of our sleepless tier as the new form of the season pass program. The sleepless tier is only $5 per month,

or you can purchase a yearly subscription for only $55. That's basically one month for free. In this sleepless tier, you'll get access to each weekly episode from the current season, releasing one day earlier than the traditional episodes, episodes completely ad-free and running well over two hours long. Along with that, you'll get access to the current season's exclusive bonus content, including old-time radio, suddenly shocking, and the holiday bonus episodes like Halloween and Christmas.

The other perk we're launching with is access to a special sleepless sanctuary Discord server. On this server, you can hang out with fellow fans of the podcast, along with many of the team that create this show for you. Hangouts, chats, Q&As, lots of ways to interact and stay sleepless. And finally, you'll have access to our AMA platform, the Ask Me Anything platform. You'll be able to submit questions about the show, the stories, the casting crew, or horror in general. We'll answer your questions and even share bonus episodes with our team answering them for you. So that's the sleepless tier as we live.

launch into season 20. The third tier we offer is called our sanctuary tier. It's available for only $10 a month or a yearly subscription for only $110. Again, one free month. But get this, for a limited time, we're launching the sanctuary tier for only $8 for the first month. Get the first month for $8 and then pay only $10 a month after that. But be quick, this is a limited time offer. In the sanctuary, you'll get access to all the content in the sleepless tier, plus full access to all our past library of premium episodes. Every premium episode of the podcast, right there for you to enjoy whenever the darkness of the night calls to you.

And each month will be featuring an additional bonus episode, running around an hour long. These episodes will include some stories, and perhaps even some behind-the-scenes contents, like interviews with writers or people, from our casting crew. And your access to the Sleepless Sanctuary Discord channel will include ways in which you can join us

to play online games together. A game night with the No Sleep podcast. Come play Jackbox, Bingo, and other interactive games with the No Sleep crew. We'll hold these regularly, probably quarterly, to begin with, and you'll also get access to exclusive merchandise along with advance notice and discounts for No Sleep Live appearances.

And there's one other really fun, We'll be holding raffles where you can enter to become part of the No Sleep podcast. You can win a chance to hear your name in one of our stories, or even your voice on the podcast if you win a walk-on role in a story. That's right, if you're able to record yourself at a good quality level, you can play a small role in one of our stories. And the chance to win that is yours if you're a sanctuary member. So there you go.

the three ways you can enjoy the No Sleep Podcast. And one exciting change of this new platform is how you can pay. You can sign up quickly and effortlessly using Apple Pay, Google Pay, or with a credit card. And so even if you don't have a credit card, it's easy to add funds to Apple or Google Pay and seamlessly become a member of the sleepless sanctuary. And just to be clear, the way you access your episodes is like any other podcast feed. You'll be given your own secure RSS feed, which will work in any podcast app. But you don't have to do anything with that feed.

You simply sign up, tap a button, choose the podcast player of your choice, and boom, no sleep horror crawling in your ears. Simple as that. Now, when it comes to some of the questions people have been having about this, there is something that I should mention, and it's something I've never actually discussed before. The answer might feel obvious, but let's answer it anyway. That is, why do we offer a paid subscription model for the No Sleep podcast? Well, back in 2013, when the Season Pass program started, it was almost unheard of for podcasts to, well, charge for content.

Today, it's commonplace. A lot of new podcasts launch with Patreon pages and other subscription models. And for us, the fact is quite simple. A lot of people devote a lot of their time and their talent and energy to make the NoSleeper. sleep podcast possible. And we ensure that everyone who contributes to this show is paid. Many of our team are essentially full-time contributors with the bulk of their monthly income coming from this show. And as podcasting has changed and evolved, as our world is coming out of a global pandemic and as the economy struggles with inflation and other economic challenges,

we've been fighting tooth and nail to keep this show going. Now listen, I'm not looking for pity or I'm not tugging at anyone's heartstrings here. But we face challenges, just like a lot of shows. It's been a really tough few years for us. But it's my hope that you'll agree with us about how we've maintained our regular release schedule and have continued to release a high level of horror content in terms of both quantity and quality.

And so for those of you listeners who have the capacity to support what we do financially, we offer you these two new paid tiers of support. And here's another point I want to make with no ambiguity. We love and appreciate every person who listens to our show. We don't value paid members over people who listen to the traditional feed. Everyone who listens and enjoys what we do is contributing to our show. No one needs to feel less of a fan if they listen to the free feed, okay?

I've even heard free listeners call themselves freeloaders. Now listen, you can stop that right now. No one is a freeloader. You are all valued listeners. All we want is for as many people as possible to enjoy our audio horror stories. If you're one of them, in any form at all, you are valued, appreciated, and we freaking love you. Now, before I wrap this up, let me answer a couple of the big questions we've been seeing on the forums. The first has to do with existing season passes that people own. The season passes and full-length episodes you've purchased in the past are yours to keep. We do not want to take anything away from you, so rest assured,

we're not shutting down your access to them at this time. But at some point, there will come a time when we're going to ask you to give those episodes a new home. And to explain that, here's a dumb analogy I've come up with. Your season past episodes are like a horse. You've bought your horse from us, but you need us to give him a home. You stop by the farm every now and then and ride your horse and enjoy him. He's your horse. We're just looking after him for you. But now, well, it's time for us to sell the farm, getting a bit too expensive to keep it up. So we're going to give you lots of notice and instructions about how and when you can come get your horse and take him back to your farm, where you can enjoy him anytime you want. In the same way, we'll eventually ask you to download

all the episodes you've purchased onto a computer or storage device so you can access them directly that way. You'll never have to lose these episodes. We just need to stop being the ones hosting them for you. And as a reminder, if you become a sanctuary member, all those episodes will be available to you anytime. The other question we're seeing is about people wanting more or different perks. And yeah, I get that. As we launched this new platform, we've tried to come up with two highly appealing packages. But here's an important thing to keep in mind. Our subscription tiers are fluid, very well may change over time. I don't imagine we'll ever reduce the number of perks, but we may add new ones. We might even add a third tier to offer different perks altogether.

We obviously want to find the right price points and perk levels to appeal to the most people. And I hope you'll agree that the No Sleep podcast has always tried and hopefully succeeded at under-promising and over-delivering. If you were around when the season past program started in 2013, you might recall that the free episodes were originally meant to be only 20 or 30 minutes in length. They quickly became 40, then 50 minutes, and now are regularly well over an hour. I bet you'll find the amount of bonus content and perks will go up over time. We just need to gauge how the new tiers are doing and adjust accordingly. Again, all we want is for people to enjoy as much of our horror content as is feasible for them.

So that's about it. In summary, there's really not a lot changing with our show. Free listeners, everything stays the same. Season pass member? Well, it's now $5 a month instead of $25 for six months. And for those who want it all, a mere $10 a month gets you the mother load. We hope you're excited for the start of October and the Halloween season. We have lots of tricks and treats in store for season 20.

We hope you'll agree that the new season, will be, as the kids say these days, well, it's going to be fire. So thank you, sleepless listeners. We are so grateful you care enough about our show to listen. We're going to continue to work hard to bring you the best audio horror on the planet. And we're glad you're along for the ride through this decidedly haunted house. Season 20 is starting soon. Brace yourself and stay sleepless.