Fiction Podcasts
New Jersey Web Festival has expanded its offerings to include the wonderful world of fiction podcasts!
Submissions from all over the world, and from every genre, are welcome.
Quality is the only criteria: we want to showcase the very best!
This year we are accepting both serialized and episodic fiction podcasts, including stand-alone fictional stories, anthologies, and pilots so that everyone can have a chance to #FeelTheMagic!
You can submit an individual episode, a section of an episode, or a custom-made "highlight reel" from across your show. Whatever you would like to submit is fair game. We require all submitted podcasts to have an RSS feed available to distribute their full show separate from their submission. This RSS feed can be hosted publicly or privately, and "full show" can be defined as a single episode.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at podcasts@newjerseywebfest.com.
Submissions are Open!
Submission fees increase the longer you wait. Submit early to save $!
$40 - Submit by October 30, 2022 - Super Earlybird Deadline
$50 - Submit by January 12, 2023 - Earlybird Deadline
$60 - Submit by March 16, 2023 - Regular Deadline
$70 - Submit by June 17, 2023 - Late and Final Deadline
We will announce the acceptances on or by August 1, 2023 live on Facebook and Instagram. We will post the list shortly after!
Event Date: September 21-24, 2023
Awards Categories
The awards listed below are just a sample of what categories may actually appear at the festival (pending submissions in the respective categories). We will likely add more as we go!
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Best Director of a _________ (Final Genre lists by Submission)
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Best Writing of a _________ (Final Genre lists by Submission)
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Best Actor in a _________ (Final Genre lists by Submission)
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Best Supporting Actor in a _________ (Final Genre lists by Submission)
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Best Ensemble Cast in a _________ (Final Genre lists by Submission)
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Best Ensemble Cast in an Actual Play
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Best Game Master
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Best Chemistry
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Best Sound Design
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Best Score/Soundtrack
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Best Theme Song
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Best Series Premise
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Outstanding Trailer
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Outstanding _____ Series (Final Genre lists by Submission)
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Outstanding Actual Play Series
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Outstanding LGBTQ+ Series
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NJ WEBFEST BEST OF THE BEST - PODCAST
Is my show eligible?
Whether you call your show a fiction podcast, audio drama, audio fiction, or anything in between, you're still welcome to submit! What we call this artform doesn't change the fact that we are all lovers and supports of podcasting!
Ideally, you should have at least three episodes produced, but if you have one or two outstanding episodes, with future episodes in the works, feel free to submit. If it's a can't-miss show, we won't pass up the chance to showcase you at our festival.
Series creators should also include a link for us to listen to your entire series. We are lovers of podcasts, and may want to listen to every episode before making our selections!
Audio submitted should be no longer than 30 minutes in length and should present what you feel is the best representation of the audio you would like to be considered for awards. This can be a trailer or a portion of an episode, or even several episodes. As long as it comes in under the 30-minute limit, we’ll take it!
We also accept productions in any language! The submission form features a final question of "Anything Else?" Please list the language of your submission and any specific dialect if applicable. We will ensure that your submission is judged by a fluent and properly trained judge. All accepted submissions in non-english languages will have to supply an english transcript with their "screening" file (~5-7 minutes long).
If you have any other questions about the eligibility of your production, please reach out to us at podcasts@newjerseywebfest.com.
Is this a Podcast Convention?
In some ways, yes. Historically the New Jersey Web Festival has been one of the premiere film festivals for web series, music videos, and trailers in the world. On top of screenings (so that everyone can celebrate each others' incredible work), and an awards component, we offer panels with industry leaders, networking events, and a wide range of programming to give creators the best experience for their work, and to help create connections for their future artistic endeavors. In a way we are creating the first Fiction Podcast Film Festival.
But podcasts aren't fil--
Yep, yep, we walked right into that one. We don't have an exact term for what we're making, because honestly, its never been done like this before. We're bringing the magic of film festivals to the podcast space, and the magic of the podcast convention to the web series space. The best way to think of us is we're building a true WEB festival. We are creating an experience for creators on the web. We're here to support each other and that means taking risks and anything new and exciting is a risk worth taking. We understand that Audio and Film aren't the same thing, and that's why we've created the Fiction Podcast Planning Committee, led by Ned Donovan, to connect the worlds between these two communities.
Ned who??
Ned Donovan
Ned is a multi-hyphenate content creator, primarily focused on the New Media space. His web series The Hunted: Encore has won over 70 awards at more than 50 festivals worldwide, including Best Score and Best Comic Fiction at the 2019 NJWF. His podcast Encounter Party! spent nearly 8 weeks on Apple Podcasts' New & Noteworthy Charts and has charted in 50 countries for Comedy Fiction. They have been featured by Nerdist, Syfy Wire, Gilding Light, and on the official Dungeons & Dragons podcast Dragon Talk. Their first campaign has garnered over a quarter of a million downloads and is available wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find more about him and his work at his website, or through his production company, Charging Moose Media.