Inside Dipsea: A Peek Behind the Curtain of Content Creation

Dipsea|2024.11.26

Extra Spicy Romance

Romance audiobooks hot enough to melt your headphones. These stories push the boundaries of desire, and will leave you panting for more.

At Dipsea, every story is crafted with care, creativity, and collaboration. From the first spark of an idea to the final audio experience, our team works behind the scenes to bring the characters and fantasies you love to life.

In this conversation between Olivia Taylor, Dipsea’s Editorial Lead, and Kara Hart, Dipsea’s Senior Audio Producer, the curtain is pulled back and listeners get to see how their process works, what inspires them, and what’s new this month. From the intricacies of directing the perfect begging scene to experimenting with new storytelling formats, they share the passion and thoughtfulness that go into every piece of content.

More is More: Jack from Hometown

Kara Hart: We have so much fun stuff coming out in November. It’s a month filled with new characters and old beloved characters.

Olivia Taylor: We have two very sweet Jack + You’s and a very special Jack Overheard.

Kara Hart: And one of the Jack + You’s is extra, extra long—it’s 26 minutes, which is one of our longest ones yet, right?

Olivia Taylor: Yeah.

Kara Hart: And it's so good. There's so much buildup and foreplay and all the things that make you love Jack are a part of this. And he's really taking care of you in both + You’s. And then we've got him begging in the Overheard.

Olivia Taylor: Jack: Begging For You, if you're a fan of Overheards.

Kara Hart: Mm-hmm. It's really great. I do think Jack has this really special way of whimpering, and the actor who plays him is so good at making these really small sounds and noises that are upward inflected. They’re just really evocative of begging and whimpering. And in the Overheards, they're so good.

Olivia Taylor: I need an explainer video of all the different kinds of begging.

Kara Hart: Hahaha. Totally! I can tell you some of the directions I give when I'm directing male voices. Sometimes they're not begging enough, and I'll be like, no, beg like someone has just taken away your delicious treat and you really, really want it back, or beg like it's a caricature of begging. Beg like you mean it.

Olivia Taylor: Like you mean it.

Kara Hart: Sometimes it takes a few iterations, a few takes, but they get there, which is really fun.

Introducing Xavier: A Familiar Voice

Olivia Taylor: Okay, and then we have this new Xavier series. We’re releasing a few + You’s, which are also really long.

Kara Hart: Right. They're around 20 to 30 minutes. And so much of the excitement around Xavier comes from wanting to take a truly beloved voice actor from the Dipseaverse, who voices Freddie in Secret Rooms, one of our much older audiobooks, and so many other characters, and create a whole new series around him. We love Freddie. We love Secret Rooms. But we wanted to take Freddie out of the dungeon. We took that series as far as we could within that Dom world we created and we wanted to try something different. And I think what makes these Xavier + You’s so effective is, well, the writing is really good and we're trying out a new word… Daddy...

Olivia Taylor: Totally, I feel like at Dipsea we introduce things really slowly. We’ll gradually experiment with new dirty talk, a new word, new dynamics. And we haven't really used the word “daddy” in our scripts. Until Xavier.

Kara Hart: What’s the backstory of this series?

Olivia Taylor: It's a + You. You, the listener, are at a party with your friend, Xavier. He's maybe kind of like not your best friend in the group, but somebody you're sort of intrigued by, curious about. He's like a nice guy, good guy. You're at his house. You go to get your coat as you're leaving. You think you’re going to the guest room, but you accidentally walk into his bedroom.

Kara Hart: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Olivia Taylor: You discover his kinky BDSM setup and you're like, I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to go. And on the way out, he's like, are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost. You talk about his room and then you end up exploring together. He's like, I can show you the ropes. Which is sort of one of those things that could happen in real life.

Kara Hart: Hahaha. Mm-hmm. Totally.

Olivia Taylor: But circling back to daddy! He's like, I know you want to call me daddy, so you, the listener, call him daddy. And we're going to see how that does. We're going to see if people like it. I think it's fun!

Kara Hart: Daddy—I think it's sexy. I think people will really like it. One of the things that's done really well is that calling Xavier daddy really turns the listener in the stories on, she’s like this is something that I really want. He's not putting that on the listener, which I think is really great. There is a fine line.

Olivia Taylor: Totally. There's a fine line with daddy, you know, it really has to be executed properly to feel good!

Kara Hart: There’s also, there’s such a good line which is probably not safe for work. But I think if you’re listening to our content, this is nothing new. Xavier says something like, “Shut up and prove to me that you know how to listen. There you go. I don’t want to hear a single word from you unless it’s ‘I’m coming.’” I mean, come on! Great writing Olivia.

Olivia Taylor: Thank you!

New Horizons: Sage in Sapphic Saddles

Olivia Taylor: Okay, let’s talk about Sapphic Saddles. The main character, Sage, has a great voice, kind of like Kristen Stewart. Also, I just think we’ve been long overdue for a cowgirl story.

Kara Hart: Great voice, great story!

Olivia Taylor: Sage is like a sweet-talking, but sort of rough-around-the-edges, cowgirl. She's working with her hands.

Kara Hart: I mean, you don't need anything else.

Olivia Taylor: Something I really like about this one is that she’s calling the listener in the + You’s sweetheart. I think it's very sexy and fun, but it could be polarizing. We will see. I'm sure the listeners will tell us. People love to give us feedback, and we love to take it!

A Classic Twist: Launching Carmilla

Olivia Taylor: I’m also excited about something that we just launched: Carmilla. It’s an 18th-century vampire novella written prior to Dracula. Prior, obviously, to Twilight. Really one of the original vampire tales, and it’s a sort of sapphic queer tale. It’s about lust between this vampire, Carmilla, and this young woman she’s staying with, Laura.

Kara Hart: And it’s not the same as a regular Dipsea audiobook or story where it’s super spicy and there’s sex. This is a regular book that we adapted into an audiobook.

Olivia Taylor: But I think it’s really fun and exciting because so much of our audiobooks are really short. It’s like bingeable content. This is something that you can really listen to for a long time. And it’s spooky.

Kara Hart: Yeah, the story holds up. I think it’s really good.

Olivia Taylor: And it’s the first piece of content we’ve ever made, or produced, that’s been this long.

Kara Hart: Yeah, and I think what’s so good about the relationship between Carmilla and Laura is that it moves from this kind of gentle interest into this obsession. I slacked you and Liz, our social media manager, and was like, it’s the gayest thing in the world to have someone crying over how much they are in love with you.

Olivia Taylor: Just crying. I mean, there’s nothing more gay than yearning. It’s just yearning, maxing out.

Kara Hart: And we also created a Carmilla + You, so Carmilla is focusing on the listener in this one. It’s written by one of our wonderful writers and they really capitalize on that yearning and obsession. One of the very first lines in Carmilla + You is like, “Still your beating heart.” Come on, we need that.

Olivia Taylor: We need that!!

Kara Hart: It’s really great. There are also spicy scenes for sure. The description of an orgasm in one of the later chapters is phenomenal. I’m excited. I hope people are quoting it.