We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Robert Lamb a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Robert, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

After nearly 8 years, I have finally been able to start earning enough from my creative work to do it full-time. It all started in 2013, when I wanted to do something pretty unique and set forth to walk across the country from Washington state to Key West, Florida, from corner to corner. I left May 8th and finished December 1st. It was quite the adventure and two things that helped me keep my sanity were audiobooks and podcasts. When I got back home I decided to try my hand at podcasting, but I wanted to focus on fictional shows. Basically, write my own series and edit them in a way similar to old radio shows of the 30’s and 40’s, and that’s what I did.

So from 2014 and on I have been working on fictional podcasts, also known as audio dramas. For about three years I worked with a couple of friends creating shows, but production was moving too slowly for me. I decided to go my own way and in late 2017 created 7 Lamb Productions. It was around this time that I also met my friend and business partner Jack Austin. Together, we hit the ground running and started producing a lot more content. Each year our listenership grew. In the early days it was amazing to just hit 1,000 downloads a month with 3 shows. Now, we hit about 500,000 downloads a month with 9 different fictional shows.

It’s very hard to make money in podcasting, especially in the fiction category. We rely almost exclusively on ad revenue. It took until 2022, when I could finally quit my day job. That being said, I am still the only full-time employee at 7 Lamb. We are still growing and hope, in maybe another year or two, to get Jack full-time and possibly some other friends of ours that have helped us along the way.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

7 Lamb Productions produces mostly fictional podcasts called audio dramas. We have 9 shows currently (along with a few talkie non-fictional shows). Our shows span multiple genres (sci-fi, horror, comedy, drama, etc.) and consist of multiple seasons. We strive to get better each year with our writing, acting, and editing. With nearly 500,000 downloads a month we have quite the listener fanbase now.

Creating audio dramas has been a learning experience. When I started I new nothing of editing audio. Now it’s second nature. I pride myself in many of the episodes we’ve released. It’s not easy to tell a story specifically through an audio means. And many of our show finales are extended, meaning they can be anywhere from forty minutes to nearly two hours (which is movie length!).

We plan to continue many of our stories, along with adding new ones down the road. We want to have something for everyone to enjoy whether it be while working out, on their morning commutes, or just sitting back in a chair sipping wine. Our listeners have constantly reached out and told us how much our stories mean to them and that’s what makes all the hard work worth it.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My goal was to tell stories through a more old-school approach. I’m a lover of classic cinema. Newer big budget movies don’t hold my interest as much as old film noirs or screwball comedies. I love character and dialogue. That’s why, when it comes to our shows I don’t rely on today’s standards to tell me what a story is or needs. My job is to envelope the character into the world we create.

That’s not to say that I dismiss everything that I’ve read about screenwriting or storytelling, but that I’ve had to adjust. Writing for an audio medium isn’t easy and it’s been something I continue to learn about as I go. My writing style has definitely changed (hopefully for the better) over the years, but my goal of telling a captivating story through character and dialogue hasn’t.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I’m not great with social media. Luckily, the podcasts have done most of the work. One of the best things we ever did as a company was cross promote between our own shows. Once we did that people started listening to everything we produced. It didn’t always mean listeners of one show would like another one of our shows, but they would at least give it a chance. We also constantly plug our social media at the beginning of our shows, which has helped greatly.

When it comes to the social media itself, we constantly try to engage our audience, whether it’s through “welcome” messages or T-shirt giveaways, we’re always trying to stay in touch. We also will post updates about upcoming projects which are always welcome by our followers.

I will mention though, are social media presence is still pretty small. Many of these engagements on our social media are relatively new as we just started really pushing our presence over the last few years.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.7lamb.com
• Instagram: @7lambpodcasts
• Facebook: facebook.com/7lambpodcasts
• Twitter: @7lambpodcasts
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@7lambproductions379

Image Credits
Robert M. Lamb, Jack Austin, Amy Laureigh, Amber Simpson, Brian Messick, Meagan Austin, Mark Karoftis, Jennifer Karoftis, Ryan Glover, Abbey Glover