NEWS
StoryCub: Bedtime stories just a download away
By JULIO OJEDA-ZAPATA | jojeda@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press | UPDATED: November 9, 2015 at 10:19 pm
Dave Swerdlick is building a podcast around poop.
The Plymouth resident and veteran Internet-based broadcaster has launched StoryCub, an online program with a simple approach: A host reads a children’s storybook from start to finish.
Every episode is then made available at Apple’s iTunes Store, where parents can download it for free and share with their children.
And so it was that Lizi Shea climbed into a red-leather armchair not long ago for another reading session in the Fridley-based StoryCub studio.
The chair was mounted atop wooden crates, so Shea’s bare feet dangled as if she, too, were a kid. Flicking an iPad screen and smiling into the camera, the college student made a couple of abortive attempts to read the show’s latest selection, “All About Poop” by Kate Hayes.
“Have you ever wondered all about poop?” she read, finally nailing it. “Why our bodies make such stinky goop? And where does it go after we wipe, when the poop is flushed down through a pipe? I can tell you.”
StoryCub isn’t Swerdlick’s first podcast. He has co-hosted an audio-only program with his two daughters since 2007 in a podcasting studio he built in one of his home’s spare basement bedrooms.
That show with Hannah, now 14, and 11-year-old Zoe initially focused on Webkinz,,the popular stuffed animals with interactive online counterparts. When the girls outgrew the toys, the show morphed into the tech-centric yet general-interest Kid Friday podcast, with the three riffing and jousting for an hour or so about computers, game sites and whatever else strikes their fancy.
But though Kid Friday has attracted a worldwide audience and big-name advertisers, Swerdlick never intended it to be a primary money maker or a full-time career.
StoryCub is different.
Swerdlick, 47, a music-industry veteran who once kept company with the likes of Mariah Carey and Tony Bennett, now is trying to go digital in a big way.
Two months in, with nearly three dozen StoryCub episodes uploaded to the iTunes Store, the podcast has begun to draw attention. The show was displayed on the iTunes Store’s podcast home page at one point, which is a bit of a coup.
Swerdlick isn’t sure how the podcast will pay for itself over the long haul, especially since he is insistent about not charging listeners a dime for the downloads. He has been investing his own cash in the project while pondering how he might get grants, sponsorships or venture capital.
He has stiff competition in the storybook space, such as a recently released Reading Rainbow app featuring LeVar Burton of public-television and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” fame.
One of Swerdlick’s challenges: convincing authors and publishers to let their titles be used on StoryCub episodes.
Selections so far include “Roscoe’s Deep Sea Adventure” by Debi Toporoff, “Bella’s Birthday Surprise” by Katie Mueller and “Cabo & Coral Go Surfing” by Udo Wahn.
“If a child loves one of those stories, he or she will want to watch it over and over,” Swerdlick said. “Parents get high-quality content. And since we let them know where they can purchase the books,” the authors also win, he added.