Tom Raffe, Author at VoiceMap's Blog

Author Archive: Tom Raffe

Tom Raffe

Tom is the Head of Commercial at VoiceMap, leading content and distribution partnerships. He spent over a decade in digital audio, including senior roles at Amazon Music/Wondery and Spotify Studios, where he helped build their podcast platform from the ground up. This cross-platform experience—from podcasts and video to self-guided audio tours—gives him unique insights into content strategy, monetisation, and distribution across different media formats. Tom is a keen traveller and has visited over 40 countries. His favourite VoiceMap tour is of the Ealing Beaver project, telling the story of the reintroduction of Beavers to Ealing, close to where Tom lives.

When publishers and content creators decide where to invest their time and resources, one question matters above all: How long will this content continue generating revenue?

In traditional book publishing, the answer is sobering. Most books follow what researchers call an “early peak, slow decay” pattern – a brief surge of sales followed by a steady decline into obscurity. But location-based audio content tells a dramatically different story.

I joined VoiceMap after 10 years in the podcast industry, which follows a similar distribution pattern to books. The longevity of VoiceMap audio tours was a welcome surprise to me, with many delivering increasing revenues year after year. It’s not just podcasts; YouTube videos and social posts also have very short lifespans – and many peak in just hours or days.

Publishing once and monetising over the long term is really attractive – especially when you consider that creating a VoiceMap tour doesn’t require a lot more effort than producing a single scripted podcast episode.