"As someone who is new to podcasting and has no intention of ever being a "professional" writer, I'm not trying to make any particular point as much as I am trying to understand other peoples points here."
I have to say -- I find this disingenous. You're specifically asking people to give you their work for free; therefore, you have a dog in the fight. You are expecting people to donate their labor to you.
You asked why people aren't subbing to you. I said "I expect to be paid for my work" as a shorthand. In many of the message boards I frequent, there are common calls such as this for people to submit work to markets that pay in "exposure." Such offers overflow. I could send my work to them all day, and get paid for nothing I do.
I'm a professional, full-time writer. I have to make judgment calls about where to send my work, and why. I submit to markets that pay well because generally they have larger audiences, more dedicated audiences, established reputations, and editors I can rely on to be professional and to select good stories. I submit to other markets that appeal to me for various reasons which I have enumerated here.
I'm not going to sub to you simply because you're around and asking. There are lots of markets. You have to make yourself appealing.
So, you post a request for subs. I, as a writer, consider that request.
Step one: Do you pay? No. Okay, I'm going to write you off. That's my first stage of screening, because it's easy, and because it tends to be a shorthand for prestige. Pay and prestige tend to be correlated, though not identical. So, right off, I'm not going to sub to you. I might later, if you came to my attention for some reason, and I reevaluated the situation.
Step two: Have I heard of you before? Do I know you? Do people I trust know you? Is there buzz about you? Are you supporting some kind of fiction that I can't place elsewhere for some reason? If these answers are yes, then maybe I'd go to step three.
Step three: Is your website beautiful? Are your submission guidelines crisp and professional? If I listen to your podcast, are your stories going to be awesome? Will they have fantastic production values? Are you publishing people I've heard of? Seriously -- are the stories great? When I hear from my friend Y that she sent you a story, is she going to tell me, "The whole experience was fantastic! He sent me his notes, we exchanged emails, he's really perceptive. And I love the person they had reading it!"
There are lots of markets; you're going to have to court writers by being wonderful in some way. Being a new market (so many of them fold), being a venue I've never heard of (and thus have no reason to trust), and not paying is three strikes against you.
I'm sure there are points in your favor. I haven't gone over and looked at your site, because I knew from the posts you'd made here that I wasn't going to sub to you at this time. Still, I'm sure you have great qualities. Do you take reprints? Writers of my acquaintance, myself included, are more likely to place reprints in markets that don't pay, since we've already been renumerated.
If you don't already, I'd suggest that you specifically solicit people whose work you want to feature. It makes people feel nice, and that way you get work that you love, and hopefully that your audience will love too. Sometimes, the whims of the slush pile are sad and grey, and you cannot find beautiful things just by waiting for them to come in over the transom.
Beyond that, if your podcast is kickass, people will buzz. Buzzing will attract writers. Writers will sub to you. Maybe you'll be so awesome and have so many listeners that even curmudgeonly me would sub to you, despite the lack of pay.
But the point is that you're unlikely to get scads of high quality slush just by asking. Just as writers have to give you material that's good enough to publish, you have to give us a reason to trust you with our work.
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Heradel: By the by, I'm 25. I donated work to lit mags in college, but I didn't sub stories to non-paying external markets. ;-)
