Getting into the Voice Over Biz
Are you a radio or television
announcer? Ever wondered what you would do if the
station cut you adrift?
It happens! You’ve probably
seen it happen!
But you have a skill with which
you could make a good living, as hundreds of us are
already doing.
You could use your voice skills
to make money for yourself, instead of someone else!
I know…it’s pretty scary thinking
about being on your own, after many years collecting a
paycheck every two weeks from the company, but it’s
possible you can make even more money than the company has
ever paid you!!!
I can give you the benefit of my
experience in the voiceover business, and maybe save you a
misstep or two along the way to employment independence.
In my case the culprit was the
satellite dish! The station where I was Music
Director and doing afternoon drive was made an offer they
felt compelled to accept. You see they didn’t have
any loyalty to me, or anyone else on the staff. They
had an obligation to their shareholders to produce the
highest profit margin possible at the lowest cost.
They saw the way to do that was to install a satellite
delivery system for programming. Just like that, I
was history! It didn’t matter that I had good
ratings at the time. This was a matter of cost.
And I lost!
Strangely enough, people in the
business had been telling me for years to try freelance
voice work. But it was so comfortable just going in
and doing my shift, and the music work, and going home
that I didn’t feel the need to pursue it. Boy was
that a mistake! If you are an announcer with
broadcast experience, probably having done commercials for
the station(s), and if people have ever asked why you
weren’t doing freelance voice work, then you need to take
some action that may very well result in a better
lifestyle with more money and freedom for yourself.
The first step is to make,
 or
have someone else create, a good demo! The reason I
stress good is that unless it’s good, the people who
listen to it, producers or agents, will not be making a
decision about your future based on your best work.
You might have to invest in this project, and look around
for a good audio demo producer. There might be
someone you already know who is good enough to do the job
for you.
 Once
you have a good demo master CD (don’t bother with tape),
then have some copies **(Copies pic) made. The first
time, I wouldn’t break the bank getting thousands.
I’d make sure you have enough to visit all the local
producers and possible agents, and have a bunch leftover
for the future. You won’t want too many done because
there’s a good chance you’ll want to redo the demo when
you have real commercials or promos or narrations to put
on your demo CD.
I know one voice talent who still
has hundreds of CD demos in his garage. He’d like to
put a new demo on them, but they are already burned!
Until you find an agent or some
producers who want you to work for them, I’d make up a
label and stick it on the CD’s, then burn your demo on
them. That way you don’t get stuck with the bill for
a lot of CD’s you don’t want. The customized CD’s
can come later!
OK, so now you have a good CD
demo. The best one you can do, given the fact you
haven’t been hired by anyone yet.
What I found in approaching the
talent agencies was that they all basically said the same
thing…”we have all the announcers we need, why would we
want you. We would just have to cut the pie another
way!”
I was lucky enough to be the
first voice on a brand new, just launched non-union
agency! They needed me to work so they could pay
their bills. I got sent out to lots of auditions.
Some of the jobs I got, some I didn’t, but I got enough to
get a toehold in the business.
As far as marketing yourself,
things are a little different now than they were in 1995,
when I got started.
 It’s
hard to find a way in to a lot of the talent agencies
unless you have a particular skill…for instance, character
voices! If you can do good character voices, you
probably have a good career ahead of you if you can work
with the audio producers. More and more, there is a
need in the animation and video game business for
character voices, and a lot of them do very well
financially.
One of the phrases you might hear
from the talent agencies goes like this…”we don’t want
announcers…you sound too much like an announcer, we want
voice actors”!
My experience is that there are
plenty of announcers doing very well in the voiceover
world, but a lot of them are also very good. If
you’re really good, you can sometimes compete with them.
A friend of mine got tired of
hearing that phrase from agents and got into little
theatre. He was taught how to be a voice actor.
You can do the same thing. Almost every area has
little theatre. There are also lots of folk working
as voice coaches and vocal trainers. Just watch out
when you’re paying money to people for voice training.
There are scam artists in the business as well. It’s
best to rely on personal references.
I’m an announcer and I make a
living doing voice work. That’s all I do! I’ve
been doing it for almost ten years. So it is
possible for an announcer to make a living doing
voiceovers.
The trick will be in finding an
agency that will take you on and market you, or finding
some clients for your voice work, from your own contacts.
I’ve been told that in the market
I now work, making the rounds of audio producers is not a
worthwhile use of time. I tend to agree, having
gotten to know some of the producers in the area.
I think it would be more useful
to find a way of making your talent known to the
advertising agencies that use those producers.
If there were a local association
of advertising agencies, I’d try going to one of their
meetings and handing out business cards, or, perhaps,
CD’s.
They
might charge for attending, or you might even have to join
their local association, but it also might produce several
really contacts for the future.
Now for the way things are
different today than when I started in the freelance voice
business.
That would be the net!
I’m now convinced that if you
have a good (it doesn’t even have to be great) web page,
and it’s optimized for the search engines by a
professional, you can gain enough rank on, say, Google, to
pull a lot of requests for your demo, or demo listens from
your page. A good demo will open the door for people
to get in touch and ask how much you charge for various
kinds of audio work.
This way of doing business will
mean an investment, because you’ll need a professional
doing the optimizing. It’s worth considering having
a pro do both the web page and optimizing, even if you
think you can build a good page yourself.
 Maybe
someone you know will build you one for free, or a trade
of services.
The reason is that it needs to be
built in a particular way to attract the attention of the
search engines. It’s very competitive in the world
of search engine ranking and if this is the way you decide
to proceed; you really need a pro’s help!
Say you’ve done your research,
and found a web designer who also specializes…and I
stress…specializes in search engine optimization (the clue
is, where’s his own page!), it will take some time for
your page to work it’s way up the list.
I hired the creator of this site,
Mike Lawrence, to
build my new page. I want to point out though, that
he is not paying me to do this. I’m writing what I
believe to be the truth. You’ll have to make your
own decisions on what you believe is best for you.
You might want to invest in
buying some advertising on Google or Yahoo! While you page
gets closer to the top of your category.
You can do that through a company
called Overture! They sell, or rather you bid on
clicks through your site.
http://www.overture.com
This link will get you
information on how the system works.
What I have described here is the
way I’ve chosen to market, and I would not have done that
if I didn’t believe it would be successful for me.
But I also have one of the two
best talent agencies in my area on my side!
Well, that’s about it to this
point.
I feel much less stressed out and
a lot more in control of my future with the way I’m doing
things now as opposed to the employer having total
control, and even less loyalty than they had ten years
ago!
Any questions???
Drop me a line…I’ll do my best to
answer.
Next, I’ll try to give you some
insight, based on personal experience, on setting up
your own home digital studio.
Andy
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