How To Avoid BAD Voice Over Rates

One of the hardest things to learn when you're in the first few years of your voice over career is rates. Specifically how to avoid bad voice over rates, how to deal with aggressive voice over job listings. You know what I'm talking about? How to negotiate voiceover rates and when and why in perpetuity is bad for voice actors.

Now, when you're in the first few years of your career, rates and negotiation tend to be a bit of a black box.

First of all, why do we negotiate? Why do we negotiate voice over rates? How do we spot aggressive voice over job listings on the voice over websites and voice over job boards? And ultimately, how do we avoid bad voice over jobs and bad voice over deals?

I got a note here from Andrew Latheron of Singapore. Andrew says,

I read your blog post about how to deal with lowball offers. Really helpful, useful advice."

(Well thanks, Andrew!)

I'm currently noticing a trend of oddly aggressive job listing. Will attach an image of a particularly demanding one. While the attitude doesn't scream 'ongoing, mutually beneficial partnership,' I tend to give these the benefit of the doubt.

I'm yet to work with any of these clients, but it would be interesting hearing how you'd handle this without getting railroaded into one-sided contracts. Another topic I'm hearing a lot is the prevalence of “all and possible uses now and forever” clauses. Are these even legal? What's the best way to negotiate them? I'm sure a bunch of people would appreciate your thoughts.

Myself included.

Signed,

Andrew.

Thanks for the note, Andrew. And let's get into it.

Now, in this particular listing, Andrew asked that I don't share the image, but it did contain the phrase, "No further negotiations will be considered," which I've seen before. Please. This kind of language is 1. unprofessional and 2. a telltale sign that they know they're presenting a shitty deal and they're trying to bully voice actors, unsuspecting and ignorant voice actors, into taking it.

If the rates were fair market value, there wouldn't be any need for further negotiation. Whenever you see this kind of aggressive, unprofessional language, just walk away. These are not pro clients and they're not looking to work with pros.

Don't ever let anyone bully you into anything.

The first step to avoiding bad deals is…

….to be able to spot bad deals.

And for that, you need two pieces of information: budget and usage. Budget is easy. Budgets a number, but a number alone without context is absolutely useless.

Imagine if real estate listings only contained the price. "Well, I just bought a house for $1 million." Congrats. Good for you. Only later do you find out you bought a two bedroom, one bath, 1300 square foot cottage on an eighth of an acre between an airport and a toxic waste dump for $1 million.

I see this all the time with the Fiverr and the Upwork crowd. "Well, I just booked a voiceover spot for $1,000." Congratulations, genius. Turns out it was a regional spot for digital and TV, which ran for two years and should have paid close to seven grand. How's it toxic waste smell?

So budget and usage are both required pieces of information. One without the other is useless.

Now, bad deals can come in all sizes, shapes and colors. Let's talk about in perpetuity. Is a voiceover gig that asks for in perpetuity licensing bad for the voice actor?

The answer is it depends.

First, what's in perpetuity. It means that you're licensing the recording of your voice for a particular usage forever. Explainer videos, audiobooks, e-learning, medical and technical narration.

Those are just some of the genres that are licensed in perpetuity, and that's fine. That means that no matter how long they're being used in that specific way, you get paid the same.

There are other genres, specifically advertising, that require a term, meaning they should only be licensed for a finite and specific period of time. The license has an end date, meaning when that end date comes, the client has to stop using the recording for that purpose at that time, or renew the license, typically for a slight increase.

So what kinds of recordings should not be licensed in perpetuity?

Generally, anything that the client pays to run. That is, ads. This is what we typically, traditionally think of as advertising - TV, radio, digital ads like YouTube and Hulu. But it also includes paid social media placement like Facebook ads, boosted posts, promoted tweets, LinkedIn ads, Instagram ads, and many, many more.

Now, if the recording is only running in the client's own organic social media feeds and they're not paying to place the recordings as ads anywhere on social, then that is a perpetual license.

So why are paid placement ads not licensed in perpetuity? The answer is called soft exclusivity. So let's give you an example.

Let's say you perpetually license a recording, an ad that you did for Joe's Cola and let's say ten years, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, Coca Cola sends you an audition through your agent. They're looking for a brand new national voice.

Soft exclusivity means even if Joe's Cola didn't require you to work exclusively for them in the beverage and soft drink category, Coke will not hire you because you're already perpetually licensed to Joe's Cola, in theory, until the end of time. Yes, in perpetuity means even after you die.

So congratulations. By working with Joe's Cola in perpetuity, you've just locked yourself out of working with any soft beverage client and making any money in that category ever again outside of Joe's Cola.

And you did it for just a few grand. How does that toxic waste dump smell now?

So when a job asks for in perpetuity rights for any paid placement ads, do not ever agree.

And more and more, don't think it's just sleazy clients that ask for in perpetuity deals for paid placement advertising. I've seen reputable production houses send me auditions for in perpetuity licenses for paid placement ads. I don't ever audition for them and I tell them specifically why.

Now another form of bad rates comes in the form of phrases like includes "all media," "all media buyout," "X years worldwide, all media," and other such garbage. for a great education on why all media buyouts are bad, click the link on quoting all media buyouts in the description.

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