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We serve up real-world strategies for growing a profitable voiceover business—without relying on casting sites or waiting for someone to “discover” you.
Whether you’re just starting out or scaling up, this blog delivers actionable insights on voice over marketing, how to get voice over clients, building direct relationships with buyers, pricing your work, professional development, personal growth, and navigating the modern voiceover industry like a pro.
From email outreach scripts to mindset reframes, we go beyond fluff and give you practical tools that actually move the needle.
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The GVAA Rate Guide creator, David Toback, tells the crazy story of how the guide that our industry depends on was an accident, how he founded it with Cristina Milizia, what it is, WHY it's so crucial for talent to use it when quoting professional voice over rates, and what some of the exciting future plans for the guide are.
Read MoreToday, we talk with Robert Sciglimpaglia, noted VO attorney and voice actor, who warns us how to avoid bad voice over contracts regarding AI, text to speech, synthetic voices, and more.
We recently told the story of one voice actor who’s own voice she discovered on an AI voices website without her knowledge.
Rob explains how Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Google have been building voice databases for years, how companies like Revoicer are operating legally and ethically, and most importantly, how to protect yourself from discovering your own voice on an AI site.
Read MoreToday, we’re going to go over Voices' new rate guide and compare it to the GVAA so that you’ll know exactly the differences between the 2 guides, where exactly Voices' rates are substandard and stick around because we’ll also show you where they’re actually above standard.
For years, the voice acting community has been begging Voices dot com to take solid steps to protect voice actors from unfair rates and practices on their site.
And I am happy to report that they seem to be taking some steps to do that.
First, Voices has revamped their rate guide for 2023.
Read MoreWhat you are about to hear is an actual call about an exploitative practice that is too common in our business. It is a prime example of producers who purposefully seek out younger and less experienced talent and knowingly exploit them for the benefit of their own organizations.
To be clear, this is representative of a tiny-but-still-too-large fraction of producers in the business and this call centers on but one specific practice: the all-media buyout.
It is shocking in its brazen self-awareness.
Read MoreToday's post is essentially a letter to my former self. It's all the stuff I wish I knew when I was starting out in voiceover and stuff that you should know, maybe even before you get into voiceover.
My goal and hope are that you can learn from some of the mistakes that I made and learn some of the lessons that I learned. As I've gotten older, I've learned that when you can learn from somebody with a little bit more experience than you, it can save you a lot of heartache and hurt. I'd like to think as a voice actor, I've done a better job of listening, but I still have made my own fair share of mistakes and learned lessons that I hope to pass on to you here.
So here are seven truths you need to know before you get into VO or at the very least, as you're getting into VO.
Read MoreHere's a question: How do you drive an exceptional customer experience, one that generates loyalty among your customers and drives repeat and recurring business? It all starts with understanding customer needs.
And today, we're going to talk about understanding and identifying customer needs, using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and just how that applies to the service business of Voice Over.
Read MoreSo, I thought the first post of the New Year would be a great time to lay out the 2023 Voice Over Conference Calendar for you, not just the big ones like VO Atlanta, but some of the lesser known, more intimate, more boutique conferences like MAVO.
So, at this point in the first week of January, when we're filming this video, some of the conferences haven't announced dates or details yet, but we know generally, historically, when they fall.
So, I want to give you a brief overview of each and, you know, details and all that good stuff, organizers, and event people when I can, in case you've never heard of these conferences or you've never been to them.
Read MoreChristmas is right around the corner. And of course, this is the time of year when voice actors get the steamy undies for all kinds of gear. Mics, interfaces, preamps, amplifiers, headphones, you name it. We want all the gear.
But I think in this season of gratitude and giving, I want kind of a different kind of Christmas wish list this year for voice over.
Sure. I love great gear as much as the next voice actor, but what I want for voice over this year is not for me. It's for everybody. Everybody that calls themselves a voice actor.
So, Santa, if you're listening or watching, here's my list. I've checked it twice…
Read MoreSo you've decided you want to get into voice acting and you want to learn to do voiceovers and maybe even, who knows, become a professional voice actor one day. That's great.
And as the song says, yes, there are two paths you can go by first. Maybe you just want to make a few extra bucks and have some fun and make voice over a hobby.
Or you can jump on Fiverr or Upwork or any of the freelancer sites and find a ton of voiceover jobs to audition for. And that's great.
But if you think you might want to go pro one day or you don't even know, avoid the Fiverr route. Working on Fiverr and Upwork and the freelancer sites can eventually damage your professional career.
Now, if you want to get started on the journey to professional voice acting, it all starts with good coaching.
Read MoreThe email goes like this:
We are excited to officially announce the Voices affiliate program and we are inviting you to become a part of it. You're already getting paid for doing what you love, so why not get paid twice as a Voices affiliate? Refer your network to Voices and receive a commission when they hire their first voice talent.
Learn more about the Voices affiliate program here and apply now to start earning.
Let's click that apply button and see what this is all about.
Read MoreMAVO, The Mid-Atlantic Voice Over conference is coming up Friday, November 11th through Sunday, November 13th, at the Westin Dulles in the Washington, D.C. area. MAVO was my first conference, and it's very special to me. And so today we're going to do a little preview of MAVO 2022, the faces you can expect to see what you can expect to hear, why MAVO is different than certainly the 800-pound gorilla conferences in our business and what makes it special.
And to tell us about all that is the chief executive president, owner and executive producer of MAVO, Val Kelly.
Read MoreThere are tons of voice over websites where you can find voice over jobs, opportunities for beginners, voice over work for pros and everything in between. Everybody, it seems, is trying to make money online and jobs websites have become a popular way to find voice over jobs opportunities.
So today, I'm going to give you five red flags to look for on the voice over jobs websites.
And stick around because at the end, I'm going to give you a bonus sixth red flag to look for, which just might be the biggest threat to your voice over business.
Read More“Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” That's a quote from George Addair. And it's so true for voice actors. I talked to almost 70 voice actors face-to-face. And by far the biggest fear we have is the fear of failure.
That one root fear permeates everything we do. Fear of auditioning. Fear of rejection. Fear of standing up for our worth. Fear of pushing back on a client. Fear of demanding pro rates. Fear of annoying people. Fear of not executing the audition spec. And the list goes on and on and on.
So today, we're going to give you eight proven methods to kill your fear of failure and rejection.
Read MoreIt's a cold, hard fact: A voiceover marketing plan is critical to your voiceover business.
Marketing for voice actors is a fraught subject, and most voice actors don't have a voice over marketing strategy, email marketing strategy or even any vague, faint direction in their voice over email marketing. Most voiceover artists are petrified at worst and nauseated at best over marketing for voice actors.
Today, we're going to get you over that fear. So buckle up, Buttercup.
Read MoreWelcome back and welcome to How to Go Full Time in Voice Over. When starting a career in voiceover, figuring out how to become a voice over artist and how to make voice over a full-time career can be daunting. Going full-time in voice over ain't easy. Today, we're going to talk about what it takes to go full-time in the voice over business, including voice over training, voice over marketing tips, voice over coaching, and more.
Read MoreAlright, when it comes to Fiverr and Voices.com, there is one worst thing you can do making money online doing voice over work. Today, we'll discuss that regarding Fiverr versus Voices.com, voiceover freelance sites in general, how successful voiceover professionals find voiceover jobs online, how they make money online, and create income from websites for voiceover work.
Read MoreWelcome to the three hardest truths about voiceover agents. And stick around because at the end I'm going to give you a bonus truth you're not going to want to miss.
To start, one of the biggest questions for many voice actors in the early years is, "How do I even know when I'm ready for an agent?"
And the best way to think about this question is to think like an agent, which in many ways is just like being a voice actor.
Read MoreOne 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?
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