To Be Or Not To Be A Voiceover Professional

Do you get up in the morning dreaming of being a voice performer? Do you dream about it? How long has this been happening? Do you hate your day job? Are you ready for a career change? Are you retired or retiring soon and searching for a later-life job? Voice overs may be for you! If, on the other hand, you are scared of isolation, working alone, staying at home a lot, cash flow crunches, being a business owner totally responsible for your own livlihood, better think twice. Voice overs can be scary. Voice overs can be wonderful. I've known both.

Actors, singers, and other creative types tend to be more 'at home' with risk-taking. Are you? But you may have considerations that prevent this laissez-faire outlook..for example, you may want to take an expensive vacation next summer or a family wedding is in your future. You may have a new car in mind or some redecorating and want to sock away extra funds. That may mean you'd better stick with the boring job awhile longer. That's not the time to go it alone.

Pay off some bills, buy those plane tickets, grab the brass ring, and then go for it. Start your voice over business when it "feels right." To do so prematurely will mean worry and anxiety for you. Choose your launch date carefully. Then, go full speed ahead. Do not, as some of my clients do, procrastinate on making your voice over demo. Nothing can happen until you have that "killer demo and run with it."

Do not put of study with reliable teachers at good workshops. You must learn your trade...your NEW trade...voice overs. Be careful who and what you spend money on and with! There are many scams out there and teachers who really do not know enough and just need your money. There are seminars and tele-classes with far too many students to permit any personal attention whatsoever. Stay away from those! There are schemes wanting you to pay for inferior training and a demo that's no good either. Ask for personal referrals. Go to their website and find people who have been through their program before. Did they think it was worth the money? Was the teacher good? Was the demo good?

Each year, without fail, I get twenty and more clients who have been victims of schools and rip-off teachers. They need a new demo or need the bad one redone. They tell me stories of classes and other types of instruction where they only got to read copy and be critiqued one time in many lessons. They tell stories of having to travel to the East Coast to take a course that wasn't very good and they could have found better training closer to home. I know "conventions" and "trade shows" billing themselves as "great educational events." Call a spade a spade. What is the event, primarily? A big social gathering at a pricey hotel you're supposed to have fun at or a serious educational event you can truly learn from (considering the money spent)? Ask these questions.

And why should you pay money to socialize with other voice talents? It's nice, of course, but they can't hire you! They are your competition. Sure, it's nice, but what should you be spending money on first? Your website, a new demo, more publicity? Spend wisely.

That's my take for today...

All best
Bettye

Staying enthusiastic with voice over auditioning

Every time someone hears you, that's a new audition and a new opportunity. I get calls and emails from people I auditioned for or voiced for years ago, who first say, "I'm sure you won't remember me but..." They are correct in that assumption. I don't. Next, they tell me of an audition or job I voiced for them long ago. They have something new for me to do. Good! That's the way things happen in this business. Sometimes, it is not the person for whom I auditioned, but rather, a person that person referred to me. Six degrees of separation. Yes, word of mouth is always best. So when your enthusiasm lags about auditioning, just remember that's advertising, that's your best source of work. Stick with it. Think of others in other fields of work...the salesperson in a store, the person hoping to sell a music album or a painting. Some sell, some don't, but they have to try. So do you. And what's more...you are plying your trade, practicing your craft. Every time you audition, you learn something new. Go for it!

Venice Let Me Down

Just returned from trip to Rome, Venice, many areas of Switzerland ending in Zurich for five days. Total trip over three weeks. I expected Rome to be noisy and polluted and it was. The motorcycles of all sizes were horrible, so loud and intrusive. The antiquities we saw were awesome, of course, but many things were closed and under repair and others had waiting lists, long lines, and the Sistine Chapel, well, there was a six day wait to even get on a list. We passed. The food was fab, of course, hideously expensive, service ok but touristy. But Venice...well, my romantic ideas vanished with the first boat taking us to the Grand Canal area. Pushing, shoving, rude people everywhere fighting for a seat, elbows dangerously close to my eyes, pickpocket paradise. Vendors hawking wares all over the canal front. Prices in the cafes unbelievable. One ice cream shop wanted 16 Euros for two scoops of ice cream in a cup. We walked out. A cup of espresso was 8 Euros. Of course, this is in the most pricey parts of the Grand Canal. The second day, we left the waterfront alone, wandering cobblestone streets to the interior where there are neighborhoods with tiny delis reminding us of New York. Romantic? no. I suggest visiting elsewhere rather than have your romantic dream of eternal Venice trashed.

New Way to Raise Money ONLINE! Dig This!

A music student, age 23, wanted to duplicate 1000 CDs of her new music album. She needed the funds to do it. She stumbled on the site "KICKSARTER," a year-old fund-raising site. It connects creative people in the arts and other areas with people willing to donate money, small or large, in return for services or goods. The music student offered a free CD for a donation of $30, a T-Shirt included with the album for $150, and those who gave $500 received a custom song. She ended up raising $7,400 and was able to go back in a recording studio and create yet another album. The site has many stories. The bottom line is that the site does NOT release any money to a recipient until their project has been funded according to the initial request amount. Then, the site first takes five percent of the monies raised. One film maker raised over $20,000 for a film about a fictitious congressman. Stories abound. Take a look. Interesting funding scheme. Wish it had been around when I owned my audio book publishing house in the 1990s!

Why I love books

I have discovered that I've been neglecting my reading. Yes, having grown up in a library behind my grandmother's house, having houses full of books my entire life, loving them all the while, I find I have neglected my love of reading, caught up in other things. The internet, my business, so many things took my attention away from books. I'm BACK. Oh yes, back, back, back. I'm in bookstores, eyes wide with wonder. I'm on Amazon ordering oodles of goodies. I'm reading for periods each day now, wild with delight. I'm back. And I love books...real books...the feel of paper in my hands, the typesetting, the photos, the smell of the ink. I love cover design and layouts. I'm in love with the way books feel in my hands. I'm back to books. I will be talking about some of my favs in this blog. Keep reading.

Why I just began blogging after so long

I have been active networking on the web for over ten years now and was on FB and Twitter long before many others. I've dragged my feet about blogging. I do lots of writing, articles, books, teaching materials, and told myself I did not have the time to blog. But now, I realize the communicative value of the blog. It's great. So here I am, everyone. I am going to be using this form of communication regularly now, not only as a voice performer and teacher, but as a person, a living person with a life. Oh yes, I forget that sometimes. I'm getting better at looking in my back garden at the birds and flowering trees before I go back into my recording studio to do more work. I'm getting better at reading some of a favorite book and having a cup of tea before returning phone calls and answering the dozens of emails every day. And then, there is the voice over auditioning, so time consuming daily, but must be done if one is a voice performer. The jobs won't happen if I don't read for them, audition for them. And then there are my steady accounts who need service...oh wow...busy busy. But here I am, making time for blogging. So I hope somebody out there reads me.

Voiceovers in Europe: My journey

Just returned from Italy and Switzerland working, touring, eating, enjoying. Fabulous but super tiring. Travel is hard, especially today. I hate airplanes. Not pleasant. Ugly. I love trains and that's the great thing about Europe. So easy, so fun, especially first class trains. And you get to see the country. Well, back to the subject...voiceovers I heard. They are similar to the U.S. in the 1960s or 1970s...the females super smiley and syrupy, glossy and super sell. The men, deep baritones at the bottom of their vocal ranges. Some were smarmy, like the old time radio guys. Interesting. But the voices, male and female, were full bodied and rich, not the voices heard too often in North America that my voice therapist friends refer to as "chirpers." Especially the females today in the U.S. really are shallow voiced, chirping, staccato, never smooth or gliding, never full toned. Have you noticed? It's a cultural oddity, this chirping. And it has carried over into voiceovers. Take a listen. You'll see.