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UPWORK FOR VO

Leaving Midgar

VOICE OVER ADVICE

One of my fondest video game memories is the 90 hours or so I plunked into Final Fantasy VII as a kid. The whole first act of the game takes place in Midgar, an oppressive, gloomy city, carved out in claustrophobic corridors. It’s dank, trashed out, and the sun literally never shines there. There’s a scrappy underdog quality to everything you do there; it’s not great, but it’s home, and you’ve got your little niche (it’s basically terrorism, but you know, good guy terrorism). About eight hours in, however, you up and leave the city, suddenly thrusting your party into the whole wide world, which up until then I wasn’t even sure existed in this game. This blew my mind when I was a kid. Now we were no longer scavengers scraping by in a totalitarian hellhole, barely escaping with our lives. Now, we had to…to..

..wait, what do we do next?

The Business of Doing Business

The anxiety of suddenly having an entire world to play in was exhilarating and more than a little overwhelming. I think I’m at that point with my voiceover career right now. I wake up, try to do normal human things like eat breakfast, brush my teeth, have my coffee, take my daughter for our morning walk, then…stare at the mountain of possibilities.

Do I straighten one of those corners I cut getting here? That would mean finding a coach, booking a demo session, or sessions, with a professional, and likely undergoing weeks of training. OR! I could scrounge on VDC (I know, I’m not proud of it) and Upwork and the other places I recently added myself to in the hopes of sussing out some bucks.

OR! I could revamp my website and have a good long think about my basically non-existent branding and get that all fixed and in place so I can market properly… as soon as I get these new demos that I think I need with the training I should do and also I need a lawyer and to talk through my new business structure with my CPA and hell! I haven’t even thought about, you know, auditioning for jobs or warming up and practicing.

Need agents and contacts with production houses for more opportunities, better get on stalking websites and emailing and cold calling people. But is my gear good enough? Could I have more options for delivery? Would that help? Is the studio space I’m building out right now going to cut it? Better start planning phase two.

Getting Started in Voice Over is The Easy Part

I guess you could say I’m getting a little bogged down with all the realities of maintaining a voiceover business. Let this be a warning to you newcomers: be careful what you wish for. Maintaining your career is, in my opinion, much more difficult than breaking in. That’s the part that will determine whether or not you’re wasting your time. After that, the clock starts ticking. There’s constant pressure to fix and do and reach out and expand. Should I make a political demo/is my commercial demo not enough? That’s a whole other field of marketing I also know little about. I’m realizing how behind the 8-ball I was with the business-y, boring side of things, that I now need to balance those scales to remain viable, instead of getting increasingly bogged down with weird, one-off gigs from jobs boards and other low ROI activities that have been all too prevalent this year.

Solopreneur, Give Thyself a Break

I’m probably being too hard on myself. This is a never-ending learning experience, after all, and I can’t expect myself to perfect every aspect of running a business with no prior business education, or really, much interest behind being a freelancer who doesn’t get screwed at tax time. There’s also that ‘being a new homeowner and father’ thing I need to deal with on a constant basis. Mostly, I just need to get back to a point where I’m doing good work I’m proud of again and making enough money walk through the door doing it.

It’s a refinement rather than a do-over, and that’s something to remember. This career, once you’ve started, is yours forever to do with what you will. Just remember to breathe (from your diaphragm), appreciate what you do have without lamenting what you don’t, and be gentle with yourself. The world, especially in the entertainment business, will do a perfectly good job of beating you up all on its own. Be your own advocate, and be your own biggest fan. And just get through the work, at least that which needs to be done.

If you feel like you’re going in circles, then find a new path. A new podcast, a new book. Spend a ton of money going to one of those VO conventions. There’s eventually going to be an internal struggle to stay interested (if you’re anything like me). Persevere. From what I hear, having a real job still really sucks.

<3

Filed Under: VOICE OVER ADVICE Tagged With: UPWORK FOR VO, VIDEO GAME VO, VO CAREER

Circlin’ The Wagons Back to Those Old Freelance Sites

VOICE OVER MARKETING

Fiverr. Upwork. Mandy. Guru. I’ve been revisiting my entire structure lately, figuring out how to make something more sustainable and consistent, and less reliant on commercial work. Which is fantastic, of course, but not the most…well, consistent. Or reliable.

And reliable is what I need now that I have a baby and I’m kinda freaking out all the time.

It’s wise to have a ‘diversified portfolio’ of sources for your VO work, as a wise person once told me. Commercial work is great in the places you can find it, but there’s direct marketing, P2P’s, building your own website/web presence…

…And those freelance sites you (I) may have frequented in the past, but have lately all but ignored (like me). Are they worth revisiting?

Let’s find out!

Using Fiverr For Voice Over: Is It Really Only Five Dollars?

Evidently you can charge whatever you want on Fiverr nowadays, debunked a common criticism of selling yourself for five dollars. I’ve heard enough hullabaloo around the internet about people making most of their VO income from tons of short ‘n’ sweet, low-paying gigs from Fiverr, and from looking at some of the profiles on there, it definitely looks to be working for some folk.

Back when the default rate was $5, I and most of my ilk and creed turned our collective nose up at Fiverr, but you know what? I have a daughter to feed now. I have a mortgage.

Plus you can charge whatever you want, effectively making it Whateverr (which I think is a better name anyway). So, it’s all fixed now?

Well not entirely. The possible reputation hit taken by being associated with Fiverr can still bite you in the butt in some situations. Plus, the ridiculous number of hoops needing to be jumped through just to make an honest product available is too much for me. There’s a weird science to making cheap looking VO rates, but padding them with tons of little add-ons in order to build it back up to a standard rate. It feels disingenuous.

Ultimately, I’ve decided to keep away for now.

Upwork Increases Its Support for Voice Over Actors

Upwork now has the ability to save much more specific service profiles than in the past, giving you the ability to make a Voice Over profile complete with samples, spaces for testimonials, a client list, certifications, and more, much like a LinkedIn or VDC profile.

It also displays an hourly rate, which is where Upwork hasn’t changed.

Quoting clients on Upwork feels a bit like cramming a round peg in a square hole. As my projects tend to be charged per finished minute, per word, or per project, only one of Upwork’s two rate models is really usable for VO actors, unless you make an agreement ahead of time what ‘hours’ really means. Currently I have a project where the finished minute, how I usually charge for e-Learning voice over work, is represented by an hour, for example. It’d be nice to see this aspect of Upwork expanded upon, but it’s still workable if you get a bit creative with it.

Mandy and Guru Profiles for Voice Over

I’ve honestly never seen any real leads come through either of these sources. I’ve had profiles up for as long as I’ve been in business, and for whatever reason, they’re both ghost towns in my experience. It’s very possible someone else’s experience has been different, but I did not find the activity available on other platforms here.

There’s a lot of potential out there, and it feels like the competition has really stepped up, so it’s time to recheck the ole game plan and fortify those marketing efforts.

That, and maybe I’m feeling a little ‘conscious incompetent’ and realizing the transition from that to competence is scary and hard. Hoo boy.

Did I mention I had a baby recently?

Hoo boy.

<3

Rex

[update: this blog was updated on April 27, 2021.]

Filed Under: VOICE OVER MARKETING Tagged With: FIVERR FOR VO, GURU FOR VO, MANDY FOR VO, UPWORK FOR VO

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