The VO Meter… Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hello everybody, and welcome to Episode 29 of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Today, we’re going to talk all about P2P, or Pay-to-Play sites, those places you can go to get jobs. Some people call them Online Casting sites. We’ll take you through some of the lesser known ones, some of the really well known ones.
But before we get to that, Sean, what’s been going on in your VO world?
Well, I just went to one of the coolest voice acting workshops that I’ve ever been to. So a little bit of backstory. I have wanted to work with Pat or Patrick Fraley for a number of years right now.
I grew up watching him on Saturday morning cartoons. He was Crang and Baxter Stockman from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He was also on Brave Star, a filmation show about a space cowboy, which was actually pretty…
The animation and the subject matter at the time was actually quite deep for a kid show, I think. But anyways, I’ve wanted to work with him for a number of years. When I started training in Japan for my voiceover career while I was teaching, he offered a lot of online materials.
He was one of the first coaches to have these sort of home study courses that you could just purchase from his website. And he’s got everything from how to be a better audiobook narrator, on how to do various accents. He’s got this whole three-part curriculum on character voice acting for animation and video games.
And of course, like I said, audiobooks and now e-learning. So, cool thing about Pat is he actually grew up in Seattle, where I’m from. And so once or twice a year, he’ll actually come up here to do a workshop.
And I couldn’t really rationalize doing some of his other workshops, like the audiobook work or the character voice acting, because those aren’t my primary genres. But when I found out he was doing an e-learning one, and the tracks would actually be used for a bit of an e-learning demo, I was like, done and done, click, click. And it was everything I wanted it to be.
I mean, Pat is just such a generous spirit and such a wonderful storyteller and educator. It was just a joy to be working with him throughout the day. And it kind of confirmed some things that I knew I needed to work on, like just dialing down the intensity a lot when you’re doing e-learning work, because people want to be listening to their peers.
They don’t want there to be any emotional or authoritative distance between the narrator and the listener. And of course, he helped me fix some of my slash breathing techniques, like, that’s a slash breath, is when you get through a long line of text and you want to keep going. So you’re like, and then just enough air to get you going.
But that’s actually pretty poor breathing technique, and you really want to kind of bring it down and take advantage of, like, that oxygen will give you the energy and the focus to attack the next sentence with a lot more emotional intent and clarity, if you will. So thank you, Pat, for some of those incredible gems. I’ve been using them in some of the auditions that I got this week and some of my e-learning projects.
And not only am I much happier with my performances, but I’m also a lot less winded or tired after doing long form, because I’m not straining myself to sound how I think I’m supposed to sound. So, I mean, it was worth every penny, and I highly recommend his in-person and home study courses. So thank you so much, Pat.
Interesting. How big was the class?
He actually divided it into two weekends, because, excuse me, two days, because the demand was so high. But the first workshop had about 10 people, and then we lucked out, there was some crossover and cancellation, so we only had about six or seven on that second day. I was actually really concerned, because I was like, oh no, I waited too long, and I missed the initial day.
And then he was quick to inform me that they had added a second one. I was like, done.
Oh, cool. So really, really intimate setting, huh? A lot of face-to-face time.
Oh yeah, totally. Everyone only got about two reads, but we still got about a minute of material to use for our e-learning stuff. E-learning is an interesting beast in that it’s one of the few genres where you can have a self-made demo, but I was just like, how much better will mine be with that professional guided instruction?
And so that was kind of the mindset for that. And of course, I want to be better at my sort of bread and butter genre. So it was just, whenever you’re trying to decide the return on investment for certain training and things like that, it was pretty obvious to me.
So I’m very glad that I did it.
That’s awesome. Congratulations.
Thank you, sir.
Anything else you want to talk about?
Yeah, I mean, I could go on about that workshop for days, but I think you’ve heard enough from me. What about you, Paul? Almost called you Pat.
What about you, Paul?
Pat, Paul, if you want to call me Pat Fraley, I’ll take it, believe me. I have a few things going on. I had, let’s see, it’s been a few weeks since our last episode.
So a few things, actually. Since we last talked, I’ve had two audiobooks released, one for The Pseudonym, that’s the third book in that series. So I have one left.
So I have one left I actually embarked on just before we got on here, the fourth book in that series, the last one for this author. So that was something I actually never thought would happen to have an author contract me for a series, but this has been going on for almost a year now. This is my fourth book, and so happy to work with this author.
That’s fantastic. And the last book in the series for Find Away Voices about the history of the Balkans that I spoke about in the last episode, that’s been released too. So now the Balkan Network is released on Audible.
Please go download that one. And yeah, I would love to see some positive reviews on that one too. So far, the reviews on the first one are fantastic.
Four and a half stars. And I got one that said, actually put my name and said, Paul Stefano did a great job, five-star review. They actually wrote five-star reviews, so I couldn’t be prouder of that one.
That’s excellent, man. And actually, I did want to touch on something you mentioned, how you were surprised about to be working, or the relationship that you built with that one, or the author, in getting a whole series. So that was one of the cool things about the e-learning workshop was that, or Pat really encouraged us to network with each other, because basically, everyone kind of had shown their talent and skill at the workshop.
So we basically had our own private e-learning roster. So, for example, if we get a client who likes my voice, but we’re like, do you have anyone who could play like your parents, or like an older adult? I’m like, oh yeah, Paul Stefano and Lee Laird, or whatever.
And then, as I had mentioned before, I frequently cast e-learning narrators for one of my ELL clients. And so I’m always looking for new people. And so I was like, I got all your contact info, you’ll be hearing from me soon.
And so we talked about this in a lot of different genres, but it is important to network with other voice talent because sometimes you will prove yourself an asset to a potential client, even if they are not hiring you for your voice. So if there’s something that you know you wouldn’t be good for, but you can recommend someone, a client will remember you for being so helpful. So yeah, always try and make a good impression and keep people in mind for future projects.
Oh, definitely. I’ve talked about that in a lot of different episodes, how if you can be a resource, you’ll be a rock star yourself, even if you’re not doing the work yourself. Referring to somebody is the best sort of way to maintain a relationship.
Definitely, and it might take a while, but usually those ripples do come right back.
Yeah, exactly. So I was on vacation last week, and funny thing happened. I only brought minimal equipment with me.
I really planned not to work. I just kind of wanted to relax, do nothing. And then of course, two days in, my son gets a job.
Oh, no.
I had to make do, and I did bring one of the Producers Choice blankets from vocalbooth2go.com, and he and I basically sat under the blanket, like it was a tent, and rattled off these lines, so he could get his job done.
So you were the bass trap then?
Yeah, more or less. I think I helped with that. So we got it done, it’s an author client, and I mourned them.
Just, this is something you should probably do as a best practice. If you are in a situation where you’re not in your home studio and a client doesn’t necessarily know that, you should tell them. So I did.
I told the client, listen, we’re at the beach and this may not sound as good as the sample you heard. And they said, okay, that’s fine. So I set it off and they said, yeah, this sounds great.
So we got that one job done. So it’s Murphy’s Law. Even when you think you won’t need your stuff, you will.
Or if you’re having a dry spell, but the expression goes, all you have to do is book a hotel and you’ll immediately get an audition, right?
Exactly. Like I can’t tell you how many times, like if I bring the equipment, crickets, but if I don’t, I can’t get enough jobs, you know? It’s ridiculous.
Yeah, so at least we got that done and I was happy for my son to get that job done. Of course his brother and sister were jealous, but that’s neither here nor there.
You can turn them against each other. They’re like, just be better kids.
Yeah, exactly. Just suck less and then you can buy toys too. No, that would be terrible.
And the last thing I’ll mention just before I went on vacation is my demo for radio imaging that I did with the fabulous AJ. McKay was released. And I’m really happy with the way that turned out.
Responses have been great so far, both from peers and family. It’s the first one where my brother was actually impressed. Normally he’s like, meh, let me hear the next job you do.
I played this for him and he said, wow, that’s great. And then another friend said, yeah, and then another friend said, that actually sounds like it could be on the radio. And I said, good, cause that’s the idea.
And then finally, not to sound too pompous, but AJ, who some of you may know is good friends with Joe Cipriano. It’s a running joke that we have going on. He played it for Joe and Joe told him it was really good too.
So that warmed the cockles of my heart as we say. So really proud of that.
Yeah, that’s some high praise, both from AJ and Joe.
Yeah, I can’t thank AJ enough because it was so much fun to work on and I knew that he would produce a great product and he really came through. It’s the first time I was actually impressed myself. Normally I’ll hear myself and I’ll say, yeah, I hear some mouth flicks or, yeah, I should have done that line better.
This one actually blew me away. And AJ said that was what he was hoping for was to do one that actually blew you away.
That’s wonderful. And like I’ve enjoyed working with AJ a lot. He did a recent radio imaging workshop with the Seattle group that I practice with and just over Zoom.
You know AJ, he’s just like so lighthearted, but no nonsense. And like it’s really easy to feel comfortable around him and do some good reads.
Yeah, that’s some advice I would… It’s a big takeaway. And that I would give to people who are looking to do a demo, do it with somebody who you feel comfortable with.
And I knew this would be the case with AJ because he and I just get along great from all our time spent together at VO Atlanta. So I knew that would work. But it’s an important thing to know that you can actually have some sort of relationship and some sort of back and forth with a demo producer.
Don’t go with the best just because people say they’re the best because you may not actually jive with them. Make sure you have a discussion and some talks to make sure that it’s someone you can work with.
Exactly. And usually before you get, like before money changes hand or anything like that, there are ways to sort of test drive different coaches. And I highly recommend that because unless you’re restricted by budget and stuff like that, there is, I highly recommend working with a variety of coaches before settling with anyone.
Because like Paul said, even if they’re good, they might not gel with your learning style or your personality. So those are other things that you need to keep in mind.
Well, in lieu of a VO Meter Shtick this week, we’re actually going to play the two demos we talked about. So you can actually hear the differences between the styles and the different production techniques that were used in both. So let’s start with the imaging demo that AJ did for me.
And it’s a rock imaging demo. And we’ll play that now.
1067, The Eagle is sending you to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies. We’ll throw an airfare and hotel for two. This is your captain speaking.
Welcome aboard Eagle Airways.
You just get ready to party like a rock star with this year’s inductees. If it’s Classic Rock, it’s here. Yeah, we’ll definitely need more cowbell.
I gotta have more cowbell.
93.7, The Fox Rocks. From Paul Rodgers’ voice……to The Clash’s tough choice…
This is your home for Classic Rock.
Rock 101.1 on air, online, on your phone, and sometimes on your nerves. Jay and the Wake Up Crew. Classic Rock 92.9.
Made in Baltimore. Cloud all summer. And rock in the bay.
You play everything I want to hear. Locally owned, locally operated.
100.7, The Bay.
97X presents Summer Tip Number 327.
Don’t bother with the sunscreen. It’s far more likely that your poor lifestyle choices will cause your liver, lungs, and heart to deteriorate before your skin does. 97X.
WKBU New Orleans, home of the Saints.
You know!
At John Oshelon in the morning.
Shigella, did you know, causes diarrhea? One thing I like about this show, we try to learn something every day.
This is Classic Rock, Bayou 95.7.
That was really good, man. I stayed for, like, that was like a minute 30, maybe a minute 40. Listen to the whole thing.
That’s great.
Thanks, buddy. Yeah, it’s a little long. But AJ seemed to think that worked, and I’m not going to question his judgment.
Yeah, I mean, and your acting’s, like, your performance has improved. You really come into your own. It just sounds like, it just sounds like your website promo.
You’re, like, snarky, gritty, seriously, you know? Excellent work.
Thank you.
Now, up next, we’re going to show up my e-learning demo. Now, I admit, it’s probably not going to sound as interesting as Paul’s, just because since it is e-learning, the focus is not on the production aspects, on the music and the sound effects, but which are incredibly important for radio, obviously, because it’s completely audio medium. What I’m really happy about personally with the e-learning demo is just the improved performance and being able to engage with the listener and help, as Pat said, to be a teacher rather than a narrator and to teach them cool stuff.
So here’s my e-learning demo, courtesy of Pat Fraley. Sean Daeley. This video is for parents and grandparents, and for you, because you want your baby to thrive.
For a baby, touch is talk. Touch is the most developed sense a small baby has. Skin-to-skin contact is a powerful way to communicate with your baby before your baby can talk to you.
Give your baby the gift of feeling deeply connected to you. Make sure your child knows what positive touch is all about. Create a deep and lasting bond.
Years later, when your grown child gives you a big hug or confides in you, you’ll be glad that you gave them a special way of communicating with you. Welcome to the Morton Arboretum, home to more than 3,600 native trees, shrubs and plants. This virtual guide provides a snapshot of what to expect when you visit our Wheaton, Illinois location.
So first, let’s look at how to get the most from your virtual tour. See the five main tabs on the top of your screen. Of course, there’s Introduction, Trees, Shrubs, Plants, like I mentioned, and of course, Frequently Asked Questions.
The Introduction tab is highlighted because your tour automatically started here when you click the Enter button on the home page. So you use your mouse to click on a different key page. Each key page lists subcategories in its left pane.
Wow, that’s really good. I can really hear the difference between this and your previous narration demo. Definitely some of that fine tutelage from Pat rubbed off.
But yeah, so you can already see the very different requirements for sort of the intended audience.
So we’ll get to our main topic of the day in just a moment. But first, we want to thank our brand new sponsor. Well, not so new anymore.
It’s actually our second episode. But they’re still our very first sponsor for the VO Meter. We want to thank, once again, Joe Davis and voiceactorwebsites.com.
That’s right. Thank you so much, Joe. So say you’re like me and Paul and you’ve got some new demos or you’re in need of a website to put your shiny new demos on.
voiceactorwebsites.com is the place to go. And to tell you even more about them is our good friend Dan Leonard from VOBS.
As a voice talent, you have to have a website. But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you. And when they finally do, they break or don’t look right on mobile devices.
They’re not built for marketing and SEO. They’re expensive. You have limited or no control.
And it takes forever to get one built and go live. So what’s the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voiceactorwebsites.com.
Like our name implies, voiceactorwebsites.com just does websites for voice actors. We believe in creating fast, mobile-friendly, responsive, highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use. You have full control.
No need to hire someone every time you want to make a change. And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time. You can get your voice over website going for as little as $700.
So if you want your Voice Actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options, go to voiceactorwebsites.com, where your VO website shouldn’t be a pain in the you-know-what.
So thank you so much, Dan, for that awesome promo. And thank you, Joe, and voiceactorwebsites.com for the incredible services that you offer and for helping us out with our own websites when we need it. We highly recommend these guys.
So definitely check them out if you need a website or want to update your website for you and your voice over business.
So now we got that bidness out of the way. Ha ha, just kidding. Let’s move on to our topic of the day, and that is pay-to-plays, or P2P, or Online Casting websites.
So we’re going to start off with something that’s a bit of a taboo in the voice over industry, and that’s Fiverr, or fiverr.com. And we want to talk about why. So in case you’re not familiar with the platform, this isn’t just a voice over casting site, but it’s a freelance casting site for a variety of skills and products that people can do individually and just set up a profile and the basically…
This isn’t always the case, but you can basically do a voice over for $5. $4 if you talk about the cut that Fiverr takes for each job. So obviously, that’s not very much money.
And you can… A lot of voice talent are a little bit more business savvy and they will add additional services to it until it gets close to what might be a more acceptable rate, but still, the issue with it here is that it really gives clients the wrong idea on what a voice over can and should cost. And some people have argued whether or not this is really affecting the industry, and I think it is.
Granted, it does match low cost clients with low cost talent, because there are certain clients that like, this is our budget and we can’t or won’t go above it. And that’s fine. That’s not the issue.
What the issue is, is when you have a pro talent who is undercutting themselves and the industry as a whole by accepting working for lower rates, rates that are substandard. And so, or another part of this is, is that since there is really no barrier to entry, people will join Fiverr as an opportunity to learn while you earn and to build experience and build clientele that way. So, depending on what your ultimate goal is, like if you’re just trying to do this as a hobby or as a side income or as beer money is the common joke, then it might be okay for you.
But if you’re trying to look at this as a professional lifelong full time career, then you’re really making a bad impression because a lot of talent and a lot of people who hire talent do not look favorably at Fiverr.
Yeah, and that’s really where we are today, is that it has become a stigma for some people. And I can’t verify this at all, but there have been stories of people who say that agencies had dumped them or had dumped the talent they knew because they were on Fiverr, or an agent had seen a potential submission of someone who was on Fiverr, and they were essentially blacklisted from ever being added to that agency roster. I can’t verify that that’s true, but there is certainly a stigma out there for people who want to be considered professional voiceover actors or voiceover talent and still maintain a profile on Fiverr.
And it’s difficult. We’re just trying to give you guys a understanding of what the controversy is, so you can make that decision for yourself. There’s another famous article by a friend of the podcast named Stephen J.
Cohen, who’s a talent and audiobook publisher. He sort of documented the situation where voice casters will use Fiverr talent for, say, scratch tracks, tracks that aren’t ultimately going to air and are usually just to pitch an idea. So they want to save money on the scratch track, but they will make a note of who that talent was and blacklist them for any serious projects.
And so we don’t want anyone to shoot themselves in the foot by doing this service that they think is trying to ultimately help their business or to serve as sort of a stepping off point for them to sort of go into more professional waters, as it were.
Right, exactly. So moving on from Fiverr, there are other self-service, let’s say, casting sites out there where you create a profile. Again, there’s no barrier to entry.
Anyone can join. Sometimes there isn’t even a fee. Sometimes there is.
Some of those that I’ve looked at or some that I’ve actually been involved with are Voice Jungle, Voice Crew, Voice Hunter, Internet Jock, let’s see, voices.us, voicesdirect.com, and let’s see, that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. In all these cases, again, you can sign up for a profile. There may or may not be somebody vetting the talent to get in.
Some claim they do, some claim they don’t. And what often happens is they’ll post auditions directly to you, and maybe a few a day, maybe a few a week, and you’ll submit a read to this client, and then may hear back, may not. I’ve had some success with a few of those, but more often than not, the audition goes into an abyss, and I have no idea what’s happening, whether it’s been listened to, whether it was a real client to begin with, whether it’s someone who’s ever going to hire me again.
So that’s really the issue I have with some of those, is that they’re very nebulous in the business practices. I have no idea who runs the site, and I don’t really ever talk to anybody. Sometimes I get paid, sometimes I don’t.
Not on jobs that I’ve done, but sometimes I have a job, sometimes I don’t. And it’s just another way to have your name out there. Do you have any experience with any of those, Sean?
Well, only what I’ve heard from you and some of our Meetup group. And personally, I was not satisfied with some of the stories that I was hearing with the amount of goal-digging you had to do to find decent jobs and this uphill battle that you have trying to get reasonable rates for yourselves. But if any positive stories you have, I’d love to hear more of.
Yeah, several of those actually have set rates. VoiceCrew is one, and Internet Jock is one, where it’s a set $50 rate, and that’s it. For whatever the job is.
Now, there aren’t any long-form jobs on there. They’re all quick hit, 30-second ads, 15-second tags. But the max and the minimum is $50.
So that’s something to keep in mind if you’re looking at some of these sites. Now, funny story about Internet Jock is I’ve actually been rejected from them for whatever reason. So it’s one I applied to, and was told I didn’t meet the standards for whatever reason, even though it doesn’t seem any different from several of the others where I was accepted.
So apparently I do have some sort of betting.
It’s like you’re saying before, it’s so ambiguous. You have no idea. You don’t know what their standards are, or if they’re just like some arbitrary reason why they don’t want to hire you.
Yeah. Do you want to talk about The Bunny?
Oh, The Bunny, yes. So here you have this, and it’s such an interesting thing because, so you might be familiar with Voice Bunny. It’s a subsidiary of Voice 123, which is probably the second largest online casting site available today.
Well, the parent company for both is Toray, by the way.
Oh, yes, yes.
And it’s Alex Toraynego is the owner.
Exactly. And so a lot of people actually like Voice 123. It is one of the more reputable sites that has been receptive to feedback over the years.
There are still some things that people don’t like about, namely their smart cast algorithm for how they cast auditions. And on paper, it’s not a bad idea because their goal is to simply discourage talent from trying out from everything under the sun and really being more selective with things that fit their voice and their ideal niches. And that’s good business practice, I think, for voice talent because you shouldn’t try to feel like a jack of all trades.
You’ll have much better traction if you specify in fewer areas but are amazingly good at that. But anyways, they also have this very…
Very different site.
Very different site called Voice Bunny, which again, they do vet you for that one, right? They have to listen to your audio quality, they need to know about your experience.
Yeah, I’ve actually been kicked out of Voice Bunny, ironically enough.
That’s so weird. And the way they do it is that they have these auctions for jobs, and you basically have to be on call 24-7 to really take advantage of these. And you can name your own price for most of these things, but it really encourages underbidding because of course the client is gonna go for quality at a lower price if it’s available.
So a lot of people complain about the sort of competitive like shark tank atmosphere of that. And of course, another unfortunate correlation that you find is very often clients who aren’t willing to pay much tend to be difficult to work with for some reason. I don’t know why this happens.
They might make unreasonable or unfair demands of you, just the amount of work that they’re asking for the price that they quote. And I’ve heard talent reduced to tears from some of the client or customer experiences they’ve had from that site. So that was another one that I personally steered clear from.
One thing I will defend about the money, and I’ve done it in the past, I think I mentioned on the show, is that they actually pay you for auditions. So it’s minimal money. It might be $8, it might be $20, but for every audition you do, they will pay you.
So there had been times where I would do 100 auditions in a month, and do pretty well monetarily. So in that respect, it wasn’t the worst of the sites. I did respect that.
But like I said, I was kicked out for poor audio quality, and that’s a whole different story where…
That’s bizarre. And a lot of people complain about that. And it’s almost like if there’s an issue with their uploading software or something, because people who normally have fine audio quality and decent studio setups are constantly being rejected.
Yeah, something was off about that. I mean, you’ll hear… You’ve heard my demos.
The one I just played was recorded right here on the microphone in the studio, the same one I used for the sample at Voice Bunny. And for some reason… This was after I was a member for quite a while, by the way.
I sent one audition, and their quality control people said, something’s wrong with this, you need to fix it. And when I sent it back again, again, they still rejected it and said, okay, well, until you fix your studio quality, you can’t participate anymore. So that was out.
Yeah, how do you defend against that? I don’t know. But if you want to learn more about Voice Bunny, I believe Doug Turkell, the un-nouncer, and Joe J.
Thomas, who’s got a voice actor blog as well, have written extensively about Voice 123 and Voice Bunny, even adding some interesting pictographics about some of their practices. So I highly recommend that. And then, who should we talk about next?
Well, let’s talk about the freelance site, as I call them. There’s one actually called freelancer.com. There is one called People Per Hour.
There is Upwork, which is a combination of what used to be two companies called Elance and ODesk. And now that company together is called Upwork. Gotcha.
And then there is guru.com. Those are four that I’m pretty intimately familiar with. I’ve been a member of all of them at some point or another.
Upwork, I was a member for about a year. And what you described about the clients wanting the most and paying the less is basically the norm there, at least in my experience, where I had clients asking me for a thousand word pieces, e-learning pieces for 25, 35, $50. And I was constantly arguing about rates, trying to raise the rates.
And ultimately, what ended my relationship there was that very issue. There was a job where the client, I was arguing rates basically with the client and asking for a payment on a session that was already done. And the client was refusing to pay.
And there was a sort of a grievance file with the client against me. And I said, all right, I’m gonna wash my hands of this. Just keep the money, I don’t care anymore.
It was like $50 that I was arguing over. I said, I’m just gonna cancel my account. Thanks for the memories, so to speak.
I was gone from there.
Thanks for all the fish.
Yeah, I did have some success there. Probably made several thousand dollars over one year. So it wasn’t a complete waste of time.
And some of the clients were good. But again, there were some issues with over demanding clients, is how I’ll put it. People per hour is one that has been very good to me.
It’s where I found some of my most high-profile clients. And that is based out of Greece, I believe. It’s definitely in the EU, and I think it’s Greece.
So the only issue there is a lot of jobs come in early and are looking for European voices, especially lately. It’s probably got something to do with our current government climate. But there’s not a lot of demand for American voices.
So that’s the only issue there. I may get one job a month there. But it has been good to me, and I have had some very high-profile clients from there.
And there’s freelancer.com, which out of all of those has probably been the best to me. I’ve had the most clients from there and definitely made the most money. They actually did a profile piece on me a couple of months ago about American success story for their front page of their website.
Cool.
And they gave me a free T-shirt to go with it. So what I want to mention about all of these is that they all work the same way. There’s no fee for having a membership.
You create a profile similar to Fiverr, actually, but they will take a larger cut of each job, a percentage. So I don’t remember the exact numbers for all of them, but all of them work the same way. They take a percentage of the fees for the job.
So you don’t pay anything upfront, but you will lose some of the fees in the backend. But those three specifically, People Per Hour, I’m sorry, those two specifically, People Per Hour and Freelancer have some really nice clients, legitimate companies you’ve heard of, universities I’ve worked with on there. So those have been good to me by and large.
And then the last one I mentioned is guru.com. That one is similar. And I’ve been on there for three years, never had a single job.
Oh, wow.
Nothing against them. They just have very few and far between voice jobs. All three of these sites have jobs for any type of work where it could be, they’re all usually clerical work, like you’re not gonna find a job steam fitting, but there’s writing jobs, proofreading jobs.
Transcription, stuff like that.
Transcription.
Oh, coding?
Coding, yeah, coding, web design, and instructional design, a lot of those. And then animators too. So one of my videos on my website actually hired somebody on Freelancer to do the whiteboard drawing, and then I did the voice to create that video.
So yeah, all three of those have been okay at one point or another, and I’m still with Freelancer and People Per Hour.
Cool. That was a world that I wasn’t too familiar with. So thank you for sharing your expertise on that.
And that’s another… I mean, you could even lump… Like, I’ve heard of people going to Craigslist and eBay for similar jobs, like that same kind of goal.
eBay, really?
Well, maybe not… Sorry, Craigslist, and there’s one other one that I can’t think of off the top of my head.
Mandy?
Probably Mandy, yes. Mandy’s a little bit more specific to entertainment production kind of stuff, so it’s more like videographers, cameramen, actors, voice actors, that kind of thing. So it is a little bit more specified to what we do, but in the same vein, it went from being a free service to a paid one, and the voiceover jobs specifically are still fewer and far between than some of the other team jobs you can be doing.
Yeah, I have a profile on Mandy, and the only offers I’ve ever gotten are for live announcing.
Oh, well, that can be fun, but maybe not what you want to do.
Yeah, some of them are pretty cool, but they’re always in the middle of the day, and they’re always in Washington, DC. There’s nothing ever in Baltimore.
That’s another thing. Like I said, it’s a lot of its location work. You actually have to be in where the project is.
Exactly. Have you ever had any luck on Craigslist?
I haven’t. I heard the occasional story. Usually indie game developers trying to cast voices or they need a scratch track, stuff like that.
Yeah. I’ve had a few auditions, but I never had a job. But my kids have.
I actually had two jobs for the kids off of Craigslist. So maybe that’s where all the jobs are for kids.
But one thing that I like, whether or not you choose any of these sites for your business model, just look at the number of baskets you can have for your voice over business, the amount of opportunities. And that’s not even through direct marketing. Like there are definitely options.
And I would encourage you to think about the various ways how can you reach out to companies, whether it would be through an agent, through a mediary like an online casting site or a freelance site, or through direct marketing to clients in production houses and businesses individually. So there’s lots of options and you should never have just one or two baskets to put your VO eggs in, as it were. All right, so now we move into sort of the upper tier.
Ironically, these are some of the ones that you might be most familiar with just because of their marketing SEO and their larger budgets. But you have sort of the top four online casting sites that we’re gonna talk about right now. You have voices.com, or what many of our compatriots like to refer to as voices.com, which we can talk to ad infinitum.
Voice123, which we mentioned before, and then Voice Realm, which is out of the UK, I believe, and then Bodogo, so the owner of which we’re gonna be talking with in a few minutes.
I hate Bodogo, god, this guy’s a jerk.
I hate Bodogo, we just wanted to bash Armin for the next 45 minutes. He doesn’t know what’s coming.
Just kidding.
Yeah, no, we got nothing but love for Bodogo. But starting with voices.com, it’s a company out of Canada, and a lot of voice talent have had very unsatisfactory experiences with them, and they’re concerned about a lot of things. Their entrance fee has increased over the years from about $200 to $400, and a lot of people are concerned that there is no vetting process, that people who are willing to pay that much, they are just allowed on the website.
And if you listen to the demos on the profiles there, you will certainly find some subpar demos, both acting quality and audio quality-wise.
You also find a lot and lots of people. That latest claim, voices.com is claiming 500,000 members.
Wow, that’s even, I was going to say tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands of competition. Granted, not everyone’s going to be great and not everyone’s going to have a similar vocal type to you, but that’s a lot. And that’s why you see some talent discouraging people away from online casting sites, is because there is so much available talent there.
And it’s only going to take a couple seconds for an agent or a caster to click next and to find someone else. There have been a number of issues with just the amount of money that Voices takes from each job. For example, they charge an additional escrow fee to make sure that you’re paid is what their logic is.
So they’re taking an additional fee in addition to the entrance fee to their website. So we don’t want to go into too much detail there, but if you do a search, you can find lots of stories and lots of reasons why you might want to be wary of Voices.
Now, I will say I did have… I wasn’t a member there for quite a while and had a lot of auditions, but I never got a single job. So about a year and a half of membership, never a single job.
Now, I don’t know if that says more about my talent or the competition, but it wasn’t a good fit for me.
Yeah, yeah. And ironically, this is… a lot of newer talent will look at an online casting site as a way to get a foot in the door, as a way to get access to real scripts from real clients.
There’s some validity in that.
Oh, absolutely. But the funny thing is, is it’s like, if you’re not at… if your skill level is not competitive, you’re wasting your money.
So, like, you have to be conscious of where you’re at and if you can actually make money off of these sites, because if you’re completely fresh or if you have no innate skill and don’t know… like, don’t have all the proper equipment, you won’t make your money back.
Yeah, that’s true. So let’s move on to Voice Realm. Voice Realm is similar in that they charge a fee, a membership fee.
It is a little bit cheaper than voices.com. And you can get on there with tens of thousands of your famous friends or favorite friends. And it’s a similar situation where you’ll see jobs and you’ll be able to audition, but you may not know how many other people are auditioning with you.
And it’s going to be a huge competition pool just like voices.com. So the only issue with Voice Realm that I had was their social media presence, where they spout off all the time about voiceover topics in a snarky and sometimes crude way. So I ultimately canceled my membership with them for that reason because they seem to be baiting other voice talent on Twitter and flat out making fun of them, which I was not a fan of.
Especially since we’re supposed to be, like, we are their commodity, you know? They are selling voice talent. And yet it’s very, it seems very apparent that they don’t respect talent very much.
And like you’re saying, it’s sound, it’s trolling, it’s bullying. They’ve had a number of upsetting social media campaigns where, like, everything from voice actors have more sex to pictures of butts and abs and whatever. And I’m like, one, what the hell does this have to do with voiceover?
Two, a lot of people are offended because they have underage talent on the site. They have minors on the site. And here you’re pandering sex and drugs with your voice actors?
That’s very unethical and wrong to me. I never had any, like, directly negative experiences with Voice Roam, and I actually liked a lot of the jobs that were coming in.
Yeah, I had some jobs there and had some success.
But I could not stand that kind of treatment of my peers. And some good friends came to me with just the way that they were treated. And I couldn’t stand for it, so I left as well.
Now, there is one more thing about Voice Roam to be aware of. They have a sister site called cheapvoicetalent.com.
Oh, yes.
And it’s worth mentioning that if you’re a premium member or above a Voice Roam, they automatically add you to cheapvoicetalent.com.
Yeah, and a number of talent have complained and left the site because of that, because they don’t want to be associated with cheapness. They are not cheap talents. And the fact that we have no control over that made a lot of talent upset.
So you can actually find out more about that via Mark Scott, a Canadian Voice Talents blog. Just look for Protecting My Brand, Why I Deleted My Voice Roam Account, over at Mark Scott Voice Over. So thank you, Mark, for detailing and archiving your experience so that other talent can learn and make a more informed decision.
And then we have one of our sort of the newest tier of these Online Casting Sites. We’re of course going to talk with Armin Hirstetter of Vidalgo, but now you have Kevin West with VO Planet, which is a newer site that just launched a week or two ago, actually.
Well, they’re newer in this form. They’ve been around for a while.
In this form, yes. I did want to talk about that. So VO Planet was another Online Casting Site with actually not the best reputation for a lot of talent about a decade or five to ten years ago.
It was just poorly managed under the management at the time. People didn’t get very many jobs, and when they did get a job, they didn’t have the best client experiences, and there was issues with payment. But anyways, a man named Kevin West actually decided to like, bought the site, and so it’s now under new management.
And over the last couple of weeks, he has been very receptive and very open to voice talent feedback in the features that they want in an online casting site. So honestly, I haven’t seen that kind of invitation for involvement from almost any of the other sites that we have just been talking about. So Kevin, really excited.
I wish you nothing but success in your new endeavor, and I hope that you and the talent that are a part of your site are just satisfied with the experience. And I believe Paul can give us first-hand experience because he signed up a few weeks ago.
Am I right? Yep, I remember. It’s been about three weeks, like you said.
I was there before the crash, unfortunately. Well, you know, it was probably a good thing in the end. The site crashed about a week after it relaunched.
But from what I understand, it was being run off the old code and they were going to redo it anyway. And as they were trying to upgrade it, the whole thing crashed and they had to build it from scratch. So probably in the long run that’s better because, as Armand will tell us actually later, having old code in a website is actually a bad thing.
So starting fresh is probably good for them. But anyway, I see several auditions a day. It’s been great so far.
Really good clients from what I can tell. I haven’t booked a job yet, but hopefully working towards it. But what I like about it is not every…
similar to Bedalgo, not every job will require a custom audition. What I found from my membership in all of these websites is, Bedalgo and, so far, VO Planet seem to have the highest percentage of people who will hire you off your demo. So they’ll put a job listing, and it will say, just send us your demo, and we’ll consider you off of that, which I like a lot because it saves a lot of time.
You don’t have to do a custom demo for everything. It’s the reason we pay thousands of dollars for professionally done demos anyway.
I was about to say, it’s a much more active and apparent return on investment instead of sending it to individual companies or agents. It’s great to have sites that are willing to accept this.
Right. So, so far, things look great. Like you said, I wish Kevin the best of luck as well.
Wonderful. And so, sort of to wrap up, the whole point of this episode was to kind of just let you know what the current online casting atmosphere was so you can make more informed choices for you and your voice over business. They’re not necessarily all evil or taboo as it were, but…
Or all good.
Or all good. Yeah, that’s a great point. But they might be a potential avenue for your voice over business.
So, like we said, we just wanted to give you as much information as possible, the experiences that we’ve had ourselves and have heard from our colleagues, and help you make the best decision for you and your business.
So with that, thanks for listening to this episode of the VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
So coming up in our next episode, we have our feature from Otacon. Chris Dottoli sitting in for Sean will be joining me in two weeks now, actually only ten days now, down in Washington, DC for the Otacon Japanese Anime Convention. We’ll do some live interviews with guests and voice actors, and maybe some ambient interviews, man on the street type of things, and then we’ll do a quick wrap up, and yeah, should be a lot of fun.
Wonderful. At the beginning of this episode, you guys heard how stoked I was to be working with the inevitable Pat Fraley. He has actually agreed to be on our show.
We’d actually love to hear from you guys, since he’s got such a wealth of experience in so many different genres. What kind of questions do you want to hear? So feel free to reach out to us, or just to send a comment on the vometer.com website, and we’ll be sure to ask any questions that you might be interested in.
So, that’s it for this episode of the VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Have a great week, and we’ll see you in a month. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.