If you have a connection with your voice, you’ve probably thought about starting a voice acting career at some point in your life.
Perhaps your family and friends say you have a great voice… Maybe you dream of voicing characters in your favorite Anime shows… Do you love creating characters when you read to your children or talk to your pets? You might be a singer and want to cross over into voice acting…
If you’re interested in making a living with your voice and you just don’t know where to start, I’m here to help you turn down the volume on what you don’t need to worry about (it’s a jungle out there), and shine a light on what your next steps should be.
Start a Voice Acting Career by Building Your Voice Acting Trifecta
To keep it simple, I’d like to tell you about the Artist – Technician – Entrepreneur trifecta of voice acting. Think of this like a triangle.
In this triangle, the Artist is the foundation and the Technician and Entrepreneur rest upon it to create the walls. I also call this trifecta the three pillars of voice acting.
Once you understand how the pillars work in relation to one another, you’ll be able to go out in the world and start investing in your voice acting passion, methodically. -I believe being pragmatic is the most effective to making dreams a reality.
Let’s go over the first pillar, which is also the foundation of voice acting.
The Artist
Voice acting requires acting, and unless you become an actor first, and a voice talent second, your experience in the industry will be incredibly limited. Why? Because employers, buyers, and directors want to work with actors. This is why you hear established film and TV actors voice commercials. They also act in video games and animation movies.
These professional actors make voice over scripts sound natural and “conversational”. Their performances sound real, like they’re really talking to you.
How do they do it? With acting training. And since these actors are your competition, you better train the way they have. At least if you want to get a piece of the voice acting pie!
This is not to say that you can’t do well if you become an announcer. But unless you’re incredibly fortunate and can get work in TV promos, you’ll be relegated to these few VO sectors:
- Voicemail (only lucrative if you’re perfectly bilingual);
- E-learning;
- Live announcer;
- Radio promos.
You may also be able to record some commercials, and some audio books in the non-fiction category, but you’ll be limited.
While these VO sectors can provide steady work, you’ll be on your own trying to get work. That’s because you’ll have difficultly getting an agent. In other words, you’ll struggle to move up the voice acting food chain.
Be a Trained Actor
If you’re a trained actor, you’ll likely be able to work in more sectors of the industry. You’ll also have access to higher paying gigs, especially in the commercial sector. And, you’ll be in a position to get an agent. This will help you book animation, and video game jobs. You’ll also be able to work in the audio book sector, in the fiction category.
To become an actor, you’ll need pure acting training first, then VO centric training. For the best training strategy, read my book Becoming An Artist. In it, you’ll learn and about being an artist on a personal and professional level.
Get a Detailed Overview of the Acting Industry
Whether you’re a trained actor or not, getting this ebook will be extremely valuable. You’ll get a detailed overview of the entire voice acting industry as it operates today. It even breaks down the types of VO jobs you can book, and what you need to book them.
If you don’t have VO centric training, you’ll want to read the ebook before training.
Once you have a basic understanding of the industry, and you’re able to create amazing performances, you’ll have to focus on recording those performances. This is where the second pillar of the trifecta comes in…
The Technician
Once you’re crafting great performances, you’ll have to become a decent audio technician. That’s because you’ll be required to record and edit professional voice over jobs at home.
This is true in every sector of the industry. Some jobs, like animation and video games may require you to go to a professional studio, but since the pandemic, actors who have professional recording abilities are at a huge advantage.
If you’re a live event announcer, you may not think you need a home voice over studio, but having one to record certain types of announcements (pre-recorded ones like “Take your seats”) will make you easier to hire. There’s plenty of that kind of work online.
Be a Reliable Voice Actor
To start a career in voice acting, you’ll also have to become knowledgable about recording and editing voice overs from home. Why? Clients will expect you to be in 100% control of your audio space. In other words, you should know how to record and edit your voice overs, and how your equipment works. If something isn’t working, you should be able to troubleshoot issues.
That said, you don’t need to become an engineer. Audio is tricky! But you should understand the basics. If not, continuous problems will prevent you from getting work.
To learn more about working with sound from home. read my book Recording and Editing Voice Overs. It explains absolutely everything: from creating a space, to recording, to delivering audio to clients in the format and specs they need.
After this stage, you’ll have to wrap your beautifully recorded VOs in a money-making package. That’s brings me to the third pillar of the trifecta….
The Entrepreneur
In this part of your career, you’ll want to put your energy in areas that will keep you in business, like:
- Getting experience
- Finding clients;
- Establishing a good reputation;
- Marketing your wonderful talent to the world.
Get Voice Acting Experience & Find Clients
To gain experience, you’ll have to audition regularly, probably on pay to play sites. The goal at this point is to test your instrument, see what kind of jobs are on the market, get hired, and see how the market reacts to you.
In time, this process will tell you where to put your energy so that you can get a better return on your investment.
Establish a Good Reputation
To have a good reputation, you’ll want to have an effective workflow and be professional on voice acting jobs. That means running your recording sessions efficiently. You want clients to feel like they’re in capable hands. If you’re non-union, this also means having a good rate sheet.
Market your Voice Acting Services
As far sharing your talents with the world, you’ll need effective marketing strategies.
To get a good voice acting agent you’ll need excellent demos (produced by audio producers) and solid auditions skills (and for this you’ll need practice).
In order to find clients (the best way to start a voice acting career) you may need to be listed on a pay to play site. Other strategies include being on top of your social media, creating good outbound strategies, and learning about SEO.
To get started, read my book Running Your Voice Acting Business. Together, my three books are a super affordable modern-day voice acting bible. They will provide a solid understanding of the voice acting industry as a whole, tell you how to navigate it, and how to find your place in it.
Voice Acting Training Never Stops
In today’s VO world, even top talents who are represented by the best over agents need to strengthen these three pillars of the voice acting trifecta. Most working voice actors:
- Continuously brush up on their acting skills;
- Make sure their audio space is professional and make upgrades when they can;
- Find new ways to market themselves so they can get more clients.
These strategies all contribute to strengthening your brand which makes you more appealing to clients.
Start a Voice Acting Career by Putting Chances on your Side
If you want to make a living with your voice, focus on these three pillars of VO. Each must be as strong as the others.
- Being a great technician or entrepreneur will do nothing for you unless you’re also a great actor.
- If you’re a great actor but you’re not able to record and edit your work, you’ll be difficult to hire.
- You can be the best actor, and be able to record and edit, but if no one knows you exist, you won’t get paid!
So, unless the three pillars are very strong, the house falls down. How do you know the house has fallen or needs some strengthening? Your voice acting income is either not coming in, or stagnating.
That said, like in any career, there are no guarantees that you’ll succeed, even if you follow this recipe to the letter. But you if you look at your career through the Artist/Technician/Entrepreneur lens, you’ll be putting all the chances on your side. That’s the most effective way of making your dreams a reality. You’ll also be able to say that you really tried!
Want some VO advice you can hang your hat on and act on TODAY? Don’t do it alone, piggy back on my success by joining my “Everyday VO” newsletter here. Get exclusive tips from me, so you can do VO the Clever Way, Right Away. My name is Lili Wexu. I’m an actress, a voice talent and an author. To learn how to make $$$ in VO, read my e-books about Voice Acting & Announcing.
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