Getting work on Pay to Plays

The pay to play websites such as Voices123, Voices.com, Mandy, Fiverr and Upwork are a good resource for voice actors - also Casting Call Club is a good place to go for character voice work but most of the gigs there are not paying jobs, just 'for fun'. The problem with all of these is that you have to 'Pay to Play' to receive any benefit from them.

I am a paid member of all the above except for Mandy.com and the most frustrating thing is receiving notifications from Mandy saying that there's a job posting but I can't be involved because I don't 'pay to play'. I keep meaning to go and unsubscribe from Mandy but then I wouldn't see what was going on there so I just let the emails keep coming in to tell me about jobs I can't audition for.

I have received job offers on the platforms above and some the rates are extremely low-ball but some are pretty decent.

On Fiverr, you have to make sure you optimise your Gigs so that they encourage people to buy your voice service. Be careful, there's some very odd people out there and you have to be choosey about who you say 'yes' to and what the job is. If your gut instinct says there's something odd, go with your gut!

On Upwork, you can also post Gigs/Projects so make sure you do that with all the correct information and showcase your best voice demos.

On Voice123, you will receive emails showing there's a job posted and you can go and audition for it. There's a lot of auditions on that platform and even if you don't get awarded any jobs, it's a good place to practice your audition skills.

On Voices.com you will receive emails showing there's a job posted so you can go and audition for it if you feel you are suited to that job. Again, it's a good place to get your audition skills up to scratch and a good place to see multiple script styles.

Casting Call Club is a really good place to practice character voices because there's lots of opportunities to audition for different roles. Bear in mind, most of these aren't paying jobs and it's totally up to you whether you choose to audition with the possibility of getting a part for no pay. I like it because I'm trying to learn character voicing so it's providing me with lots of different characters to try out for. I think that so far I'm best suited to the evil/mean character.

Reach out to someone - it just might bring you extra work.

Sometimes it pays to reach out to clients to let them know you're around and able to provide voice overs to them quickly if needed.

A good example of this is like a few days ago, I reached out to one of my clients to let them know I was on hand if they needed anything urgent and voila! Sure enough, I was sent a script for a radio advertisement. I got it done and sent the audio file back - sweet!

The following day, I received an email with two more scripts attached. The client had liked the ad so much, they wanted two other variations of the read to run on different days ... how cool is that! :-)

So, just from my one short email, I received three jobs. Good going hey!

If you listen to Anthony Pica's podcast 'A VO's Journey', you'll know that he constantly talks about marketing ourselves. As time-consuming as it is, he's absolutely right that we have to market ourselves to be in the running for voice over work.

Marketing can take many forms, from these short emails like I mentioned above to full on email marketing campaigns (I have never done one of these) or paid advertising on Facebook and other platforms. Of course, you can also spend gazillions to advertise on google.

I have recently done a one month stint of Facebook advertising. I chose to spend AUD$2 each day for one month. I figured that's not a lot of money if it gets me seen and heard ... but I really don't know how effective it's been. I have received 'likes' on my image and I did have one person contact me from my website contact form but they wanted a free voice over (haha, of course they did!). I can see all the stats from my ads - how many people from different countries have seen the ad and how many have clicked on it but I don't really know whether it's worth the money or not. If I leave it running and get no income from it, it's still wasted money but do I stop it now or let it keep running for another few weeks? I really don't know and because I'm only learning, I'm at a bit of a loss on what the best approach is.

If you have any advice or real world experience on this subject, I'd love to hear your comments.

Linked In - should I?

I am trying to work out the best way to post on LinkedIn to source voice over work and, is this even something that I should be doing?

Does it make me annoying to post in LinkedIn and therefore, would potential clients just skip over me? Most posts I see contain information about people and their courses on coaching or such but I don't have anything like that at the moment. I am still in the stages of being a voice actor who is simply looking to build their client base again.

While I have done a few voices for old clients, I need to build this again and I'm hearing so many different ideas on how and why and where to post, not to mention, what to say in my post and to be sure I put up a video too! Wow, with all this marketing that's required, I can see why people hire others to do it for them! Hopefully there will come a time where I can pay someone as well but, that won't happen, until I am making money back on this voice over investment.

If you're reading this and have information you'd like to share, please comment on this blog post. I'd love to hear your thoughts.