Voice Talent FAQ's
What's the deal with pay-for-posting your demo on Voice Talent websites like Voice123 and Voices.com?
I don't trust these people, for many reasons.
The only thing Voice123 has accomplished is the creation of a forum in which anyone who has a credit card can call themselves a "professional" voice talent.
Decades before the Internet's inception, Talent Agencies reviewed the quality of their "talent" before placing them on their roster. The reason was simple: If their agency didn't have quality talent that could deliver each and everytime, their clients would go somewhere else and their business would ultimately fail. It's no different than interviewing someone for a job before you hire them.
Imagine if you will, conducting an interview with a perspective candidate for employ at your company. When you ask them why they think they deserve the job, they respond:
"Well.......I have a credit card! Will that suffice?"
Got a credit card? You're listed. The staff at Voice 123 (and voices.com) don't seem to care if your specialty is voice work or stained glass....regardless of your talent, skill or studio (audio) quality - demo or no demo, you can get posted with your credit card on Voice123 and compete with pros like myself for voiceover work. In reference to the aforementioned (as politically correct as I can be), here's an example (Hint: Listen to the demo).
What You Can Expect in Revenues
I was on Voice123 for 6 years as a Premium Member (I payed for the privilege to answer leads). I'm no longer participating. My Voice123 audition folder (saved every one since I started "paying to play" back in 2003) has 1258 files (custom auditions) in it. So....here's the breakdown:
1258 Auditions resulted in 18 gigs totalling $6,129.00 in revenue (including return V123 clients)....over 6 years. Before we break down the numbers, let's minus the cost for the Premium Membership for Voice123 for 6 years @ $295.00 per year or $1770.00, bringing down total revenue to $4359.00
Based on an average of 5 minutes per submission, that equals roughly 105 hours of labor. Let's add another 36 hours to total labor to account for the time to record, deliver and administrate those 18 gigs.....bringing our total hours worked to 141.
$4,359.00 divided by 141 hours = $30.91 per hour.
Not exactly Fame and Fortune, is it? Remember, this is an average over 6 years.......I went months and months between gigs, so it's not like I had any kind of reliable, steady income.
So, what's it good for?
The only truly useful purpose I can determine of Voice123 is, it can act as an on-line learning tool for those who really want to learn the craft of voice acting. You get a huge variety of sample scripts to practice with and get some insight into the workings of the "on-line" business of voiceovers. I've sent many a student to Voice123 for this reason, not to compete for work....but to practice. You can do this without paying for a membership, but beware the "try us 2 months for free offer."
As for the talent listed there (and Voices.com), I can tell you that 95% of the talent are anything but professional; ex-broadcasters, rookies and wannabes. There are very few pros; I know this, because I've spent an exhaustive amount of time researching Voice123.
I tell ya, it's a dog's breakfast of talent responses to a posting - talent, service, price and marketing methodology. I'm not impressed at all. Like the rest of the Internet, you have to sift through a lot of garbage to find what you're looking for. Then, there's the price issue. Every rate structure imaginable. There are people who will work for $10.00 and others $1000.00 for the same job.
Yes, you find the odd decent talent. Of the 200+ responses to a single post there's normally about 2 or 3 who I would consider competition in talent, service, studio and price.
It's my feeling that Voice123 has done serious damage to a once (smaller) thriving industry.....by simply taking people's money who have no business competing for the work; much less are able to provide quality audio and service.
V123 and Voices.com have given all these people a sense of entitlement they don't deserve and in doing so, have made a mess of the whole industry by bringing in competition that didn't even make it to training camp. This is why we have hundreds and hundreds of people going to conferences where there's a pile of coaches waiting to take their money. People can't figure out why they can't quit their day jobs....because all these coaches have told them that the industry is "lucrative."
"Yes! You can make $30.00 an hour....!"
It's painfully obvious to me that Voice123 went after quantity not quality from the get-go. That being said, don't expect to make a dime with Voice123, (much less get the money back for your membership)......but do plan to answer many, many leads and get little or nothing in return. If you're a pro, well.....you know the story with Voice123 and you probably use it as a tool to sniff out leads and add to your existing client base.
As for the rest of the stuff there, well, they've removed their "Voice-over Savvy" forum; once a place where talent would share information. Most in the industry believe they shut down the forum because there was negative commentary (translation: the truth) about Voice123 being posted. They couldn't stand the heat, so they closed the kitchen. This, pissed a lot of people off.
Still to this day, they heavily censor their Premium Forums to the point where it's almost like being behind the once sturdy Berlin Wall. Anything even remotely controversial is immediately pounced on and edited, outright deleted or the person posting banned from the forum. Many have been outright banned from the entire site, their website and membership revoked. Go ahead, give it a try. Post the question:
"Why does Voice123 take money from people who claim to be voice talent when they clearly have no talent at all?"
Closing forums, censoring posts, taking money from people who have no business calling themselves a voice talent (selling dreams), spewing inane propaganda left and right......will tell you pretty much everything you need to know about Voice123. Their actions speak far louder than their so-called "talent" roster. It doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to figure out that these are people not to be trusted and certainly avoided. I wouldn't give them money if I were you....but I'm not you....so that would be your choice.
Voice123 is simply a useful learning tool for students of the craft, nothing more.
Voices.com
When Voices.com launched (they were called InteractiveVoices.com then), they sent me an e-mail soliciting me for membership. Insisting that they were not going to be another "Voice123" site - I decided to give them a call. To my surprise, I found that they were A Canadian business, based in London, Ontario, about a 1.5 hour drive from where I live in Toronto, Ontario.
They asked me a ton of questions. I gave them a ton of answers. I spent at least an hour of my time speaking with them about what I felt was a proper way to run a voice talent website. Since they seemed so adamant about not being another "Voice123" I assumed that their concept would be completely different IE: they would screen Talent, Service and Product; only accepting memberships from professionals or semi-professionals.
Wrong.
They are basically, another Voice123 site. Only worse - Voice123 has improved their site with their "Smartcast" technology, which allows the client to limit the amount of auditions they recieve. Voices.com is the same concept as Voice123 in that their only source of income is from their membership. That means, the more members, the more money they make. Go ahead, whip out your credit card - demo or no demo, talent or not - they will take your money.
I was listed there for several years and after a while it got just too crazy trying to keep up with all the leads being listed on 2 sites; most of which were the same posting (voice seekers will often post on both Voice123 and Voices) answered by the same talent.
Plus, I just don't get the warm fuzzies from Voices.com. Correspondence with them has been just.....weird. For instance, it took them about 3 years to respond to this article....and when they did, none of it made sense. Just read their "About Us" page. It says nothing, really....and what's more, when you scroll down and read about "The Team" there's this:
The Voices.com team, united from a complementary set of backgrounds including the financial industry, computer science, sound engineering, vocal education, marketing and customer service...
They list "Financial Industry" and "Computer Science" first....? Really? This sort of stuff tells me a great deal about any business - it's tantamount to hiring a plumber to shingle your roof.
Read carefully and between the lines and you'll catch my drift here. Something is just.....not right. Ton's of generic crap that means nothing to an individual but a great deal to search engines. I get the distinct feeling that there's a lot of smoke and mirrors going on over there at Voices.
In addition, they have no way of controlling or regulating the amount of auditions a voice seeker will allow, so every lead is a free-for-all; there can be 200 responses to a single lead in about 15 minutes. If you're not one of the first 30 voices......yer hooped.
I also feel that, in trying to be different from Voice123, they have an odd way of running their site. For instance, they post a clients' budget by using a price "range" IE: $1,000 - $5,000. (By the way, almost all the leads on Voices.com there are posted in the price range of $100-$250).
Firstly, that tells me nothing about the budget and secondly, it's misleading for both the client and the talent......I mean, there's a $4,000 gap there...! If anything, it only promotes an environment of confusion, likely designed to make it "look" like big budget projects are happening at the site. I have no idea why they do that - it doesn't make any sense to me at all. By all means, indicate a range, but not a $4,000 "gap!" Anyone with a modicum of common sense can figure out that the concept is grossly arbitrary, to say the least.
I find it interesting that the only differences between the "Preferred" and the "Premium" Voice Talent package are:
1) 50 extra megs of space for your demos. OK, if you are using more than 50 megs of space for audio, you clearly need to work on your demos and subsequent encoding. For the record, I have 14 demos and use about 15 megs of space.
2) You get listed in 2 more "featured categories" (yeah, whatever....)
3) 3 books valued at $29.95 each. The price alone raises questions about the value of the content, wouldn't you say? They are:
The Definitive Guide To Voice-Over Success -- A 150 page, all-in-one guide designed to show you how to grow your business.
Wow! This is all I need....and my business will grow!
The Voice-Over Script Collection --
With over 50 original scripts, this collection is a perfect addition to your recording studio, complete with artistic direction and suggestions for audio production.
Hmmmm.....why would my studio need this? Don't my clients supply the script? Oh well.....it's a "perfect addition" - so it must be....right?
Commercial Scripts for Radio and Television Ads -- Each script comes assembled with casting, direction, music, and sound effect ideas. Easily customize these royalty-free scripts for your ad campaigns by changing the name of a company or product.
Hmmmm. More scripts. For voice talent and their....."Ad Campaigns" I guess. I wasn't aware that voice talents actually did ad campaigns.....I thought they voiced them. Weird.
4) And, "Priority Ranking at Voices.com" (I'm not sure what this means, whatever....)
......all for an extra $100. Hmmm.
But wait! Your saving $41.00! I'm not exactly sure HOW your saving $41.00 as their rates haven't changed in years....but, there you are.....you save $41.00......somehow. It's not clear why or how.
Call me whacky, but if you ask me, it's those books full of scripts that you'll never use that are costing you the extra $100.00, 'cause the other stuff is really not worth much at all in my opinion.
Conclusion? It's a membership-based website. It is worthwhile to list there (for free) if you're just getting started, or you're a semi-pro with the time to answer the leads. But, I personally wouldn't pay for a membership, the return on investment simply isn't there, just like Voice123.....IE: $30.00 an hour based on thousands of auditions over years and years....if you're lucky. Like Voice123, Voices.com can act as an on-line learning tool for those who really want to learn the craft of voice acting. You get a huge variety of sample scripts to practice with and get some valuable insight into the workings of the "on-line" business of voiceovers. I've also sent many a student to Voices.com for this reason, not to compete for work....but to practice.
Again, don't expect to get rich from a posting there (or any single site, for that matter), but do expect a similar experience as with Voice123.
A final note: Remember, I'm a PRO. I make my sole living doing this work! If I get "a few gigs" by sending out 1258 auditions via a single membership on a website, what does that tell you?
It should tell you to put things into perspective and temper your expectations accordingly for ANY membership-based website.
 
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