I'm mulling additional/alternate revenue streams, preferably that can work with my semi-irregular schedule. The usual options aside, one I'm interested in is voice work. I've been told by lots of people, including many outside the circle of those who might not be entirely objective, that I've got a voice for radio or voice work. My regular job has me speaking to classes every day - I know how to use my voice, to inflect, to project, etc. What I don't know is how to dip a toe in the water on the business side of it: where to look for jobs, how things are arranged, and so on. I'm close enough to the NY metro area that the city is accessible if need be. Anyone have any information, or in lieu of that, potentially useful speculation?
I don't really have any advice for you, but I do have a success story.
My Brother-in-law is a huge anime fan and was obsessed with voice acting and overdubs. He, like you, always got told he's got a perfect radio voice. He finally got the kick in the ass he needed and started doing it for fun on Fiverr to build up his resume/portfolio and earn a little extra cash for nicer equipment and software. He got gig doing an audio book for a local author within a few months of that. Now he's doing voice acting for the upcoming Star Citizen game (which might get released never, but he's still getting paid so we're calling it a win).
In reply to 02Pilot :
Not veryhelpful, but I remember one of our forum members is/was married to Don Pardo's daughter. Though that's been several years ago & I don't remember who it was.
I too have a good voice. I took a one night class at our community college. They promoted a demo sound byte and a coach. Look on line for the voice people.
It could be fun. You need a basic quiet room/closet st home.
Even with a good voice, you'll need to get a coach for some training and guidance on demos. You'll need to learn how to do different deliveries and you need to be able to quickly assess copy - it's not just about having a good voice. There's an element of acting, and often (almost always) the delivery isn't how people normally speak. It's not rocket science but neither is it something most people can just do when they step up to a mic.
You'll also need to get with an agent to find work. For some work, you can do it at home but you need to build a studio, get a mic, software, etc. Not sure how common this is, tho.
I did some part time voiceover work for a number of years, for a single firm, not via an agency. (My voice was once heard in hundreds of Burger Kings across the country, every couple of minutes, telling people how awesome the "new" french fries are. Proud moments...) I have a friend who still does voice work. She gets a lot of it but is a professional singer/actress and so can easily inject the emotion and enthusiasm (or whatever the client wants) and work fast. To be honest, the biggest jobs she gets are reading textbooks, which is not terribly interesting.
If you can find a good coach, they can get you up to speed on the business side of things. There's surely a lot of info on the web about coaching and agencies, too.
For one of my videos I hired voice talent through fiver.com. Fiver is a hub where folks offer their talent at a base rate of $5.00 per transaction. The five bucks base rate may cover something like 20 words recorded with a clean background. Anyway that is the base rate, most voiceovers are 1000 words or more... so the fee goes up. I ended up paying $60.00 for 900 words... plus I gave a $20.00 tip.
It may be worth looking into...
Thanks for all the info. Agents and coaching are not in the cards right now. Certainly there is more to it than just the voice, but I've been speaking to audiences for close to 20 years, and believe me, there's an element of acting in that too (at least if you want to keep them interested). I will take a look at fiver and see if that's a productive avenue for me. Thanks folks.