I got nominated for a voice over award! How can voice actors use a nomination as a powerful marketing tool?

The Periodic Table of Ideas is here! I had the pleasure of narrating this fascinating audio book thanks to my friend and author Ben Cheung. This is the second audio book I’ve narrated for him, the previous one being The Four Elements of Thinking. To quote the blurb… The Periodic Table of Ideas is a collection of pivotal concepts in history spanning the disciplines of business, economics, philosophy, psychology, science, and technology. These ideas represent the pinnacle of hu

Do you have a SEP-IRA? Do you even know what one is? Let’s zoom out for a sec for an IRA refresher… An IRA, or Individual Retirement Arrangement, is an account set up at a financial institution that allows you to save for retirement. What’s the difference between a SEP-IRA, a Traditional IRA, and a Roth IRA? To quote Vanguard.com: A SEP-IRA (Simplified Employee Pension) is a simple, tax-deferred retirement plan for anyone who is self-employed, owns a business, employs others

Rejection is a way of life in the voiceover industry. Recently I saw a social media post regarding a “PFO” email the poster received. PFO stands for “Please **** Off”. It was a “Thanks for your audition! We loved it but decided go to in anther direction.” email. That post and the discourse that followed really rubbed me the wrong way. Why would you assume the voice seeker is lying and actually telling you to **** off? Why would they bother to write that email in the first pl

Are you having trouble finding work? If you are, you’re not alone. Recently, voice actors of various experience levels have asked me why they have so much trouble finding work nowadays. There is more voiceover work than ever in every genre so what exactly is going on? To borrow from a blog entry from last year, let’s start with these possibilities: Lack of talent: you entered a business you have no business entering Lack of training: you got minimal or no coaching Lack of

There are a lot of voiceover-related webinars out there. Heck, I’m leading eight of them in April alone! It may look like five webinars (see below), but I’m leading three sessions and moderating a panel at VO Atlanta so that conference counts as four webinars so nyah. Anyway, I not only lead webinars but I attend a few here & there as well. I strive to learn & grow as much as I can so I occasionally take a class to explore a new genre or brush up my narration skills. Recently

The 1099 form is often confusing for voice actors filing their taxes for the first time. Here is some 1099 101… If you earn more than $600 from a client and they didn’t take any taxes out when you got paid (withholding), you should receive a 1099 form from them. Until this year you got a 1099-MISC form. Now you get the new 1099-NEC (Non Employee Compensation) form. The 1099-MISC form is now used to report miscellaneous payments of $600 or more to individuals for: Rent Prizes

Bottlenecks in your voiceover business are a common and often addressable challenge. Let’s define the term first, shall we…? Bottleneck – 1a: a narrow route b: a point of traffic congestion 2a: someone or something that retards or halts free movement and progress b: IMPASSE https://www.merriam-webster.com/ What kind of bottlenecks could you have in your voiceover business? Cash Flow: you don’t have the money to run your voiceover business effectively Tools: you don’t have the

I’ve been narrating Explainer Videos since 2006 and blogging since 2008. I can’t believe that in all that time I’ve never blogged about Explainer Videos! I guess I was too busy trying to book them. 🙂 Anyway, an explainer video is a quick and easy way to ‘explain’ a product, service, or idea. It can be anything from a website service to a new invention to a Kickstarter campaign. And no matter how professionally produced a live-action, animated, or whiteboard explainer video i

Here is a lesson in transparency… Last week Matt DuBois, founder of Voice Casting Hub and Voiceovers.com created this post in a social media group: This came as a shock to many in the voiceover industry as the ownership change occurred in August of 2020 and we as a community had no idea. Matt claims that this press release made the ownership change known. You’ll notice that in said press release there is no mention of Matt selling Voiceovers.com, LLC or parting with the compa

Perception is a funny thing. It influences your behavior more than you realize, especially how you market yourself as a voice actor. Your marketing strategy reflects your perception of yourself, your knowledge of how the voiceover industry really works, and your place within the voiceover industry. Voice actors who perceive themselves as an employee or a starving artist look for jobs. They think short term. If you perceive & market yourself like an employee or a starving arti

Data has always been in short supply in the voiceover industry. Nobody knows how many voice actors are out there, how much money they make, which genres they narrate, etc. A valiant effort is currently underway to address this issue. Beloved voice actor and good friend Carin Gilfry has created a survey on behalf of the Voice Actors of NYC. It’s an attempt to collect data on how the voiceover industry currently functions from a voice actor’s perspective. I myself took the sur

Ready to set your 2021 Cash Flow goals? Let’s do it…! Setting Cash Flow goals is often the most daunting challenge when you’re trying to start or improve your voiceover business. That’s usually because you don’t have the money right now to do all of the things that you want to do. This is why your Cash Flow goals need to be based in reality and results-oriented. TIP OF THE WEEK Think about which Cash Flow goals you can realistically achieve in 2021 and your priorities to mov

So…2020. It’s been a helluva year but you don’t need me to tell you that. From a voiceover perspective it’s been interesting. Here’s a brief breakdown of 2020 for me as a voice actor: Cash Flow: with two weeks to go, I made more in 2020 than I did in 2019 but the proportion of genres changed. I did less commercials and industrials but more ADR, promo, podcast, and news article narration. I like that because I’m expanding into different genres. Tools: I got a new computer, new

Demo marketing is a challenge. Most new voice actors who get their training and then produce a shiny new demo have absolutely no idea what to do with it. When I started doing voiceovers I was sort of lucky in that my coach gave me a stack of production company listings and I started cold-calling immediately. The bad news was that at the time (1995) there was virtually no other venue for demo marketing. There were no online casting sites, no social media platforms, no Meetup

There is a new healthcare option just for voice actors. It’s called Healthcare For Voice Actors, the brainchild of In Both Ears voiceover agent and industry advocate Stacey Stahl. I won’t go into detail about what they offer since it’s easier for you to check them out yourselves. You can do that at the Healthcare For Voice Actors website. Stacey put in a ton of hard work to provide another healthcare option for voice actors and I sincerely applaud her effort. Well done, Stac

What is your worth as a voice actor? I bring this up because over the weekend I led the Breakout Session, “Know Your Worth: A Conversation about Rates, Negotiating, and Billing” at the fantastic Mini MAVO 2020. We discussed how to build a Rate Sheet, negotiate with clients, and invoicing protocols but we also talked at length about your worth as a voiceover business aka your value. What determines your worth as a voiceover business? I’m not talking about being talented or f

Connecting with your copy is critical to being an effective voice actor. Here’s a lesson in NOT connecting… About thirteen years ago, I was the stage manager for an Off-Off-Broadway play. The play had two actors and one of them was, well, let’s just say not connecting. As I watched the rehearsals & performances, I took notes on what NOT to do as an actor. Here are some of them: Don’t sell it, just say it Don’t present anything Don’t ignore the clues & cues inherent in the scr

Online conferences have replaced in-person voiceover conferences in 2020 because of COVID-19. This has been on my mind a lot lately, especially since I spoke at one just last week and will speak at another one in a couple of weeks. BTW I had a BLAST speaking at Johnny Heller’s New England Virtual Narrator Retreat. There were almost 100 people in attendance and while I do miss seeing everyone in-person, I got to see lots of friends and meet some lovely new people as well. Will

I often think about what it means to have courage as a voice actor. Specifically, the courage to start your voiceover journey. Here’s what I mean by that… I used to be a café manager at a certain major bookstore chain. Someone who worked under me wanted my job so she put up one of the employees to claim I harassed her. Upper management bought it and I was fired. It was humiliating and I felt powerless. I got a great lawyer who saw right through their BS. After a few phone cal

Last week we talked about listening to scratch tracks. This week let’s talk about narrating scratch tracks. What’s the difference between scratch tracks, auditions, demos, and pitches? Like I’ve mentioned in a previous blog post and this one, there is little agreement on voiceover vocabulary so we need to sort it out. Scratch Tracks: we defined this in last’s week’s blog but here it is again: Scratch tracks are used as a placeholder to assist in the timing of a video so the p

Let’s talk about scratch tracks. There are two perspectives for this: As a voice actor who listens to scratch tracks As a voice actor who narrates scratch tracks This week we’ll talk about listening to scratch tracks. I yet again am narcissistically quoting myself, this time from my contribution to “The Art of Voice Acting: The Craft and Business of Performing for Voiceover, 5th Edition”… Everyone once in a while I get a “scratch track” from a client before I start recording

Voiceweave is a new way to market yourself as a voice actor. To quote their website: “Voiceweave allows potential clients to talk directly with you via Amazon’s Alexa.” If you own an Amazon Echo or have Alexa on your TV or other device, say “Alexa, open Tom Dheere voice over” and we can chat! You can also click this link to get there. Now you can ask me questions about my demos, rates, recording setup, and more. Pretty cool, huh? TIP OF THE WEEK Keep your eyes & ears open fo

Practice does NOT make perfect. Hear me out… Many new voice actors think just having talent is enough to succeed. False. Many new voice actors think that talent + practice is enough to succeed. Also false. It’s false for many reasons, but the reason we’ll focus on today is that most voice actors don’t know how to practice effectively. Here’s why. In this blog entry as well as this blog entry I wrote about how much I was learning from Geoff Colvin’s amazing book “Talent Is Ov