A Beginners Guide to your First Voice Over Demo | DIY

Most of us can’t get a professionally produced demo right out of the gate. So, what do we do? We make it ourselves. If done right, it …

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how would you like to start your voiceover career with a free demo the only thing better than cheap is that’s right you know it is free and today in 2021 you can start your voiceover career with a demo that is absolutely free and it’s called your diy demo now hang around because i’ve got information that might blow your mind this might be the first time you’re hearing this information and i’m going to tell you all about why how to do it and then at the end of the video hang around because i’m going to tell you specifically where to place those demos to help you get good work well i’m bill dewees professional voice over talent and voice over career coach thanks for stopping by make sure that if you’re not subscribed yet to the channel subscribe you’ll get notifications you’ll know when those new videos come out and i hope that you’ll like it and you’ll share the video as well your diy demo in other words we’re talking about a do-it-yourself demo now truth be told five or six years ago i would have said no way don’t even consider doing a demo yourself but it’s a completely different ball game today first of all you need to understand you do need a demo you always have needed a demo you always will need a demo that’s how a client decides whether they even want to give you an opportunity think of it this way would you buy a car without test driving it probably not is a client going to buy you sight unseen or in this case actually no they want to hear what you are all about but here’s the cool thing and i just want to lay a little foundation so you understand where i’m going and why i’m telling you that it’s okay and how to do this with a diy demo because it’s a completely different landscape it’s a different scene today than it was even five or six years ago because the truth is the opportunities for voiceover have exploded they have expanded there are so many more jobs available because think about it youtube there are so many hours thousands of hours of new content being created daily much of which requires voice there are apps being developed that require voice there’s so much media so much content being created on a daily basis more today than at any point in history much of which needs voice over now the thing beyond that that makes this even more possible there are more entry-level positions so let me explain when i first got started in voiceover 15 years ago there weren’t many what we would call entry level positions most voiceover was being put to content that was fairly expensive to create because video was more expensive 15 years ago to create than it is today and much of that opportunity for voiceover was being guarded closely by gatekeepers who normally would be agents so in other words if you wanted voiceover work you had to have an agent because most of the work fairly high level now you want access to that work you wanted to get agent representation you’ve got to have a pro demo and it’s certainly something you should aspire to if you’re serious about a voiceover career even today in 2021 but that being said there are so many entry-level positions that are available now at lower pay in which you do not need to be in a union which by the way you don’t need to be i’m not in a union you don’t have to be in a union to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in voice over but you also do not need agency representation now do these jobs you know pay as much as perhaps some of the other jobs that we’re talking about when you first went into the workforce did you start off in the penthouse suite at the executive level no of course not you started off if you were like me by working in a fast food restaurant and then you began to learn and you got more education you got more training and you began to move up the ladder in voiceover to make a rough comparison it’s more like that today you can start off with more entry-level type jobs that certainly pay less than some of the other work but you can actually make a really decent living getting started and then be able to work your way up the ladder as you go to do that you need a demo now let’s talk about specifically why you need a diy demo the diy demo when you’re first getting started is going to save you a lot of money now if you’ve got plenty of money maybe it’s set aside in a retirement fund and you’re retiring and now you’re looking for your next career move or for whatever reason plenty of cash flow plenty of resources and spending several thousand dollars because that’s what it’s going to cost you for a professional demo and hey i’m a demo producer and i love working with talent and there’s nothing that will open doors faster than a well-produced demo but the truth is many who are getting started are because they’ve lost their jobs they’ve been downsized or they’re in a situation they’re not getting as many hours as they used to point being money is tight so what do you do that’s where a diy demo comes in so you have to have a demo to get work and you can use a diy demo to save money on the front end now what that means is you’re going to start with a more entry level type of work it doesn’t mean that you cannot make invoice over even with a diy demo i’ve had students who have built six figure careers doing it this way it might take a little longer than if you had a pro demo but it can certainly be done so how do you create a diy demo well the first thing i would say is this before we jump into the nitty-gritty of it if you don’t have background in production some of you guys come from a broadcast background some of you have produced hundreds and thousands of commercials and promos and so if you have a skill set to do the more complex into production that’s certainly fine but people are going to hire you because they like what they hear in other words they’re listening more to your voice than they are the production so if you don’t have expertise in production meaning adding music and sound effects and how to mix master all of these kind of things don’t worry about it simply focus on what we would call dry voice meaning your voice without effects without sound effects without music better to not add things that you don’t understand how to add than to do that in an attempt to make it sound better when it will only work against you so it’s okay to have just your voice in a diy demo so the first thing i recommend is this when you’re first getting started there are two types of demos that you should consider let’s talk audio books first unless you are opposed to recording audio books and there are a number of reasons why maybe you just don’t want to do audio books and it’s your career you could do whatever you want if you have no interest in in audio books then don’t start this way but for most people getting started i recommend looking at audiobooks because it is the lowest hanging fruit in voiceover it is a large and growing and expanding market and there’s a broad range of work from the higher pay but there’s a lot of lower pay work and it’s much easier to get so when you’re first getting started you can actually start to generate some income and some cash flow so if you’re okay with doing audio books the hard part about it you might be thinking why would i not be okay with that well doing audio books it’s a lot of work it’s a lot of recording it’s a lot of editing but it’s also a lot of good practice and it’s a good way to hone performance and your editing skills but in again unless you’re opposed to audio books i recommend getting started by recording audio books and the way that you do that the format for it would simply be three audio books three separate recordings approximately 30 seconds in length and so here’s the thing make sure that stylistically they’re very different it doesn’t help you to be redundant in other words let’s say you’re a big fan of history and so you record three history books probably not the best approach perhaps one may be business related maybe one sports related if you’re interested in doing fiction maybe one where there’s fiction where you’re doing character voices but make sure that stylistically they’re all different and here’s another tip for you only record demos of the types of books that you want to record i say this from experience i’ve recorded 41 audiobooks over the course of my career and some of the biggest one of the biggest mistakes i’ve made in voiceover was to audition and have demo material in a genre that i really ended up not enjoying specifically fiction i have no interest in doing character voices it’s not necessarily in my skill set most importantly it’s not nearly as profitable because it takes far longer to record fiction than it does like self-help or business or sports or other type of things where you’re not creating character voices but audiobooks again it’s the lowest hanging fruit it’s the most available so that is the place i would recommend getting started secondly create a commercial demo the the format for that find four to six scripts and make sure those four to six scripts you get them by transcribing commercials you can find them on youtube or ispot.tv uh take a commercial that already exists transcribe it you’re using it for demonstration purposes so you’re okay but i would take four to six scripts no longer than 15 seconds ideally about 10 seconds each but no longer than 15 seconds so you may have to edit the script down but make sure that stylistically they’re very different so they can hear different styles different retypes different aspects of your personality and again these are all dry voice there’s no effects or music being put with these so commercial demo that’s the way to get started finally you’ve got your demo what do you do with it where do you put it having the demo is great but knowing where to place it i always think of the demo as let’s use a fishing analogy i think of it as bait okay you’ve got your bait now we’re going to put that bait you’ve got to get in front of some fish in other words you’ve got to get it in front of your target audience first of all let me start by telling you what not to do with a diy demo i would not send a diy demo to a talent agent i would not do direct marketing sending it out to for instance marketing companies and video production companies i wouldn’t direct market and i wouldn’t put it on pay to play sites because that’s really the deeper into the pool you’re dealing with a lot more competition and not that you can’t get work that way but that’s the harder way to get work so if you’re starting with a diy demo what i suggest is if you have an audio book demo put it up on acx.com three letters acx audio creative exchange i believe is what it stands for owned by amazon it’s a platform that brings publishers and authors together with voice over talent like us by and large again it’s not going to be at the high end of the pay scale but again we’re looking at entry-level jobs to get you started to get some experience and to get some revenue to get some cash flow going the other thing for your commercial demo and your audiobook demo would be freelance platforms freelance platforms are the best places to get entry-level voice-over work and a couple of the platforms that have worked best for my students would be upwork.com and fiverr.com i have students who are generating six-figure incomes just by marketing themselves on fiverr so these freelance platforms are becoming larger they’re attracting more talent seekers as well as those offering their talent so that is where you go to put the demos so as you’re getting started remember you don’t need to go out and over extend yourself by paying several thousand dollars for a pro demo if you can that’s great if you can’t that’s okay you can start off at entry level voice over by doing a diy demo start with your audio book and your commercial demos establish yourself on sites like acx.com and freelance sites like fiverr.com and upwork.com and from there you can begin to get work experience and revenue where then you can springboard your career onto bigger and better things hey thanks for stopping by and checking out the video again make sure that you subscribe and share and like and i look forward to talking to you again soon you

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