Donna Papacosta first came to my attention through the Vox Daily blog. I’ve since added her to my blogroll because there’s a lot of solid and valuable advice there, especially if you want to podcast as well as or instead of blog. In particular, this post is filled with valuable suggestions.
General
Marketing substance
Among my favorite marketing blogs is GrokDotCom by the guys at Future Now. These are some of the brightest folks in the world at how to use the Internet most effectively for your business. And, while I’ve been friends with some of their employees for years, I don’t have any business connections with the company. I just admire they way they think and the way they work.
Today, for example, I was reading an article that follows up on one of their posts about who to write great copy. This particular article examines the question of “What Is Substance?” as in the phrase “Style versus Substance.”
The primary conclusion I drew from what Jeff Sexton has written in this article, at least that applies to the voiceover world, is that in addition to sound, tone and performance…one highly significant factor that influences choice is emotion. I think we tend to give too little thought to this factor when we’re making calls, sending emails, auditioning or trying to find representation. I know I do. What about you?
Read the article. Then leave a comment. I’d love to know what you think.
Study with Rodney Saulsberry
I received an email from Rodney Saulsberry this evening letting me know that he still has a limited amount of room available for his most popular teleclass, The Promo and Trailer Teleclass. It will run an hour each of 6 Thursday’s in a row, starting September 20, 2007 at 5:00 PM Pacific, 8:00 PM Eastern. Detailed information and registration is available through Rodney’s site. From this training page, click on the Promo & Trailers tab.
Who is your worst critic?
If you’re like me and my friend Brian Haymond, and you’re willing to tell yourself the truth, you know the answer to that question. I am my own worst critic. And as Brian writes about so well on his voiceover blog, he understands he own worst critic is the guy looking back at him in the mirror each morning. Take a few minutes and read what Brian has to say. It’s well worth a few minutes of your time.
A blog comes back to life
In my efforts to find and link to every blog of relevance to us in the voiceover world, I found one some time ago called Babble-Blog, the blog of the Babble On Recording Studios in Minnesota. While checking out the various links in my blogroll this evening, I was delighted to see that this formerly rather, uh let’s just say, quiet blog has a new look and new activity.
Great to see you guys, active. I look forward to reading what you have to say.
If you want to do audiobooks
In my experience there is no better way to get started doing audiobooks that to take Pat Fraley’s “Two Day Audiobook Master Event.” I received an email from Pat Wednesday with details about the next class, which is going to take place Saturday and Sunday, September 29 and 30, 2007. There are only 12 spaces available in this class, so it would be wise to let Pat know right away. Here are the details straight from his email.
Space is limited to 12 participants.
Cost:
$1400 Cash, Check or Credit Card
Payment schedules arranged upon request.Where:
World Famous Buzzy’s Recording
6900 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038When:
10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday, September 29-30, 2007To Enroll:
Email patfraleyteaches@aol.com
or call (818) 400-3733
What makes this class from Pat and Hillary Huber (and always at least a few other working pros) so valuable is that you get instruction not just in ways to interpret various kinds of audiobooks, but business ideas about where to find the work. And at the end of the class, you’ll have recorded your audiobook demo. You’ll receive that demo on CD a few weeks after the class. (Less than a month after I received my demo, I had signed with an audiobook publisher for ongoing work.)
It will be money and time well spent, if working on audiobooks is something that really interests you.
Welcoming Rowell Gormon to the voiceover blogosphere
My friend and fellow North Carolina based voiceover talent, Rowell Gormon has just entered the voiceover blogosphere with a brilliant first post. (My first entry is a pathetic shadow compared to Rowell’s fine writing.) Take a few minutes to read. I’m sure you’ll be glad you did.
And welcome to blogging, Rowell.
Competition?
Sometimes you have to let someone else say a thing for you, because you’re too close to your own situation or opinions to be able to express what you mean as clearly as you’d like. That was my experience today reading an article from last month on the Future Now blog called grokdotcom.
Bryan Eisenberg wrote this post in response to a question posed by one of the site’s readers, about competition. Here is how Bryan began…
For the better part of a decade, we’ve published hundreds of articles, several books–including 2 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers–trained thousands of people, and consulted with the goal of educating the entire marketplace (including competitors) about the value-of/how-to convert website visitors into sales, leads, subscribers, etc.
During this time, we’ve armed our subscribers, competitors, licensees and friends with powerful ideas on how to better use web analytics, design more effective landing pages, how to use Google Website Optimizer, what makes people buy, why people share things through word-of-mouth, how to make your pay-per-click and search engine marketing more effective, and even about our methodology for pulling all these things together: Persuasion Architectureâ„¢.
We do it happily! As our friend Sean D’Souza likes to say, “Give the ideas. Sell the system.“
This is the key fact at the heart of this blog. I link to all kinds of other voiceover talents, including lots of other men. I link to every voiceover blog and forum I can find. I post ideas here as often as I can, either things I’ve thought about or things I’ve gleaned from other sites, articles and documents because helping you get better at voiceover helps us all, including me. As does helping you find the voice you need for your project, and then directing that voice to give you the performance needed to tell your story as effectively as possible.
You are not my competition, even if you’re auditioning for the same job that I am. If the clients decide they want Bob Souer, there’s only one voiceover talent on the planet who can pull that off…me. If they want you, it really doesn’t matter how well I did on my audition, you’re going to get the job.
I’m not going to keep the juicy stuff to myself and share some fluff now and then and try to dress it up like it’s juicy stuff. I’m going to give you every idea I have, because, as Bryan says so well in his post…
If you gave away every idea you ever had, people would still step up to ask you to help them, or do it for them. The same can’t be said if you don’t share with them at all.
Read the whole article. Then come on back because I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments.
New audio post with solid skill suggestions
Kristine Oller is a brilliant career and organization coach. Her blog, while not updated all that often, is a must read. Of late, posts have been done as audio bits. The latest is packed with valuable advice. It will be 7 and a half minutes well spent. Go. Listen.
An idea for your MP3 auditions
I wish I could remember where I first saw this suggestion. I think it was in one of the many valuable posts on the VO-BB.com, but I can’t remember for sure. In any case, while I was doing another lesson with my voiceover coach, Nancy Wolfson today, I mentioned to her just off-hand that I always put my contact information in the ID3 tags in mp3 audio files when I send those files as auditions. That way, even if someone renames the file and loses my original email, they still have a way to make contact with me.
I do this when I’m submitting an audition to one of my agents. And I do this when I’m submitting an audition to Voice123.com or Voices.com. I hope this is a helpful idea, if you’re not already way ahead of me on this stuff.
12 Kinds of Ads
In this article on Slate.com, Seth Stevenson points out the 12 master formats of advertising. There’s a very interesting slide show linked from the article. Both will be well worth your time.
My thanks to Nancy Wolfson for sending me this link in an email today.
Three thorns and no rose
A few weeks ago, a bunch of us voiceover folk in North Carolina had a delightful time together, eating lunch, bowling and then sitting around listening to demos and talking for a few hours. One of our number who couldn’t make that event at the last minute was Rowell Gormon.
So, in conversations via email and the phone in the last few weeks, Rowell and I decided we’d try to just get together somewhere between where he lives in Raleigh and I live in Charlotte. That was today. We had a wonderful late breakfast in the restaurant at the Sheraton Four Seasons in Greensboro. Then spend 3 and a half delightful hours after lunch was finished, just talking and visiting. Joining us was Rowell’s good friend Jay Shapiro, another talented voiceover guy.
Here is a quick snapshot I took of Rowell and Jay.
And Jay was nice enough to shoot a quick photo of Rowell and me.
We had a delightful time and could have stayed and continued talking for another 4 hours. I look forward to our next visit together, when and where ever that may be.
Something to think about, seriously
Launching a voiceover career is the desire of many hearts. Doing so successfully is the experience of a much smaller group of folks. There’s a very interesting thread on the VoiceOverSavvy board about this subject that would be well worth your time. Note especially the comments of Philip Banks and Bob Bergen.
The latest updates are live…
At Voices.com, one of the three online casting services to which I subscribe (the others being Voice123.com and CommercialVoices.com), several updates have just been implemented. You can read about and comment on these changes on the Vox Daily blog.
The changes to the theme here
I broke my blog, at least for folks reading it through Internet Explorer, for a few days because of a missing close tag for one of my audio widgets that play my demos over on the right. My thanks to Justin Kaiser who helped me track down the little critter.
Only part of the picture
There’s been quite a firestorm of angst and unhappiness on the forum sponsored by Voice123.com since the roll out of Version 2.0 of their site on July 9th. While I’ve posted here and there on the forum, I’ve tried to stay out of the firestorm itself. I was a beta tester for their new version, and what I saw of it looked like it would be both much more complex and would include much more information that the old version of the site. Some good. Some not so good. And while I use technology all the time both to do my work as effectively as possible and to make our home a more interesting and comfortable place to live, I’m interested to see how this technological solution is going to work in the long run. No doubt flaws have and will continue to be discovered. Some will be addressed. Some won’t. I see no reason to bail out of what has been a source for a significant piece of income during the last 3 years. You’ll find information posted here on the Voice123.com blog about what the team there is trying to accomplish and how they’re going about it. I wish them well.
And to be clear, there are plenty of constructive and instructive posts on the VoiceOverSavvy forums. It’s quite a delightful community of folks who are living through a time of significant change.
Naturally, while Voice123.com is working to improve their site, so are the folks at Voices.com at work on their site. You’ll find some insights into what’s coming next in this blog post on the Vox Daily blog, sponsored and hosted by Voices.com.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should note that I was a beta tester for both the upgrades at Voices.com rolled out earlier this year, as well as for Voice123.com.
(edited to add)
Oh, the title of this post? As I’m learning more and more about marketing one’s voiceover services (from great friends like Charlie, Mary, Philip, Frank, Dan, Donovan, Liz, Peter, Kara, Deirdre, Karen, Anthony, and too many more to mention here), I’m realizing that Voice123.com and Voices.com are only part of what has to be a much more focused campaign.
For example, I’m not the right voice, the right talent, the right voice actor for every script. But, for those that I am right for, most people are very happy they hired me.
A question about studying with Nancy Wolfson
My friend Gregory Best was talking recently with my friend Kara Edwards about studying with Nancy Wolfson, who is not only Kara’s voiceover coach, but mine as well. Actually, if you’ve been reading this blog for the last 6 months, you didn’t need me to tell you that. I’ve written often about Nancy, and in my view, with good reason.
So, Kara mentioned to Greg that I’m studying with Nancy and he wrote me a very nice email with the following questions (which he has given me permission to quote here)…
Kara says that you have also taken class from Nancy Wolfson. What did you think? Did you feel you got your money’s worth from Nancy?
Here’s my answer to Greg…
Without a doubt, studying with Nancy Wolfson has been one of the best investments I’ve ever made in my voiceover career. The key reasons:
1. Nancy is plugged in to what’s really happening “on the ground” in the voiceover world in LA right now, especially in the commercial voiceover world. She has been a talent agent (she was Pat Fraley’s agent in the past), and today not only coaches all kinds of top talent who are booking commercial voiceover work all the time, she’s also involved in casting work. So, she knows what’s going on now. She’s not teaching something she learned 10 years ago, coasting on old, out-of-date information.
2. Nancy is one of the most searingly honest people you’ll encounter in this business. She’s a very decent, kind human being, but she’s willing to tell you the truth about what’s working, what’s not working and what needs work, as far as your sound, your demo and your reads. And, as I imagine you already know, finding someone who will tell you the plain truth is rare, especially among people you’re paying.
3. Nancy is terrific working with people at whatever level. She works with top pros, mid-of-the-bench guys like me, and even relative new-to-the-business folk.
4. Nancy’s instruction is extremely practical, put-it-to-use-today kind of stuff. She cuts through a lot of the myths and points out what works, what actually books and leaves aside a lot of the nice-to-know-but-not-really-practical stuff. Her instruction is clear, full of encouragement and enthusiasm. If you do decide to study with her, I don’t imagine you’ll finish a single session with Nancy in which you don’t understand more about how to better approach your voiceover work and career.
5. Nancy isn’t just about voice acting. She’s about business. She’s about helping you book work, or more work if you’re already booking work.
I hope this helps.
In the interests of full disclosure, if you decide you want to study with Nancy and you tell her that you are doing so because of me, I’ll get a free lesson from Nancy. So, if you don’t want me to get a free class, don’t tell her you learned about her through me or this blog.
Update: Stephanie has written an excellent post on Vox Daily about Voiceover Coaches. Well worth a few minutes of your time.
Source Connect
For more than 10 years now, there has been a reliable way to get studio quality audio from one place in the world to another. If you’ve been involved in voiceover work for much time at all, you’ve probably heard of ISDN. And while, as my friend and mentor Philip Banks would be quick to point out, ISDN continues to be not just a viable, but the dominant way that much of the very high end voiceover work is recorded; it is an aging technology. So, the search has been on for some time now to find alternatives.
One that I’ve used with many of my clients is to record the audio in my studio with the client directing over the phone. I then post the voice tracks (or finished productions, depending on the client) to my server, from which they can download what they need within a matter of minutes after our “phone patched” session is done.
Another that is in development, but not released as of the moment I’m writing this is iSpeek.
The genesis of this blog post, though, was an email I received today from Pete Newman. He mentioned that he had paid a visit to the offices of Voices.com this past Saturday, and while he was there, Stephanie suggested that he get in touch with me about Source Connect as an alternative to ISDN that is already released and working and at very reasonable cost.
For example, Pete wanted to know who is using Source Connect (studios, production houses, etc.). I pointed him to this section of the Source Connect site, which lists all current users and can be searched a number of different ways.
Pete also asked about the price. Source Connect has a very handy comparison chart for the versions, including price and features.
Now, I need to finish up this post and publish it, because I’m about to help my friend Liz de Nesnera with her Source Connect set-up. Hopefully we’ll be chatting in studio quality audio in a few minutes.
Voiceover featured on CBS
And not only was voiceover featured, but in the piece, the very talented Paul Payton figures prominently. You can see the video (and see and hear Paul) if you go to his website and look for the link near the bottom of the page. Good for you, Paul. Well done, sir.
New Imaging Demo posted
There are a very select few radio stations for which I do imaging voice work. I’m very pleased to reveal the superb work of Colin Campbell, taking various pieces from some of these stations to produce my new Imaging Demo. Available on my Demo Page and over on the right, the second flash player down. Give a listen and let you know what you think.
Thank you, Colin. I’m very pleased with your work.