Have people ever told you that you’re gifted with a superb voice? Many of us would think that our relatives or friends are merely flattering us when they say so.
Actually, I’m not talking about being gifted with a superb voice to sing. Instead, I mean you have a voice that makes you heard clearly.
In fact, if you have a superb voice, there’s a wonderful way to use it to earn a lot of money. Now again, I’m not talking about you working as a telephone operator for some organization or customer service or call center.
Instead, I’m talking about using the gift of your amazing voice to give voice overs. This article will give you complete insight on how you can earn money from voice over jobs for beginners.
You can actually do it as a side gig by finding freelance voice over jobs or you can do it full time with a fixed pay.
Understanding Voice Overs
Now, you might wonder what’s exactly a voice over? Therefore, I’ll explain a bit about it. Have you watched the famous animation movie, The Lion King? All the characters in this movie have voices.
And some of these voices are given by very famous people such as Beyonce and some leading Hollywood stars as well as movie personalities from foreign countries. That’s because animations can’t speak and hence require someone to give them a voice over to say their dialogues.
The same holds true when it comes to TV and YouTube commercials, various kinds of videos, presentations and sometimes, a news broadcast too. There’re real-life people who lend their voice to these videos and add to their appeal.
And this process is called giving a voice over. People that lend their voices for such videos are known as voice over artists or voice over actors.
Voice over is also used during video games, narrations of audiobooks, for actors in TV programs, podcasts, and much more.
Some of the best voice actors or voice artists have more skills. They’re able to change their voices to speak in different accents, alter the intonation and speaking style to suit a wide range of characters for various needs.
And this is possible for you too, with some training.
As a matter of fact, all the voices that you hear in a dubbed video or the one that has a voice over artist speaking aren’t really recorded at some studio: some of these audios are simply made at home by voice over artists.
However, it does require some special equipment to record your voice.
So, what does this mean for you if you’ve that superb voice? It simply means that you’ve a goldmine awaiting to be exploited. You could use your voice to become a freelance voice over artist.
Understandably, you might be a bit confused on how to become a voice over artist as a beginner.
Therefore, continue reading. Because in this article I will be discussing about the best voice over jobs from home for beginners and providing a complete guide on how to become a voice over artist by working from home.
Getting Started as Voice Over Artist
If you’re looking for a voice over job from home as a beginner, there’re some steps that you need to follow. I will guide you through these simple steps so that you can make a career as a freelance voice over artist or even fulltime voice over artist.
Get the Necessary Equipment
The first thing that you need to do or the step to take is get hold of the necessary equipment. You might already have some of the stuff. However, you might require some additional gear too for getting started as a beginner voice over artist.
Here’s a list of equipment that you’ll require.
- A good computer or laptop
- Superior quality headsets with mic
- Stand-alone microphone
- Microphone stand
- Audio editing software
- Voice recording software
Other than these six basic requirements, you’ll also require a very quiet room to set up your home-office. That’s because you can’t have the sounds of cars honking or chirping birds on your audio files for voice overs. Nor can you have your household TV blaring or the home telephone or personal mobile ringing in your audio clips.
Therefore, select a place at home that’s away from all these sources of noise and set up your own voice over studio. At the same time, ensure there’re no echoes in the background. This calls for testing your audios as a beginner.
Create Sample Clips
Once you have all the gear in place and that silent room, the next thing is to start creating sample clips to find a voice over job for beginners.
This is perhaps the most complex task of applying for voice over jobs from home for beginners. Therefore, I will provide some guidelines on what you should be doing to create amazing sample audio clips
Test Your Equipment
This is the very first step to take to create sample clips. Start by experimenting with all the gear that you’ve bought. And do that in the room or home-office area that you’ve selected.
That would help you find out whether there’re any glitches with the equipment and teach you how to use the gear as well. Create a few mock audio clips and listen to them carefully with your noise-cancelling headphones.
Create Short Demo Clips
If you’re satisfied with the audio quality and find no sounds or other disturbances cropping into the mock audio clips, start creating short demo clips.
To do so, read out something for a minute or so. Or act like you’re speaking on the phone. You could also recite some dialogues from a book of your choice.
Make Sample Clips for Buyers
Now comes the most important part. And that is making sample clips that would actually go to buyers of your voice over service as a beginner.
Actually, there’re several different types of sample audio clips that you’ll have to make. Generally, each sample clip should be of 60 seconds to 120 seconds (one minute to two minutes) of each type.
You cannot apply for a voice over job as a beginner if you have no sample clips to provide for buyers. That’s because buyers of your voice will want to know what you sound like.
Ideally, make short recordings of 30 seconds to 45 seconds. Make them in different styles. For example, some of the common types of sample audio clips that buyers would love to listen as for various requirements such as animations, business presentations, narration of audio books, moods from angry to serious, jovial to casual.
Store these sample audio clips in a format that’s transferable on any platform easily such as a memory drive or CD or can be sent over WhatsApp or even email, if necessary. That allows you to reach out to maximum number of potential buyers.
Look for Voice Over Jobs for Beginners
Now that you’ve all the stuff in place, you’re all set to look for voice over jobs for beginners. However, I’ll caution you that looking for jobs as a voice artist isn’t very easy.
That’s because you’ll be pitted against several potential competitors. Hence, your sample audio clips have to be appealing enough to stand out and attract the buyer.
Also, get a Resume ready. A lot of buyers don’t merely depend upon audio clips. They wish to see a proper Resume too.
That gives them a fair idea about your education levels and age, regional accents and other parameters that could influence their decision in your favor.
8 Best Voice Over Jobs for Beginners
Ince you’re all set, here’re some of the places that you could look for voice over jobs from home for beginners.
I will list both organizations that look for fresher voice over artists as well as freelancing websites where you can find superb voice over assignments.
Voice123
The first place that beginners look for voice over jobs is at Voice123. This is because it’s the world’s first marketplace for voice overs.
You can find all sorts of customers at Voice123, from individual vloggers to largest organizations of the world. Here, potential buyers go through the website and listen to the sample audio clips of various beginners.
If a buyer finds your voice attractive for their project, they can contact you directly. Voice123 doesn’t provide any fixed rates for your work.
Instead, it serves only as a meeting point for you as a voice artist and a potential buyer. This means, you’ve got to negotiate for your pay with the client directly.
Voice123 doesn’t charge you any commissions from your earnings. This means, whatever the price you get from the buyer is your income. However, to get listed on Voice123 as a voice over artist, you need to become a member.
Their membership free starts at $50 per month and onwards, depending on the different tiers. The higher the tier, the more search appearances and project invitations you can get every month for your voice over work.
To sign up on Voice123, you’ll have to provide a lot of details such as the languages that you’re fluent, gender, age group and the suitability of your voice for people of different ages, your recording capabilities, methods of delivering voice files and any extra services that you could offer other than voice acting, such as audio editing, script writing and video dubbing. You can charge extra for these services.
Filmless
If you’re very confident of providing voice over services as a beginner, try Filmless. This is one of the topmost companies that provides voice overs to movies using artists from around the world.
They generally look for freelance voice over artists that can provide superb voice overs to high quality videos and can help complete a video project in one-week to two-week time.
Filmless isn’t very concerned about where you live. That’s because they provide remote jobs only for voice over artists. All you need to do is create amazing, high-quality voice over clips from your home for this company.
However, you should be able to complete their voice over tracks and submit them within 24 hours of getting such an assignment. If necessary, you will also have to record a few extra pick-up lines, if requested by the buyer. Filmless pays its voice over artists very lucratively.
Snap Recordings
Snap Recordings usually provides professional sounding voices for telephone answering systems, Artificial Intelligence based Interactive Voice Recording (IVRS) and other such applications.
Therefore, you will require a very business-like voice to guide people through various processes over the phone.
Generally, clients of Snap Recordings will provide the script to the company. As a voice over artist, you’ve to go through the script and do the necessary recordings to submit to Snap Recordings.
As a matter of fact, apply for voice over jobs as beginners at Snap Recordings is very simple. All you need to do is complete and submit a short online form and provide your sample audio file in the format they request.
Additionally, Snap Recordings also asks you if you possess native level or expert level fluency in any foreign languages. That’s because they get a lot of assignments for recordings in different languages too.
Mandy Voices
Mandy Voices ranks among the best auditions platform of America. Here, organizations, individuals and ad companies post voice over jobs. You can apply to any of these jobs.
All you need to do is create a free account. You can also opt to get job alerts via email and tips for various voice over jobs. They also have a service where you can create own online marketplace and offer your voice over services as a beginner.
Voices.com
Another excellent place for online voice over jobs for beginners is Voices.com. Here you can find countless work-from-home voice over artist assignments. On Voices.com, a buyer places the requirement along with the budget for that specific voice over job.
If you wish, you can bid for the job by quoting your price within that budget and sending your sample audio files.
You can set up a free guest account on Voices.com and create own profile giving information such as your educational level, location and languages known. This way, any buyer interested in your services for voice over jobs can contact you directly.
However, the guest account doesn’t enable you to send a sample audio file for public listening. To do so, you’ll have to upgrade your account to Premium level, which comes at a subscription of $499 per year.
Bunny Studio Voice
Bunny Studio Voice is famous worldwide because they offer voice over services in as many as 50 different languages. Therefore, if you’re fluent in more than one language, this could prove to be an ideal platform for you to start your career as a voice over artist.
You can find countless voice over work-from-home jobs through Bunny Studio Voice by creating own account and profile. And they welcome beginners too.
Furthermore, Bunny Studio Voice doesn’t charge you any membership fees. Instead, they deduct a small commission from your income. Once you register on Bunny Studio Voice, showcase your talent using their resources.
That means, buyers can listen to your sample audio clips and place orders if they find your voice suitable for their work.
Voice Crafters
Applying for voice over jobs for beginners on Voice Crafters is very simple. They provide voice overs in as many as 80 different languages and dialects.
Here, you don’t need to undergo an audition to be selected for a voice over job. All you need to do is to create an account and upload your sample audio files for free.
If a client likes your audio files, they will invite you to submit a project and a quote for your work. And sometimes, the prospective buyer might want to hold a live audition.
That’s where the equipment you invest in to buy the gear, as a I mention earlier, matters a lot. Voice Crafters charges a small commission from your income.
Upwork.com
Upwork.com is a leading freelance marketplace in the world. Joining Upwork is free. However, you’ll need to create a superb profile as a freelance voice over artist over here and upload a project for prospective clients to view. You will also require a superb LinkedIn profile to create an account.
On Upwork.com, you’ve to bid for projects. Therefore, I suggest you learn how the bidding process works. You have to charge for your work on an hourly basis.
While joining Upwork.com is free, they charge you between five percent and 20 percent of your income as their commissions. And you also have to pay for money transfers from your work to the bank account or through PayPal.
Other Ways to Get Voice Over Jobs
Other than these eight proven ways to get online voice over jobs for beginners, there’re a few other ways too.
- Job boards such as Indeed.com, Glassdoor.com and Monster.com
- Nearby studios that require voice over artists
- Local TV stations
- Task Rabbit for online small voice over tasks
- Local radio stations
You can apply at any of these places to get a voice over job as a beginner. However, carrying or submitting your sample audio files or passing an audition is compulsory here.
Pay Scales for Voice Over Artists
The pay scales for voice over artists vary according to your talent and nature of work that you take. That’s because working for large budget movies can earn you a lot of money while some jobs aren’t that big.
According to ZipRecruiter, the yearly pay of a voice over artist can range from $29,000 to as much as $198,000. However, the median pay is pegged around $33.200 according to Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Indeed.com says, a voice over artist can earn up to $32 per hour. However, in most cases, beginners can expect about $14 per hour to $25 per hour. Professionals or people with a lot of talent can go as high as $120 per hour.
In Conclusion
It’s not at all difficult to get a superb job or work as freelance voice over artist, if you follow some of these simple steps that I mention above. As a matter of fact, voice over artists is always in demand.
It’s a recession proof job meaning your skills will be relevant throughout your life. You can continue providing voice overs, even as you age because there’re lots of buyers for mature and senior voices too, for various purposes.
Following the above steps should help you to find a voice over job for a beginner.
