Lets not call it Professional Voiceover work, lets call it the:
‘Bill Paying Burn-out Plan For Newbies That Thought Voiceover Was an Easy Way to Work From Home’
The Voice of Expectation
Is it just Voiceover where there’s a massive reality gap when it comes to some peoples’ expectations. After all it’s just talking right.
I’ve not come across many people winging it with video creation or wedding photography, or have I missed that.
I’m pretty sure people in other creative disciplines do experience this, but with VoiceOver sometimes it’s off the scale bonkers.
Voiceover Business Model
Guess what, there’s plenty of professional clients and plenty of work that pays industry standard rates for Pro VoiceOver. What’s so alarming though is the sheer quantity of garbage that gets thrown around on Pay to Play sites for newbies.
This isn’t a good way into the industry folks, it teaches you nothing and will break your soul. Seriously, get some training, some on-going coaching, learn through auditioning, hone your skills and build from there.
Throwing all your energy at the low hanging fruit doesn’t end well.
‘Narrate my five 100,000 word audiobooks, I’m looking for an experienced professional for which I’ll pay $5 per book’.
Thats actually an Ad that was on Upwork recently.
What Does Audiobook Narration Cost ?
Let’s rewind here, so thats 100,000 words, which is just over 10 hours of finished audio. Market rates vary, but anything from $100 – $300 per finished hour, including the edit and mix is where this should be heading.
You’re looking at 40 – 50 hours of studio time per book if you know your way around this stuff.
Whose doing this work and fuelling these expectations ?
Its being done by the army of new-comers that saw Voiceover as an opportunity to make money from their arm-chair, whilst working from home and sticking two fingers up at the man.
It’s just talking yeh !
Professional Voiceover Rates
Quite a lot of stuff is Youtube based content, pretty much a standard 10 – 15 minute script, you know the deal. Market rates make Youtube content creation non-viable though, so thats mostly why these jobs exist.
A newbie is going to take 1 – 2 hours to narrate, edit and mix a 15 minute script. Youtube video reads on these sites are often pitched at around $15.
Now I’m not Alex Hormozi, but this isn’t a viable business plan, sorry. Hello Burn out and house repossession.
If you charged market rates for a 15 minute script, with unlimited socials and broadcast by the way, it would look more like $330 to start with. After that there’s the edit and mix, with a usage fee maybe taking it to more like $500-600.
Professional British Male Voice Over
We need to start calling this stuff something else please because its not Voiceover work.
So I’m open to suggestions, what should Youtube bottom feeding content be classified as ?
If you’re serious about adding value with voice and you’re in the market for a quality British Male Voice for your next video, radio, internet or internal marketing project, contact James. Its serious value added.
