I remember a stretch, years ago, when nobody answered a single audition I sent. I got so frustrated that I actually recorded a line at the top of one asking, "Is anyone actually listening to this audition?" (I'm not telling you to do that. Please don't do that.)

What I didn't have back then was a way of looking at auditions that didn't depend on luck. I'd send them out and refresh my inbox, and every silence felt like a verdict on my voice. It took me a long time to figure out that auditioning works a lot better when you treat it like part of your business, with numbers you can actually track.

So this is the audition strategy I use and teach in our classes. It works for commercial auditions and for audiobooks, and I'll get into the audiobook side on its own further down, because audiobooks have their own rules.

Find your number

The first thing you need to know is how many auditions it takes YOU to book a job.

That number is different for everybody. For one person it might be 10 or 15 auditions. For somebody else it might be 30 to 50. Somebody else's number tells you nothing about yours, so don't go comparing yourself to somebody online who says they booked on their third try.

The only way to find it is to test it. Keep a simple log of every audition you send and every job that comes out of them. A spreadsheet is fine, a notebook is fine. Give it enough time to see a pattern, and your number starts to show itself. (Your number also changes as you get better, which is kind of the point of training. Anyways.)

Turn your number into a daily target

Once you know your number, you can work backwards to how many auditions you need per day. From there it's easy to see your week and your month.

This is an example, not a promise. Say your number turns out to be 30. If you do 6 auditions a day, five days a week, that's 30 auditions a week, which works out to roughly one booking a week at your rate.

That's the whole point of knowing it. When you know how many auditions it takes, you can put the work on your calendar, and you have a much better idea of when the next job is coming. Auditioning turns into something you schedule, like any other part of the business. You have to put the business hat on, because this is a business. Or it's just a hobby.

Send at least three contrasting takes

Every audition should have at least three takes, and they need to be different from each other.

Three takes that sound the same is really one take sent three times. Contrast is what gives the casting director or the client a choice. They listen through and go, "That one. That's the one I want." With a single take you're asking them to either love your one idea or move on to the next file.

A lot of voice actors fall into the trap of nudging the pitch a little and calling it a new take. Change the actual choice instead. Who are you talking to, and what do you want from them? Speed up and slow down. Try a read where you're holding something back. If you are emphasizing everything, you're not emphasizing anything, so hit a different word on each take and listen to what changes.

Get each audition done in under 10 minutes

This is where I see a lot of people struggle. Their auditions take way too long.

From the moment the audition lands in your inbox to the moment you hit send, you should be at 10 minutes or less. That includes recording it and cleaning up the audio.

Look at it like a timetable. At 10 minutes an audition, you can do 6 an hour, which is 12 every two hours. Now go back to your number from the first step. Speed is what makes your daily target realistic. If every audition takes you 45 minutes the math falls apart, and you'll burn out long before you find out what your number is.

The way to get faster is reps. The more scripts you read cold, the less time you spend staring at the next one. Set a timer on your phone. Then pick a script and see how long it really takes you to go from first read to finished file. Most people are surprised, and not in a good way :)

Audiobook auditions have their own rules

Audiobooks are a big part of what we do at VO Journey Academy (our narrators have published over 750 audiobooks through Academy Voices), so I want to spend a minute here.

Keep them to 2 to 3 minutes or less. You don't want to send more than that. Nobody casting a book needs twenty minutes of you to make up their mind.

If they give you an excerpt, read the whole thing first. Then find the best part of it, and audition there. Don't just grab the first page because it's on top.

And always include a section with dialogue. Authors and publishers want to hear whether you can handle dialogue well, and it's one of the fastest ways to show them.

If you need material to practice on, the audiobook section of our free scripts library is a good place to start. There are over 750 free scripts in there, and the duet scripts are great for dialogue because you can grab a friend and each take a part.

Your audio has to be excellent

Last one, and it goes straight across the board. Your audio quality has to be the best it can be for your setup.

You can have the right read, the right takes and the right speed, and poor audio will still hold you back. If your sound isn't good, you're going to struggle to get hired. That doesn't mean you need an expensive studio. I built my business in a booth made of packing blankets. It means finding the quietest space you've got and learning enough about editing that your files come out clean.

Putting it together

What ties all of this together is intention and consistency. You know your number and your daily target. Every audition gets three real choices, done in under 10 minutes, with clean audio.

Do that day after day and auditioning becomes a process you control, instead of a mystery you wait on. Sending it is the key.

Come work on your auditions with us

This is exactly the kind of thing we work on every week at VO Journey Academy, live. On Thursday nights in Launch Pad with Angela Ohlfest, members bring in their auditions and their demos. The whole room listens and gives notes. Wednesday's Script Workout is never recorded, so it's a safe place to try a read you'd never send to a client yet.

Free Class Week is Monday 12 to Thursday 15 October. You can sit in on all four live classes for free. There's no card to enter and no sales call. Save your free seat here.

And if you already know you want in, your first month of CORE is $39.

Go out there and audition, and I'll talk to you soon.
Anthony