I'll never forget the first year of my business. It was downright painful. 

I don't mean listening to my work was painful, although it might have been, but physically, it was painful. 

Every single day, I would get up at 6 am, go to work, come home around 6 pm, pick up the kids, get dinner ready, spend time with them, put them to bed, spend a few moments with my wife, and put her to bed around 10 pm.

After she got in bed, I would go outside and get my super-sized army style duffle bag and drag it into the house, being as quiet as possible, so I didn't wake the kids.

Once I got to the office space, which happened to be on the other side of my little dwelling, out would come the PVC pipes and packing blankets. 

I constructed my PVC pipe Hobo Fort, as I called it, based on a number code marked on each tube so I would remember where it all went. After it was up, I had to move the desk and computer so it would fit together and finally attach the...

There is no doubt; I love Fiverr. It has changed my life and helps me make a six-figure income in voice-over each year. 

But there is another side to Fiverr that gets on my nerves THE UNRULY CUSTOMER.

I was talking to a friend earlier today, and they let me know that a customer had tried to take them on an "I don't need broadcast rights, and I will only pay you $5" ride, and after trying to talk it through with the customer, they became so rude, that she blocked them.

Then, the customer created a new account, and still ordered from her, probably in an attempt to give her a bad review.

This happens on Fiverr often. 

However, the other day, I was working on "Freelancer," and I was taken for a scam with someone from China trying to sell me on a business deal, after claiming they needed a voice-over. 

Unfortunately, this sort of thing is the price we pay for doing business online. There are scammers around the corner, trying to get your money or worse, your personal...

I made a quick video on why I think you should make content for your voice-over business. 

To me, creating content and sending it out in the world, via social media, is like investing. 

When you create a blog post, video, podcast, etc, you create something that will last and has the potential to grow your business. Unless you take it down, it never goes away.

Many people are worried about creating content for voice-over because they don't know what they should say or they don't know how to format things.

As of right now, there are millions and millions of videos, articles, and podcasts explaining this very topic and for good reason.

This is the age we live in. If you are not putting out content in some form, either about your journey or about your thoughts or research on another business, you are missing a monumental opportunity. 

Check out the video and I hope you enjoy it! 

Anthony
Hello and welcome to A VOs Journey Podcast. My name is Anthony Pica. This show is all about helping the new and upcoming voice-over artists grow their business and sidestep all of the crazy things that I seem to step on. I have got an exciting show for you tonight. I'm just bubbling over here. I had the privilege to interview read Horror ex who is a top-rated seller on Fiverr. Been there since 2013. Absolutely incredible, woman. So knowledgeable. So just fun to talk to. And we go in for quite a while. I apologize upfront for the length of this, but I think you're really gonna enjoy it and make sure you listen to the end because she gives some information that I've never even heard before about her workflow and the things that blew my mind. So thank you. Read so much for your time. And if you don't know ah, a little bit just more about her. Before we start, she goes into it so I won't go too much. But, you know, she as played an integral role And I believe...

So, what exactly is a voice actor rate card anyway? A VO rate card is simply a chart, document, graph, etc. that outlines monetary prices to work with you and to license your work.

Why is it important?

1. Your business is supposed to make money. Without knowing how much you are charging and what you can expect, you will not be able to grow a profitable enterprise.
2. Consistency - There needs to be a consistent customer experience so they can trust in your name

How is a rate card formatted (Simple example)

A. Rates determined by length of the script:

1. 5 words (2 seconds)
2. 50 words (20 seconds)
3. 500 words (3 minutes)
4. 5000 words (33 minutes)
5. 50,000 words (5.5 hours)

B. Broadcast Rates and Sizes Online

1. 10,000 people
2. 100,000 people
3. 1M people
4. 10M people
5. 100M people

How do you price your rate card?

3 ways to do it:

1. Industry Standards: GVAA is a great place to start your search
2. What are your operating costs
3. What are the trending rates on the platform you are on?

Do you post it?

1. Do you...

As you are thinking about your voice over business in 2020, I want to put something in your mind ...

I believe that planning for the future can have such a massive impact on your business that if you’re not planning for success, meaning that you’re not taking it seriously to plan out each day to get to where you want to go, you’re going to lose out in 2020.

I’ve always had issues with planning and working with to-do lists. They can be taxing, and it’s often hard to narrow down the exact things that you need to accomplish.

In voice over, we run across all sorts of challenging things like technical work, marketing, or dealing with customers or working with the website, etc.

The key to planning is taking all those things that we have to do and create systems and processes so that we can make it easier for us and increase success through efficiency.

In this video, I talk about systems, tips, and tricks on how you can plan for voiceover...

When I first started in voice-over, I had the most challenging time with my breath.

Because I didn’t know what I was doing, I tried to breathe in places that were very awkward and not normal speech. It took me so long to edit out breath’s and I got confused about where they should go and how they should sound.

So then I adopted a no breath strategy where I would remove all of the breaths.

But as I went along, I realize that that sounded very unnatural as well. So I went to a strategy of leaving all the breaths in. What happened there was that the breaths were so loud that that didn’t work either.

As I went through this whole process over a couple of years, I realized that the problem was not my editing but my actual breathing during my voiceovers.

So I created a strategy on how to breathe better during my speaking. In this video, I talk about four different steps you can use to build up your stamina and correct any breathing problems you may have.

Hello, and welcome to a Vos journey podcast. My name is Anthony Pica, and this show is all about helping the new and upcoming voiceover artists grow their business and sidestep all of the crazy things that I seem to step on. Well, today was a great day so far, but it got batched up. I was trying out a new service called restream doing my live video, and it did semi-okay, but on the other hand, I wasn't live in certain places, and I was live on other sites, so I had to go back and do different shows. So to make a long story short, I wasn't able to get the file that I wanted for the podcast. And you know, I think Twitter is going to serve all of us incredibly, and I'm going to talk about it. All right, let's do it. 

Don't be afraid to try new things and don't be scared to fall flat on your face just like I did today because it was interesting if you decide to go live in multiple places using restream, make sure that you have all of the different things figured out. You log out...

Finding good scripts is hard, especially ones that give us the “real-life” practice we need to grow as voice actors.

However, do not lose hope, I have put together three tips and tricks you can use to get good scripts to practice voice acting like a rock star (If rock stars practiced voice acting, that is).

Listen to the latest episode of A VO's Journey Podcast!

A quick note: Whenever you practice, make the most of it and spend a little extra time creating a process that you will follow from beginning to end.

Think of a golfer. Every time they step up to the ball, they have their ritual to bring them to that perfect moment of relaxation, remembrance, and creation. The same goes for us. Start to create a process where you get a script (copy), and you read, research, find your voice, deliver, analyze, modify, edit, master, format, and send off.

This is my method, but you can create your own. Practicing voice acting this way is called "targeted practice."

** Three tips and...