Dave Courvoisier's Blog

She lucked out…
…and she moved decisively.

Julie Williams is sitting in a room at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza with a bunch of us crazy, tired, chatty voice actors after a heady day at VOICE 2008.  Chocolate is everywhere to underscore the theme of her website: voiceoverchocolate.com.

The chocolate is a great idea, and a nice website, but the one I want to know about is the one that says:  VOICE-OVERS.COM. "How did you land THAT domain name?" I asked.

It was many years ago (early 1990's?), she explains.  She was doing voice-overs, the web was coming into its own, and a tech/geek friend of hers said something to the effect of: "…you know, you really should grab that name…"  She wasn't even sure what he was talking about, but took the advice, chanced the long shot, had the trust, and followed the steps to do what he said, and today she has the domain-name to die for.

The name alone, though, isn't enough.  Julie knows how to use it, and has steadily developed her brand and her talent to the force she is today.  She hosts one of the most popular online VO forums around, and has a coaching, voice-acting, production, and publishing business to be proud of.  Along with Deb Munro, she's behind a 2009 VO cruise, and now she's asking for subscribers to her monthly THE VOICE OVER INSIDER: The Premiere Magazine for Voice-Over Talent.

This is a very ambitious project, and to get it done every month will be a lot of work.  I haven't talked to Julie since VOICE, so I don't know how she parses her time, but I stand in awe of this product, esp. since (as I just blogged about), I can't seem to even get my first newsletter put together.

The October edition you'll see when you click on the link above is a 27-page .pdf document that admittedly has a lot of space donated to ads, announcements, and pics.  But there's plenty of info as well, and clearly this has a lot of potential, especially for advertising dollars in the long run.

Credits:  Thanks to Caryn Clark and her Blog (The Hip Chick Voice) for giving me the heads-up on this (love the Google RSS Reader!!).

Also, although THE VOICE-OVER INSIDER is free, and I've just given you a link to the October edition, puh-leez go on over to Julie's website, and sign-up for the e-mailing notice.  It takes 2 minutes.  Click HERE.

This new online publication has more about Deb and Julie's 2009 VO cruise, but also more about Caryn Clark's recent achievements.  Nice going gals!

CourVO