Voice-Acting in Vegas
Have you any clue how important YOUR writing is to your online personna?!
My original thought was to blog briefly here about do's an don't's of good writing, and quickly realized this is a deep and wide and controversial subject, so I promise not to dump all my pet peeves into this bucket.
I'm actually going somewhere with all this, and having fun along the way, so I hope you stay with me. As voice actors, we all appreciate good writing, and well-chosen words.
…Twitter.
Unbelievably productive and viral internet idea…(I just feel queer saying it. Especially all the fruity spinoffs that use an iteration of the word: tweets, twits, TwiTip, twitteroo, tweeter, twiturly, twittervision, twitbin…endless!)
But don't take my word for it, read this blog by Tim O'Reilly , who currently has over 15,000 followers.
THEN, read my blog below naming the 10 top voice actors to follow on Twitter.
CourVO
This idea I stole right off a Twit by the guy who writes Pro-Blogger: Darren Rowse…but it makes great sense.
More and more of the best minds in our business are dropping great ideas all day, every day on Twitter.
So, OK…here's my list (no particular order):
1) AnthonyVO [always thoughtful]
2) David Houston (ThatVoiceGuy) [get past the football stuff, and it's all good ;-}]
3) Karen Commins (KarenVoices) [posts are few but golden]
4) AmySnively [funny, timely]
5) Karaedwards [whimsical, honest]
6) Doug Turkel (UNnouncer) [excellent observations]
7) Juan Carlos Bagnell (SomeAudioGuy) [sharp contributor]
8) David or Stephanie Ciccarelli (great insight in running a Subscriber site while running a family]
9) KitzieStern [brief, but top link referrals]
10) CourVO [hey, I had to put MYSELF in there!]
Honorable mention: Peter O'Connell, Liz de Nesnera, Moe Egan, Connie Terwilliger, Donna Reed
Lots of great stuff being contributed by these folks, and many who are not in voice-acting, but on the internet, marketing, SEO, entrepreneurship, an so so much more.
CourVO
Steven Lowell, the Quality Assurance Manager at V123 reads my blog!
He noticed my rant about "inactivity" and guided me to a blog he himself wrote in October on this very topic.
HERE is the link.
I also heard from Julian Castillo of V123, who replied to me with the following.
"The inactive status is just a way to let potential clients now
how long you could take to respond if they contact you. The reason why
this was implemented is because in the past the voice seekers contacted
talents that do not check their Voice123 account often and therefore
they did not get a reply on a timely manner, because of this we lost
valuable voice seekers that were willing to hire Voice123 talents. To
keep your account active all you need to do is log in regularly."
I appreciate the timliness of their response.
In the interest of balanced journalism, I'll withold any more comments and leave it to my readers to decide on their own the efficacy of their policy.
CourVO
'Got the following message from the fine folks at Voice123 overnight:
Hello Dave,
We detected that you haven't used Voice123 for more than 30 days
now. You can let us know if you are still an active member of the
Voice123 marketplace by signing-in here:
http://voice123.com/web/common/login.cgi
If you don't sign in, we will mark your talent-voice producer
profile as inactive. All visitors viewing your profile will see that
you are an inactive user of the marketplace and, as such, may not reply
to their messages and requests. You will not continue receiving invitations to submit audition/proposals during inactive status.
Something about this just really rubs me wrong. I haven't read the fine print on the subscriber agreement (does anybody?), so maybe it's there plain as day.
But it seems to me if I'm a paid-up subscriber, they shouldn't be able to make me a non-entity on their site.
30 days? Heck, I probably haven't signed on for 90 days! Why now? Are they fixin' to clean house?
How many voice actors use the pay-for-play sites as a marketing/exposure tool…not expecting really to get decent-paying leads in a cattle-call environment?…instead piggy-backing and paying them for their fine SEO work in getting #1 ranking on searches.
Has anyone else gotten this notice?
To quote Butterfly McQueen as Miss Prissy in the classic movie "Gone With the Wind": "…t'ain't fittin' that's what….it just t'ain't fittin'…"
CourVO
'Passing this along in case you are not on acting coach Bob Fraser's e-mail list.
There might be something in his "Black Friday" offer that appeals to you.
See below:
List of "25 Free Digital Audio Editors You Should Know", and Audacity is #1. Click HERE.
My thanks again to Karen Commins for posting this on her tweet.
CourVO
Fellow voice-actor Heather Costa shows up in an online article from the Flint, Michigan Journal stemming from a 2-hour voice over class she visited at an area High School.
Click HERE.
Cool Heather!
CourVO
Having one or two or three is great.
Not having any is do-able.
Needing one — or thinking you HAVE to have one — and not being able to get one is ah, er…lousy.
Agents. Love 'em. Hate 'em.
Anachronism, or absolutely necessity?
My take is that if you really want to break into the BIG commercial jobs in LA or NY, you will HAVE to have an agent. But many successful independent voice actors are supporting their families just fine on the money they make without an agent.
So what gives?
For the answser to that, I'm going to the experts, and one of the best at this question is Bob Fraser, the long-time acting coach based in SoCal.
He's offering a free list of 4,000 agents: "The Agent Roster". And it's legit, but when you click on the link, you'll get a soft-sell for another product he'd like you to buy, and it's a pretty darn good offer with a 1-yr money back guarantee called "Cracking the Agent Code".
Click HERE to get started…it requires registering, sharing your e-mail, then moving on to the free download in an easy flow of hyperlinks.
Thanks Bob!
CourVO
![View Dave Courvoisier CourVO@CourVO.com [LION]'s profile on LinkedIn](http://www.linkedin.com/img/webpromo/btn_myprofile_160x33.gif){kind=small}
Recent Comments