July 29th, 2011
Here’s a great video by voice actor Jonathan Tilley about what are you worth as a voice actor. After the video, check out some of my additions to his list.
In addition to Jonathan’s list of what clients say to justify paying a lower fee, here are a few more I’ve heard (with my comments in parentheses.)
“Any voice actor who knows his craft can get this done in no time.”
(True, a trained voice actor can get a quality recording out faster because we have the training and experience. But should we accept a lower payment just because we are good at our craft? NO! That training and experience demand a higher fee, not lower.)
“We can only pay a small fee for this project, but we have more work that we can send your way in the future.”
(Really? More work? Great! Before you get too excited, keep in mind that this is a COMMON ploy in many freelancing fields. I hear it quite a bit in the website design biz I dabble in. Remember to charge for ONE job at a time. “Future” work is just that, in the future. It should have no influence on the present.)
“It’s only a few lines.”
(Yes, it might only be a little ten-second blurb, but it takes a voice actor longer than 10 seconds to record it, clean up the audio, and correspond with the client. In addition, we get paid for having and maintaining a home studio, having professional equipment, and some ROI (return on investment) for the money we put into our training and education — just like any other profession.)