Pay to Play voice-over sites are not precisely the darling of voice talents, but they make sense for a market where supply and demand still struggle need to meet somehow, somewhere on the Internet. Indeed as a talent you can’t raise many expectations on the effectiveness of a P2P site when it comes to get gigs and well paid jobs. But one thing is sure, if you are not in them, you are not active on the online market. Can you afford that? You can’t take for granted that you will get jobs regularly from them, but it’s sure that your profile as an artist and the samples you will publish on them will get a boost on the net. So it makes sense to be part of these rich directories of voices, since this is part of a sound marketing strategy. So we advocate that you send your demos and details to as many P2P sites as possible, because from a SEO point of view, your name and service offer will certainly prompt the search algorithm of Google and other browsers all across the Internet.
There not so many P2P sites as one might think, the pioneers are Voices123, Voices.com, Bodalgo and most recently Voice Bunny and ours DirectVoices. They don’t necessarily rival one another, they rather complement each other, since each of them offersa different scope and covers a different geographical area of influence. DirectVoices captures talent all over the world but mainly caters to voice seekers in Europe, Asia and South America. DirectVoices has been made possible by many years expertise on the market from both voice talents in different countries and some studios like France’s PrimeVoices. At DirectVoices, there is no intrusion in the transaction, since the independent voice artist liaise directly with the potential client, using the online platform. Yes, it’s also a machine of auditions, but the studios and producers get a restriction, they can only propose an audition to no more than 8 voice talents at the same time, whereas other sites dozens of voices are called upon to provide samples of a particular script.
An added advantage is that you can open up a free profile, uploading one sample. Of course, if you pay a plan, say the Pro or the Premium, that’s money well spent since your profile will be advertise more extensively. The paid plans are really a bargain since they offer you like a complete website, without the hassle and excessive cost of having a website. We know that having a website per se, is like having a bottle drifting in the ocean. You need an expensive SEO strategy not to be buried in the infinite web universe. With a P2P site like DirectVoices, you come out for a quite reasonable price. Your professional demos on these sites will have a better echo and outreach and will increase the likelihood of getting booked for a recording.
But as we say, you can’t rely too much on P2P site. If you are not proactive with your profile there, you can be disappointed. So our advice is use the powerful tool of your profile in a P2P site to promote you voice among many potential clients. This is also the advice of Kate MacClanaghan, veteran casting director, producer, and author of “The Sound Advice Encyclopedia of Voice-Over and the Business of Being a Working Talent”. She recently published in the Huffington Post an article covering the Pros and Cons of P2P sites.
She points out about the advantages are far higher than the inconveniences. We want to outline this key point if you want to develop a career in the VO industry: if you have a rich profile with at least 8 demos, some video reel details about your studio, experience etc, photos and references you become a credible vendor, you have a business online.
