Work From Home Customer Service Rep
Where can I find a job reading audio books?
I work as a customer service rep from home now and I have an excellent speaking voice. I want to start a career reading books or doing voiceovers. I know I can pay for “agent” websites that can help me find a job, but I do not want to pay anything to start. Hope someone can help!
First–and this might sound like a laugher–serve as a volunteer reader for the blind at your local PBS radio station, if one is available. Second, you could vounteer to be a reader at the local library.
Check among your friends. IF any of them are in the broadcasting business, they should have an inside track into some of the advertising firms. Local studios provide auditions for extras to appear in radio spots…but those are provided to those ‘in’ the business, so to speak.
Many ‘audio books’ are done by the people who wrote them, in a lot of cases. If you write a book, you can contract to read it yourself.
It is rare that folk without broadcast experience are allowed to break into the commercial end. You would have to work a few shifts at a local radio station to get your ‘chops’ ready. You ‘may’ have a nice sound. However, you are going to have to let your sound be evaluated by the pros…and even women broadcasters are brutal when it comes to new talent.
It also depends upon where you live. New York, Chicago, Indianapolis, Nashville, LA, Atlanta, Washington DC are the hot cities for voice work because they have the studio facilities. And…these are top media markets.
Advice? You will starve the first few years. I personally have met, worked with, and observed some of the pros in my market. I have also done commercial voice work myself, and it was based upon who you know and what they needed. I also know some pros who get so much work that they have converted portions of their homes into broadcast studios.
I say go for it…but have a thick skin. I’ve got 20 years broadcast experience in many formats. Lots of bumps along the way. But…if you want it…go for it.
Agents? Not at this stage of the game. Broadcast Schools? Negative. You can learn more working at either an NPR station, a College station, or a commercial broadcast station than anything else. Always work for part time folk…even in marketing. An agent is only good AFTER you get ‘discovered’…and not before.
Another ‘off the wall’ suggestion…find someone in your city who is in business who wants to write/produce an audio book. Some authors are not that ‘great’ before a microphone and will hire a stand in or at least someone to ‘help out’ in a reading…IF they can find someone reliable. THIS will take some hustle, and reading of the local business pages to scout someone out.
