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Managing Your Voiceover Business

In This Chapter

You’ll find downloadable PDF forms and more AOVA.VoiceActing.com .

Setting Your Talent Fee

The first, and most important thing you need to know about setting and negotiating your fee is that you have value. You can do something your client cannot. You have something to offer that is of value to your client, and your client needs what you have to offer. There is something about you that the producer believes is right for his or her project. It could be the way you interpret the copy; it could be a quality in your voice; it could be anything. You are the chosen one! Congratulations! If your client didn’t want what you have to offer, they would be talking to someone else. You’ve got the job! All that’s necessary now is to work out the details.

Because you have value, you should be fairly compensated for your work. At first glance you may think that a client’s proposed budget for voice talent is very reasonable. But be careful not to rush into accepting voiceover work simply based on what the client is offering without first doing a little research. When the script arrives, you may be unpleasantly surprised by the amount of work you really need to do, and as a result, how low your compensation really is. The details of your work need to be clearly defined before you agree to the job.

The second thing you need to know about setting or negotiating your talent fee is that your time is valuable. You’ve made a considerable investment of time and energy to get to a place where you are ready to market yourself as a professional voice actor. If you expect to ever see a return on your investment, you need to give serious consideration to how you will set your talent fees and how you will work with clients. You need to think like a business person.

If you plan to get paid for your voiceover work (and you should), you’ll need to learn some negotiating skills. As a voice actor, you are in business for yourself, and fee negotiation is part of doing business. Even if you have representation, you should still work on your negotiating skills if for no other reason than you will be able to discuss your fees and marketing strategies intelligently with your agent. Since part of an agent’s job is to handle fee negotiations, the next few sections of this chapter will address setting fees and negotiating techniques for independent voice talent who do not have agent representation.

Your primary job as a voice actor is to deliver an effective and believable performance. This can be a challenging task when you are placed in a position where you must multitask by running the computer software, making sure your recording quality is up to standards, finding the proper character and attitude, and delivering a performance that meets the client’s needs. With a home studio, you’re a one-person-shop, and you do it all! It has taken some time for you to learn how to do all of these things.

An often-overlooked consideration when setting fees is the investment of time and money in getting started in the business of voiceover. The cost of books, workshops, and demo production can easily add up to several thousand dollars. Add to that the cost of your home office furnishings; business software; office equipment; supplies; business development and marketing; the cost of your computer; your home studio equipment; Internet connection; website hosting; website design services; graphics design; printing; and telephone lines.

It doesn’t take much effort to discover the true financial investment you’ve made in your voiceover business. It is only good business to expect a return on this investment (ROI). And, in order to see a return on your investment, you’ll need to consider those expenses as you determine your fee structure. There is no easy formula for doing this, but it is something you should consider.

Evaluate the Job Requirements

Many experienced producers have a very good understanding of what it takes to record a quality voice track, or produce a complete production. They have been through the production process many times and know what it is like to work with voice talent of all levels of experience. There are many others, however, who have no experience working with voice talent, and have absolutely no idea of what is involved in voice recording and audio production. For a voice talent just getting started, the unfortunate reality is that many first-time clients will be inexperienced and uneducated in the world of audio production, voice recording, and voiceover work in general. As a voice actor, it’s not your job to educate your client, but that may be something you’ll need to do as part of your negotiations.

Another aspect of voiceover reality is that other producers eager to maximize their profits may be willing to take advantage of beginning voice talent. If you don’t know your personal worth, and how to negotiate your fee, it could be a very long time before you begin to see any financial success as a voice actor.

Keep in mind, as you talk to prospective clients, that the fee they offer is not necessarily the fee you will receive for your professional work. Your potential client may have a price in mind, which is based on completely uneducated and unrealistic expectations. You, on the other hand, may have a fee in mind that may be considerably different, based on your knowledge of your investment, your understanding of what it will take to complete their job, and your level of skill. The purpose of a negotiation is to arrive at a level of compensation that is mutually agreeable to both parties. The bottom line in this business is “everything is negotiable.” If a prospective client is unwilling to negotiate with you regarding your compensation, you may be wise to reconsider working with that individual.

It is not uncommon for clients booking through Internet audition sites to offer a fee that, at first glance, may appear reasonable, but upon closer examination is little more than minimum wage for a considerable amount of specialized work. Here are two examples of how you can evaluate a potential booking to determine if it will be worth your time and energy:

Example #1: The Trial Transcript

One thousand dollars—not bad for a few hours of recording time, right? But take a closer look: The project is two thousand pages long. A quick calculation will reveal that this producer is offering only $0.50 per page to record this project! Still, $1,000 is a lot of money! Or is it?

Let’s say you estimate that an average completed double-spaced page will contain 20 lines of about 13 words per line, or roughly 260 words that will take about 90 seconds to read, assuming you make no mistakes. According to the Edge Studio Words-to-Time calculator¹ (edgestudio.com—Pro Voice Actor Resources), that works out to 48 hours, 8 minutes and 53 seconds of recording time at an average 3 words per second. Now triple that because you’ll need to edit your recordings and it will take at least an additional 3-4 minutes of editing time (or more) for every minute of completed voice track.

We’re now up to 144 hours for recording and editing work to complete this project. And that’s assuming everything goes extremely smoothly.

But wait a minute! You take a look at the script, and you discover the trial had something to do with the biotech Industry and there are lots of technical terms sprinkled throughout the script. Better be safe and add another minute for each page to allow for mistakes and retakes.

Let’s be conservative and estimate that it will take about 5 minutes of recording and production time for every minute of completed voice track. At a total of 520,000 words, we’re now at roughly 14,445 minutes—or roughly 240 hours—or about 6, 40-hour weeks! At their offering fee of $1,000 you’ll be making a total income of about $4.00 per hour. The reality is that it will probably take 6 or 7 minutes for each completed minute, so your actual work may be more and your compensation considerably lower. Even if this client is willing to negotiate a higher talent fee, it will most likely not come even close to anything reasonable for the amount of your effort involved. And don’t forget that you won’t be able to work on anything else while you’re recording this epic project. Although 50 cents per page may be a reasonable price for the client, after factoring in your time, it really isn’t a very good deal for you. Is your time—and are you—really worth that little?

This example, based on an actual audition request, shows that you must have a very clear understanding of your involvement in a project before you can realistically discuss price. Unfortunately, there are some voice talent who only look at the offered fee and don’t take the time to properly evaluate projects like this.

The $1,000 talent fee offered for this project was clearly an extremely low-ball offer. In reality, for a long-form project like this, a more realistic way to structure pricing is on a per-page, per-word or per-finished-hour (PFH) basis. At a rate of 10 cents per word, the talent fee for this project would be in the neighborhood of $52,000. And at an average of $200 per finished hour, the talent fee would be around $48,000.

Before you can provide a realistic estimate, or discuss your talent fee with a prospective client, you need to know as much as possible about what you will be doing. You need to know the going market rate for comparable work, and you need to place a value on your time and performing abilities. You may not like the math required to arrive at the numbers, but if you are going to be even slightly successful, you’ll need to learn how to do the basic calculations and think on your feet if you are going to negotiate an appropriate fee.

Example #2: The Short Session

Consider this: You’ve auditioned for, and landed a voiceover job for a 60-second radio commercial for a midsized market. The audition took you 10 minutes to record, edit, and send out. The job will pay $150, and based on the script, you expect it will take you about a half hour to record, edit, and deliver the final project. That works out to $150 for about a half-hour’s work, or $300 per hour. Pretty good pay, right? Wrong!

That $150 gig may be the only job that came in that week—or that month. Let’s say you spent 10 hours recording and sending out auditions before you got this job, plus another 5 hours on the phone and sending out email. Now, consider what you’ve spent on phone calls, postage, your website, marketing, training, and everything else that led up to this job.

Just taking into consideration the 15 hours you spent that week, you’re looking at a gross income of about $10/hour for that $150 job. But don’t forget that the IRS will want part of that income, so you’ll actually net something in the neighborhood of $5–$7 dollars/hour for that $150 job.

The point here, once again, is that before you can negotiate a reasonable fee for your work, you must know the value of your time and talent.

Think Like an Entrepreneur

If you haven’t already, start right now thinking of your voiceover work as a business. Your objective as a business owner is to make a profit, and to do that you have to be smart about how you use your time and energy, and how you price your services. As voice talent, we will never be able to change the way producers think. However, we can control the way we think about what we do, and we can control what we charge for our services.

When one of my students asks about what they should charge, I suggest they first do some homework. Find out what the best Union voice talent would be paid for the same work. You deserve to be fairly compensated for your work. Even if you’re booking your first job, that is no reason for you to undercut your worth. If you have the talent and ability to provide the same quality of work as a veteran voice actor, you should be compensated accordingly.

If you establish a reputation of “working for cheap,” you may get yourself into a rut that could be difficult to get out of later on. At the very least, it will be extremely difficult raising your fee for a client you’ve already worked for at a “bargain basement rate.” In voiceover performing, it’s always easier to pull you back than to push you out. The same is true with your fees. You can always lower your fees, but it can be extremely difficult to raise them.

Setting Your Fee

As with many things in this world, perception is a very large factor for determining value. The way you perceive your personal value as a voice actor will affect how you determine your fees.

If you are a member of SAG-AFTRA or another performing artists union, your talent fees are set by your union. Through a process of collective bargaining, these unions have determined what are considered to be reasonable performance fees for different types of work. SAG-AFTRA scale fees are posted on their website at sagaftra.org and voiceoverresourceguide.com. These posted talent fees are not negotiable and are considered as the lowest level of compensation. Signatory producers have agreed to pay the posted minimum fees, or a higher fee that might be negotiated by an agent. This is one advantage of being a union member—you know in advance what your base talent fee will be for any given type of work. Another aspect of being a union member is that you are automatically perceived by the talent buyer as having a certain level of expertise and professionalism.

If you are non-union, you will need to negotiate your talent fee with your client at the time you are booked. But before you can begin any sort of realistic negotiation, you need to establish a fee schedule that outlines your specific fees for specific types of work.

As an independent voice actor, setting a competitive talent fee can be a challenge. Only you can determine your personal value as a freelance voice actor. The process begins by identifying the type or types of voiceover work you are best suited for. Once you’ve figured out what you do best, the next step is to identify the market price for comparable voiceover work in those areas.

It used to be that you could simply make some phone calls to agents or producers in your city to gauge the current talent fees, but no more. The Internet has changed all that, and your market is now the world. When you submit an audition, you may have no idea what city the producer is in or how your recording will be used, so you may have no real information upon which to base your fee—yet most producers want you to provide a quote for the job you are auditioning. This is why it is important to establish your personal value as a voice talent.

Although the SAG-AFTRA talent fee schedule can be used as a starting point for even a first-time voice actor, these union rates assume a high level of proficiency and skill, so they may not be appropriate for someone just starting in voiceover. Fortunately, there are a number of online resources that can be very helpful for determining your talent fees:

• globalvoiceacademy.com/gvaa-rate-guide/
• edgestudio.com/voice-over-rate-card
• thevoicerealm.com/voice-over-rates.php
• voices.com/resources/rates
• gravyforthebrairi.com/voiceover-rate-guide/(U.K. rates)
• voiceoverresourceguide.com(SAG-AFTRA rates)

A Google search for “voiceover talent rates” will bring up even more websites with talent fee information, as well as some posted rate cards for individual voice talent. As helpful as these rate cards are, you would be wise to consult with your coach, instructor and other voice talent in order to create a fee structure that you will be comfortable with and that will accurately reflect your talent and skills.

A common mistake made by many beginning voice talent is to treat their work as a commodity, basing their work solely on price. In an effort to “get the gig,” they will lower their talent fee to something they think will be attractive to their clients, without giving any consideration to their investment or the true value of their work. Lowballing, or under pricing, your talent fees may get you the job, but the practice does a disservice not only to you, but to everyone else in the business as well. It tends to lower the bar, which can only result in lower quality work at cheaper prices. To get, and keep, the best clients, you need to develop a high perceived value, and provide excellent work at fair and competitive prices—not the “cheapest” price. When you have this conversation with your client you may be better off by offering a higher fee to start, and negotiating to an acceptable middle-ground.

Here are some considerations as you set your personal talent fees:

• Your experience and abilities: How good are you at setting character quickly, finding the right interpretation, seeing the big picture, working as a team player, taking direction, etc? The more skilled you are, the more likely you will be able to demand a higher fee—especially once you have established a name for yourself and are confident with your work.
• Prior experience and clients: Have you already done some work for a few satisfied clients? If so, their names may help to establish credibility and thus help to justify a higher fee. Be sure to consider any recent work for inclusion in your demo, but make sure it’s good enough in both recording quality and in performance quality.
• The client’s budget: If you’re a non-union freelance voice talent, you’ll need to be flexible and decide if you want to work for a minimal fee (which is all that many small or independent producers are willing to pay). Keep in mind that local radio stations will often give away production and voice talent for free just to get an advertiser to buy time on their station, and many independent producers will offer to do the voice work themselves in an effort to save a few bucks. Your challenge as a voice artist is to offer a service that is superior and more effective for the client than what they can get anywhere else.
• Can you justify your fee?: This gets back to your abilities. If you market yourself with professional print materials, a dynamite demo, and an awesome website, you had better be able to meet the level of expectations of your client when they book you for a session. If you give the appearance of an experienced pro, but can’t deliver, word will spread fast and it may be a long time before you can overcome a negative image. The challenge in setting your fee is to match the fee to your abilities and the market, and still be within the range of other freelance talent, without creating an impression that you will “work cheap” or that you are “overpriced.”
• Consider your market: Non-union talent fees vary greatly from market to market. In order to set an appropriate fee for your services, you’ll might want to find out what other voice actors are getting paid in your area or for similar work. But a better strategy might be to find out what talent buyers in your area are paying. In your own city you can call the production department of local radio and TV stations, and advertising agencies to ask what they usually pay for non-union work. However, if the work is out of your city, you may have no other option than to simply decide if the fee offered by a producer is worth your time and energy.

Your training is of less importance than your abilities as an actor. Of course, you must have a great sounding demo that is appropriate for your niche, but you need to have the abilities to match. Don’t ever think you know all there is to know about working with voiceover copy. Continue taking classes and workshops, read books, and practice your craft daily.

What about All That Equipment?

You do realize, don’t you, that if you are recording professional voice tracks on your computer at home, you have a home studio? The operative word here is “studio.” OK, so your investment in everything that goes into a home studio may not amount to the hundreds of thousands of dollars a full-blown recording studio would spend—but the simple fact is this: You’ve got your own studio! Chapter 21, “Your Home Studio,” discusses this in more detail.

From a business standpoint, it makes no sense to set a talent fee that does not at least take into consideration the costs of your studio equipment, office supplies, marketing expenses, training, demo production, operational overhead and so on. Unless you’re performing strictly as a hobby, you’ll eventually want to recover all those expenses. One way to do this is to create a separate rate for studio time that you charge in addition to your performance fee.

An hourly fee for studio time is standard practice for virtually every recording studio—and, since you own your own studio, it only makes good business sense for you to use a similar pricing structure. If you have production skills and can offer additional production services, this can be a good way to create an additional revenue stream. Separating out your studio rate and talent fee also gives you some additional negotiating leverage because you can always discount one or the other if needed and still have enough income to make some profit.

However, if you are marketing yourself as strictly voice talent and you have limited production and editing skills, you may not want to separate your talent fee and studio time. It may be more practical to set a slightly higher talent fee that includes your studio time. As a non-union voice talent starting your negotiation at union scale, you’ll still have plenty of room to adjust your fee if necessary. Of course, your performing skills will need to be at a level where you can justify the higher fee. The important thing to remember is that just because you may be new in this business, it doesn’t mean you need to charge unrealistically low talent fees.

The Agreement

Every booking is a separate business arrangement with unique time constraints, performance requirements, and payment terms, among other specifications. Whenever you exchange your time, energy, or services for money, the only way you will be protected is if all the details of the business arrangement are detailed in a written contract. Unfortunately, a great deal of voiceover work is booked on only a verbal agreement, which is only as good as the paper it’s not written on. When you work with only a verbal agreement, you take the chance of not getting paid, or of having serious problems of miscommunication, or worse. Always get your agreement in writing before you begin work.

Depending on the type of project and its ultimate use, you may want to negotiate for certain conditions. For example, if the project is to be sold, you might negotiate a clause that includes a residual payment when sales exceed a certain number of units or you may want limitations on how long your voice track can be used in a commercial, or for which other kinds of media it can be used.

The manner in which your performance can be used, and the duration of its use, are most definitely negotiable points that you should consider and discuss with your client. There are no hard and fast rules here, nor are there any specifically worded contracts available. Every agreement is unique and you’ll need to come up with the appropriate wording to describe the terms and conditions for the use of your recorded material. You’ll also want to make sure you include adequate controls for tracking any restrictions, and possible remedies for any violations of the agreement.

As a professional voice actor and business person, you can certainly negotiate a timeframe for the use of your performance. If your client agrees to this, you’ll need the terms clearly stated in your agreement, and you’ll want to create a follow-up system to remind your client of the agreement. Enforcing a reuse clause may be difficult as a non-union voice talent, but if you don’t include it in your original contract, you may be leaving money on the table; and you’ll have no legal recourse if or when your client reuses your work. If you are working a union job, this is handled by the union. Whether or not discussion of a reuse fee is appropriate will depend entirely on the needs of your client, your willingness to compromise, and your ability to “read” your client during your negotiation.

Ideally, an agreement should be received in the mail, but with tight schedules, deadlines, and the popularity of email, this often isn’t practical. A faxed document, or a scanned image file attached to an email will usually do the job. In today’s electronic age, most courts of law will even accept an email agreement as a legal document provided it contains the sender’s email address and name.

Your agreement is a contract, and if the project justifies it, you may want to seek legal advice to make sure you are protected and receive the compensation you deserve. Of course, if you have representation, your agent will handle the details of any complex negotiation. The specific details that you might include in your agreement will be discussed later in this chapter.

Negotiating Your Fee

The ultimate purpose of any negotiation is to create an agreement that is acceptable for all parties. The best way to learn how to negotiate is to do it! If you’ve never done it, the best way to learn how is to study some of the many excellent books on the subject. A search for “negotiating” on amazon.com will bring up hundreds of books on this subject. Find one that looks good to you, buy it, study it, and begin practicing. You’ll also find numerous resources with a simple Internet search.

There are literally dozens of effective negotiating techniques that can be used to maintain high standards and fees for voiceover work. Here are just a few, with only a very brief explanation of how they might be used:

• Talk about the project: No matter what you know about a job when you get the call, it isn’t enough. One of the first things you should do in any negotiation is to get more information. Ask as many questions as you can, while avoiding any discussion of your fee. When the subject of your fee comes up, divert the discussion by asking more appropriate questions. This requires extremely good listening skills.
• Get the client to mention the first number: This can take some skill, but it can often be achieved by simply engaging the client in a conversation and guiding that conversation to a discussion of what they have paid for voice talent for prior work. If your client is comfortable with you, they will often feel safe in talking about what they have paid in the past. At an appropriate point in your conversation you may ask what their budget is for this project and wait for them to answer.
• Echo ... Pause: This is a technique for maintaining your fee, or perhaps even increasing it. It has been around for a long time and may not work in all situations, especially if the person you are negotiating with figures out what you are doing. Whether he says so, or not, your client has a number in mind. It’s your job to coax it out of him. Let’s say he mentions the number $200. You, in a very thoughtful voice, simply repeat the number as though asking a question to verify that you heard it correctly—then stop talking. Be absolutely silent. It may get uncomfortable, but don’t speak. At some point the discomfort will be too great and your client will likely come back with something like, “. . . well, we might be able to go to $300.” At that point, you repeat the Echo and Pause. Usually by about the third time, your client will say something like “. . . $325—that’s really all we can afford for this project.” You can then use your best acting skills as you say “. . . $325! I can do that for $325.”
• Book this job at full fee with a discount offer for the next job: During the conversation with your client, when you sense their reluctance to your talent fee, make them an offer by saying something like this: “I generally don’t discount my services, but I’d love to work with you on this project. If you’ll agree to my regular talent fee for this project, I’ll be more than happy to give you a 50% discount off my talent fee the next time we work together. Will that work for you?” If you’re booking out your studio time separately, you can offer free studio time for the next session. The idea here is that you want to present yourself as a professional who knows their worth, but you are still willing to work with your client to create a “win-win.”
• Discount this fee for future work at full fee: During your conversation, you may find that your client is reluctant to discuss any numbers, or that he truly has only a very limited budget for this project. If that is the case, and you decide you would like to do the project, you can tell him that you base your fees on union scale, and that as non-union talent, you can be somewhat flexible with your rates. If the project appears to be something that might result in future work, you might even offer to discount your talent fee with the understanding that you will be paid your regular fee for future work. When you deliver an outstanding product, your chances of having a new long-term client could be very good. As a negotiating technique, this approach can be a bit risky, and I don’t recommend it because it almost always sets up a “lose-win” situation, with you as the loser. If you tell your client you are discounting your regular rate, you are setting a precedent and it will be difficult to get your full fee in the future. Even if you have an agreement in writing there is no guarantee of future work and your client may never call you again. The strategy of discounting future work is a much better approach.

The desired outcome of any negotiation is to get paid for your work based on the terms of your negotiation. The challenge today is that the Internet has created an international marketplace. It is common to never meet, or even speak to, your client with everything handled through email. Even with a solid written agreement, you still have no guarantee that you will be paid when you deliver your voice tracks or that your client will honor the terms of your agreement.

Getting Paid for Your Work

The Deal Memo Letter

As a freelance voiceover performer, you need to protect yourself from unscrupulous producers (yes, they are out there). The simplest way to protect yourself is to use a written agreement known as a deal memo. Even if you are a union member, having a written agreement is a good idea. It protects you and outlines the details of your work. The format for this can be as simple as a brief letter, an invoice, or an email confirmation, to something more formal, such as a multipage contract for services. It’s generally a good idea to keep a deal memo as simple as possible. A complicated, legal-sounding document might scare off a potentially valuable employer.

Preparing your deal memo should be the first thing you do when you book a session. A written agreement is your only proof in the event you need to take legal action to collect any money owed to you, or if your performance is used in a manner that you did not agree to. It’s a common practice and should be used whenever possible. Make sure you have a signed agreement in hand before you begin any work.

The following is an example of a simple deal memo letter. This deal memo includes all the necessary information to confirm the agreement, yet it is presented in a nonthreatening and informal manner. With minor modifications, this letter could be used for either a studio location session or one that you record in your home studio.

Getting paperwork out of the way before the work begins is a good way to make sure that the terms of your performance are understood by all parties and that the producer doesn’t try to change the agreement or add additional production after you have done the work. If you are booked early enough for a session at a recording studio, you might want to fax or send a scanned copy of the agreement to the producer in advance. But you should still plan on having two copies with you when you arrive for the session—the producer is probably not going to bring his copy. Leave one copy for the producer and make sure you have a signed copy before you leave the studio.

If you’re recording at your home studio, you can do everything via email and fax. Although an email confirming the details of your work may be considered a legal contract by some courts, it is still a good idea to use your own document and get a written signature.

How to Guarantee You'll Be Paid

Most voiceover work is due and payable upon delivery, but that usually doesn’t mean you walk out of the studio with cash in hand or have money in the bank immediately after uploading the files. For many clients, you’ll need to send an invoice that states “payable on receipt.” Even with that, you may still end up waiting 30 to 90 days before you receive payment. That’s just how some businesses work.

If you don’t want to wait to be paid, there are other options available:

• Insist on clients sending a 50% deposit for talent fee and studio time to be paid in advance with the balance to be paid on delivery. If your client doesn’t pay as agreed, at least you’ll have received a partial payment.
• Ask your client to make payment through an online payment service like paypal.com, worldpay.com or any of a several other online payment portals. You’ll need to set up your own account with these services, which can easily handle credit card payments or your clients can set up their own accounts.
• Set up a merchant account for your business so you can accept credit cards. Most small businesses can have a merchant account, including individuals operating as a sole proprietor. A merchant account is easy to establish, but it does have a variety of associated monthly and per-transaction fees. If you are only booking occasional work, you would be better off using one of the online payment services.
• Deliver a partial project (75–80%) or deliver a watermarked project for approval, and only send a complete, clean copy upon receipt of payment. A watermark is a tone, or sound embedded in your audio that makes the recording unusable, but will allow the client to determine if it otherwise meets their needs. Although some voice talent do this, I do not recommend watermarking because it shows distrust on your part.

Your specific payment arrangements may be different with each client. If you’ve never worked with a client before, there is no track record upon which to build trust, so it is reasonable to request a deposit or use one of the above techniques for getting paid. If a client is repeat business, it might be reasonable to invoice them with the payment due net 15 days.

Here’s how I work with my clients to make sure I get paid: I do all of my credit card and online payments through my PayPal business account. Even though I do NOT have a merchant account, I have a stated policy on my website that says I require a valid credit card number at the time of booking to guarantee a session. My PayPal account is set up so I can accept credit cards either online or by using the PayPal app on my phone. Either way, PayPal handles the merchant fees on a per-transaction basis, so I have no monthly fees.

When booking a session, I take my client’s credit card information and run a verification to make sure the card is valid for the amount we’ve agreed upon, but I do not charge the card yet, unless they wish to pay any deposit on the credit card. I very clearly tell my client that their credit card will not be charged the full amount until they have approved my work. Before I send my voice tracks, I’ll call my client to let them know the session is ready to deliver and to ask how they would like to make payment once they have approved my work.

To protect myself, I’ll usually send about 80% of the project for their approval, or I’ll send watermarked files. Once approved, and payment clears, I’ll re-send the entire clean project.

Since I already have their credit card number, most clients simply ask me to charge card. When the transaction is processed, their payment is electronically transferred to my PayPal account. If, for some reason their card is rejected (after it was originally verified), or the payment bounces, I have legal recourse and a contract. I have some additional protection in that the client can’t really use what I’ve sent to them until their payment clears. I have never had a client question this policy, nor have I ever had a problem with a credit card transaction for payment of services through PayPal.

Some clients will prefer to not provide their credit card number. For these clients, I’ll request a deposit or payment be sent to my PayPal account. PayPal and many other online payment services will charge a transaction fee but there are usually no monthly fees associated with the account. When a credit card is used, the card number is never revealed to me, so the service is very secure. Online payment services use your email address for payment notifications and associate your online account to your regular bank account. This makes it easy to transfer funds. Also, your online history will give you an accurate record of payments received.

Some clients, however, still prefer to pay by company check. If they do, I request a purchase order number to guarantee the session. A PO number is a record of transactions that is kept by the company and used to allocate funds for specific purchases. With large companies, a purchase order number is as good as a contract. I use their PO number as a reference number on my invoice, and my invoice will state “payable upon receipt.” If I don’t receive payment within a reasonable period of time (as stated in our Deal Memo or Booking Agreement), I’ll call my client to follow up on the payment. If it appears that they are delaying payment, I can still charge their credit card, since I don’t destroy that information until after I have the money in the bank. Oh, and if your client is in a foreign country, make sure their payment is in U.S. dollars through your preferred payment portal. Never use Western Union to receive any payment for voiceover work.

Create a Booking Agreement Form

I’ve developed a form that includes a lot of information about the client, the work I’ll be doing, the delivery method, my talent fee, my studio charges, and anything else that applies to the project (see Figure 23.1: Example of a Booking Agreement). I’ll fill out the form during the booking conversation and either fax or email a scanned copy of our agreement for them to sign and return. A returned and signed faxed or emailed PDF is good to confirm the session, but I’ll also ask that they mail an original to me, especially if they will be paying by company check. The signed agreement and either their credit card information, a PO number, or a deposit constitutes a confirmation of the booking. With that in hand, I’ll start recording and complete my part of the agreement.

Note that in my example, there is language that places the contract jurisdiction in the state where you are doing the work. This legal detail may become important if you are working for an out-of-state client who refuses to pay you for your work. By having jurisdiction in your state, you will be able to sue without having to hire an attorney in the state or city where your client lives.

Other Types of Agreements

Major radio and TV stations and some larger companies will not accept or sign a performer’s deal memo or contract. These, and other reputable businesses, often have their own procedures for paying talent. If you want the work, you may need to accept their terms. However, you can still insist that you have a written agreement in place and even include a clause that places the contract jurisdiction in your state. If you see something in a contract provided by your client that you don’t agree with, or if you think something is missing, you have the right to modify the agreement as needed before it is signed. This is usually the final step in any negotiation. With contracts, everything is negotiable until the agreement is signed!

You will be asked to provide your social security number and sign their document before you can be paid. If you are not offered a copy, you should request one for your own records in case payment is delayed. You may need to invoice your client, and you usually will not be paid immediately after your session, but will receive a check in the mail within four to six weeks.

If you have representation, this detail will be handled by your agent. However, if you are working freelance, some producers may take advantage of a 30-day payment agreement by basing the payment terms on 30 working days rather than 30 calendar days. This can result in your payment arriving long after you expected it. Some companies will even take as long as 90 days or more before

Booking Confirmation

mailing your payment. In some cases, this may be due to your client awaiting payment from their client before they can pay you. But often, this delay is simply so the company can hold funds in their account as long as possible. If you have not received your payment by the agreed upon time, it is up to you to call your client and gently remind them.

Another common problem with working freelance is that you can do a session today and be called back for changes tomorrow, and your client may expect you to do the pick-up session for free. Most VO professionals will accommodate a certain number of “re-dos,” but to avoid this potential problem, you should consider including this contingency in your deal memo or booking agreement.

Technically, a callback session is a new recording session. As a union performer, the producer must pay you an additional fee to return to the studio. As a freelance voice actor, it is up to you to negotiate your fee for the second session or provide for this contingency in your original agreement. Unless the problem was your fault, you should be paid for the follow-up session. The producer must understand that you are a professional and that your time is valuable. You are taking time away from other activities to help fix their problem and you are entitled to fair compensation. A good producer knows this and expects to pay you for the additional work. Of course, if the problem was an oversight on your part, you should do whatever you need to do to make your client happy.

If you didn’t include pick-up sessions in your original agreement, try to find out what needs to be fixed before you begin talking about how much you should be paid for the new session. If you are redoing most of the copy, you might want to ask for a fee equal to what you charged the first time. If the fix is simple, you might ask for one-half the original session fee. If you are exceptionally generous, and expect to get a lot of work from the client, you might offer to do the new session for free. If you do negotiate a fee for the follow-up session, make sure you get it in writing in the form of an invoice, a new deal memo, a copy of their paperwork, or even an entirely new agreement.

Documenting Your Session

Now that your booking is confirmed with a signed agreement, you’re ready to get down to work. You’ve already got a good idea of what you need to do, you’ve got a general idea of what will be involved to complete the project and deliver it to your client, and best of all, you are confident that you will be fairly compensated for your work. However, Murphy’s Law will inevitably come in to play at some time or another. Anything that can possibly go wrong... will! And it will happen at the least opportune time.

Session Booking Form

You need to be prepared for Mr. Murphy and one way to do this is to document the time and details of your work through the use of a Work Order or Session Booking Form (see Figure 23.2: Example of a Session Booking Form).

You can call the form whatever you like: Work Order, Session Booking Form, Time Sheet, or a name of your own creation. The purpose of the form remains the same, and that is to document the time and processes that comprise the project you have been hired to complete. Virtually every service business uses some sort of documentation for the work they do. As a voice actor, and a good business person, you should do no less.

Everything you note on your Session Booking Form should be directly related to an aspect of the project you are working on, most of which should be part of your chargeable fees. Of course, you can choose to not charge for certain things or bundle items for a single fee, but the idea is that this form will give you a way to keep track of what you did for any given booking.

On the surface, this may seem like extra work or may even appear as completely unnecessary. However, when you document your sessions you will have a reliable negotiating tool for future bookings. For example, you may have contracted for a specific fee, but during the course of recording the project you discover that it actually requires considerably more time to complete, or there were some things that you neglected to include in your negotiations. By documenting the session, you will be in a position to discuss those issues with your client when they book you in the future, and you will be better armed to discuss the realistic production requirements with other clients who might wish to book you for similar projects.

Some of the things to keep track of on your Session Booking Form are:

• Rehearsal time
• Copy editing or creative writing (if applicable)
• Consultation calls with your client
• Time spent to research pronunciation
• Time spent casting other voice talent (if applicable)
• Talent fees for other voice talent (if applicable)
• Studio time used for voice track recording
• Studio time used for editing
• Studio time required for file conversion, burning to a CD, or uploading to an FTP site
• Studio time required for pick-ups and subsequent delivery
• Time spent researching music and sound effects (if applicable)
• Music licensing fees (if applicable)
• Postproduction editing and mixing (if applicable)
• Other related items that may come to mind

As you can see, a Session Booking Form can be a very useful tool that can ultimately help you to identify ways to work more efficiently and even help you increase your revenues through a better understanding of exactly what it takes to do what you do. The form in Figure 23.2 is a simplified design based on the Work Order we use at VoiceActing Studios. Our session work order has been refined and honed over more than three decades to a point where it perfectly fits with the way we handle our recording sessions.

Keeping Records

As an independent businessperson, whether you have an agent or not, you need to keep complete and accurate records of income and business-related expenses well beyond just what you do for a particular session. This is not just for your tax records, but also so you have a way of tracking your career as a professional voiceover performer. Consult a tax advisor as to the best way to set up your record-keeping or refer to some of the many books or computer software on the subject.

You will want to keep records of clients you have worked for, what you did for them, and when you did it. When you get called by a producer you worked for last year, you can avoid undercharging by checking your files to see what your fee was last time. You can also use these records for future promotion and reminder mailings. A simple scheduling book can serve the purpose nicely, or you can set up a database on your computer. Personal money management computer programs are another excellent way to keep records. Prices range from under $50 to several hundred dollars.

Under the current tax code, just about any expense you have that directly relates to your business can be deducted as a business expense. Even if you work another full-time job, you can still deduct expenses that directly relate to your voiceover business, providing you are operating under standard business guidelines and not doing voiceover as a hobby. To further establish legitimacy for your business, you may want to obtain a business license in your city, and you eventually may want to incorporate. Setting up a legitimate business entity may have certain tax advantages. A tax advisor can help you with these decisions. The following are some of the things you should keep records of:

• Income—Keep separate account categories for income from all sources of income received.

• Expenses—The costs of doing business.

  Taxes and deductions: Document anything deducted from your pay, including income taxes, social security taxes, Medicare taxes, state disability taxes, union fees, and any other deductions from a paycheck.

  Demo production: Keep track of payments for studio time, costs and materials, duplication, printing, letterhead, business cards, envelopes, postcards, résumés, CD labels, and travel to/from your demo session studio.

  Telephone: Keep track of phone calls made to prospects, your agent, and coaching calls—especially any long-distance charges. You might consider a separate phone line to use exclusively for your business. If you have a cell phone these costs may be deductible as well.

  Website: The costs of registering your URL (domain name), website hosting, and website design are all deductible expenses.

  Internet access: The portion of your telephone bill, cable bill, or DSL bill that applies to Internet usage may be a deductible expense. Check with your tax advisor.

  Transportation: Keep a log book in your car and note the mileage for all travel to and from auditions, sessions, and client meetings. Include parking fees, maintenance, insurance and car washes. (See Figure 23.3: Voice Acting Expense Report.)

  Other business expenses: Keep track of postage, office and other supplies, office equipment, computer equipment, audio equipment, microphones, headphones, home studio acoustic treatment, software and any expenses related to your voiceover work. The IRS tends to view computers as personal equipment, rather than business equipment, unless the use is well-documented. Identifying your computer as an “audio workstation” may be a more accurate description of how your computer is used.

  Classes, workshops, and books: Classes, workshops, conventions and books may be deductible as expenses for continued education and training in your chosen field, including travel to and from the workshop or training event.

  In-home office: Deducting a portion of your mortgage or rent, and utilities for an in-home office, although legal, may trigger an audit by the IRS. Consult a tax advisor before taking this deduction.

In this digital age, using a cell phone is becoming more and more common for doing everything from checking email to managing voiceover sessions and acting jobs.

An excellent resource for software to manage your voiceover business is Performer Track (performertrack.com). This is popular with both on-camera and voiceover actors. An Internet search for “contact management software” will reveal many other options worthy of consideration.

Voice Acting Expense Report

Banking and Your Business

We seem to be moving more and more towards a paper-less society. You may already be using your credit or debit card, or automatic debit from your bank account for most, if not all, of your financial transactions. If you’re doing that, you can bet that your clients are as well. What this means is that you need to plan for how you will receive payment for your services.

Some ideas for how to guarantee payment were covered earlier in this chapter. Now let’s get into more detail about banking and the various methods of receiving payment.

Of course, you can accept cash or checks, but the majority of your voiceover work, at least at first, will likely be with long-distance clients whom you may only meet via phone or video conference. If you use paper invoicing, you will probably receive payment by check—but that will, at best, take a few days to receive payment. And if your client delays payment, it could take up to 60 days or more.

You could choose to accept credit cards, but that could require setting up a conventional merchant account which will have a monthly fee and possibly a monthly minimum transaction amount. There are many options for conventional merchant accounts with a wide range of fees, so if you choose to go this route, I’d suggest you shop around before setting up your account.

A more practical, and much less expensive option may be using an online merchant service that only charges a fee per transaction. paypal.com and square.com are two of the better-known vendors for this type of banking service. Both are associated with a regular bank account and allow you to easily move money back and forth.

You may want to set up a business checking account that is completely separate from your personal checking and savings. If you use accounting or money management software on your computer, you’ll be able to keep all the financial aspects of your business in one place and simplify your tax preparation.

The bottom line is that, as a professional voice actor, you are in business for yourself whether you work another job or not. As a business person it is important that you keep accurate records of your business-related income and expenses.

As with business management software, there are numerous options for financial management. Quicken (quicken.com) and QuickBooks (quickbooks.com) are among the most popular. Quicken is designed for managing personal finances. QuickBooks has much greater flexibility and is intended for managing business finances.

Voiceover and the Law

As with any other business, there are a great many legal issues that affect the business of voiceover. Contract law, copyright law, entertainment law, local laws, state laws, tax laws … the list goes on and on. Many of the major legal issues that affect the voice actor are addressed in this book. However, this only scratches the surface and the recommendations here cannot be considered legal advice. The legal ramifications of working in voiceover could fill a book of its own.

Fortunately, such a book exists! Voiceover Legal was written for the voice actor.

Its author, Robert Sciglimpaglia, (voiceoverlegal.com) is an actor for both voiceover and on-camera as well as being a practicing attorney. He is an expert on the law as it applies to voiceover.

Voiceover Legal was originally written as an article for the VOICE 2008 convention, and was later expanded into a full chapter in the 4th edition of this book. The response to Robert’s discussion of “Shedding Light on the Dark Side of Voiceover” led to his vastly expanded book. Robert’s original VOICE 2008 article is available at AOVA.VoiceActing.com.

In my opinion, Voiceover Legal is a required addition to the library of any professional voice actor. The advice and information that Robert shares will save time, money and aggravation when it comes to any potential legal issues for your business.

¹ Edge Studio Words-to-Time Calculator. www.edgestudio.com/production/words-to-time-calculator.