XPRTNovice

Oh, sorry. I pay a yearly membership fee on the site. That gives me a ranking in their search engine and the ability to audition for jobs that clients post. I audition for those jobs by submitting a sample of their script and a cover letter as well as my price (based on their budget range). The client then chooses me for the job and pays upfront into an escrow system (SurePay). We work on the job. When they're happy, they "release" the payment. The site takes a 10% cut of every job.

So, believe it or not, 90% of my business comes from a freelancing website called voices.com. It's a pay-to-play site where you audition for jobs posted. I've gotten a great reputation there because there is a feedback system, and now I appear at the top of search lists. But that's a very small microcosm and there is waaaaay more business to be had that I have not tapped into yet. That's why I'm trying to build the business outside those sites. I get maybe 3-4 jobs monthly from direct contact, and typically those people actually found my profile via voices.com, anyway. The answer right now is brute force. Audition for 30+ jobs a day. My return on jobs is about 4% awarded vs. auditioned. That seems minuscule, but the person who has the highest return rate on that site is at 7.5%.

Been a while since anyone has posted in here, but I've had an experience lately that, while tangential, I thought I'd post. I launched Renaissance Man Studio in September of 2013. The intent was to formalize my voiceover and music business into one LLC and then have a centralized place for customers to see what was going on. I dumped some money into advertising, dumped some money into the development of the site, and made sure all my other facets of my business (facebook, twitter, my freelancer profiles on freelancer sites) linked back to it. In short, I've decided to discontinue Renaissance Man Studio and rebrand specifically for voiceovers. I'll keep RenMan as my company for filing purposes, but using it as my platform isn't going to work. I'm doing this for multiple reasons, but primarily it's because RenMan Studio wasn't generating any business. At all. The only hits on the website I got were from AdWords, and all that did was cost me money to generate spam comments on the blog. I had been posting regularly on the blog, which should have helped my SEO, but I wasn't getting anything. I think the branding was wrong. Voiceover/music combo is a pretty rare thing, and production companies are almost never looking for both at the same time. If they are they almost always have different people looking for them. So, while I've done some commercial music, it was only by pitching it to my voiceover clients, and never from the "studio." Second, nobody is busting down the doors for my music. People ARE busting down the doors for my voiceover work. So I was diluting what was potentially a very powerful brand to do something that I enjoy a bit more but isn't generating any business (music). I also don't have as much time for it as I'm trying to squirm my way out of my day job and into a dual writing/voiceover career - two things that have the potential to support me financially and will allow me to leave the day job and, if I want to, begin building a music career. So I've decided to go through a rebranding phase. I'm successful on freelancing websites, but if I want to tap into the potential of my voiceover business, I need to be able to generate customers outside of those sites. In order to do that, I'll be re-commissioning a developer to to a new site that is specifically dedicated to voiceovers. I'll be changing my twitter and facebook pages to represent voiceover only, and I will only seek music work on an ad hoc basis. If I do start to write albums or want to market music, I'll create a bandcamp page or something. I don't have the content to do it right now, anyway, and if I do, people on the music side know me as XPRTNovice, not Renaissance Man Studio. So that's my story. A combination of brand dilution and not understanding my own time constraints led to a several month (and $$$) setback in my business building. I think a reset is going to put me in a much better position for building that business in the future. And when music comes, it comes. Right now, though, spending the time and marketing capital to force it is detracting from other more profitable ventures. Would love to hear some thoughts if you have them. If not, I hope you learn something from my mistakes.

Many happy returns!

Jimmy Hinson got the video! I will post when I get it.

Everyone does it differently, unfortunately. I know people that put the melody down first, and I know people that put the drumbeat down first, and I know people that put the bassline down first. I know people that write 100% of one part, then 100% of another part, and then I know people that fill out the "A" section before they even start working on the "B" section. My advice is to just START WRITING. Listen to lots of music and analyze it. There are also plenty of youtube videos out there of people building songs from the ground up - you can see what their workflow is, that way, and you can adapt from there.

I actually have two, but neither is really a shining example of how to be a successful blogger (I suffer from not following the advice I gave you). I have one that I do all myself in wordpress for my writing career and one that functions on wordpress but was professionally designed. IMHO, I actually think I like the free one better, but I kind of got hosed on the development side, which is a different story.

This might be a bit tangential, but one of the things that I found to be the most helpful to drawing readers was guest blogging. Find some people who are already successful in the industry you are trying to write for and then pitch articles to them. It helps them because it gives them a different POV, and you will definitely draw readers. Speaking from experience, building a platform from scratch is really, really hard, so it helps to "stand on the shoulders of giants" if you can. EDIT: The other small bits I can offer are: Tag your posts appropriately and write regularly (once a week if you can). The more content on the blog, the better your search engine results (and the more loyal your readers will be). Best of luck!

I'm challenging Darkesword to a beatbox-off next MAGFest. If I win, he has to take the extra 'e' out of his name. If he wins, I have to put the vowels in mine.

Garp, these are are awesome, thanks. Do you, by any chance, have video of me and DaMonz jamming on the Super Mario Brother 2 theme? I was on guitar and whistling and he was on melodeon. EDIT Or Melodica, or Melonin, or whatever the hell that awesome thing was

.... Sonic USB stick! http://tech.woot.com/offers/4gb-usb-flash-drive-sonic-6

www.bodeefit.com is free and bodyweight only you won't bulk up, but you WILL kick your own ass in 20 minutes or less.

Dude I got suuuuuch a kick out of playing that mario theme and having you accompany on melodeon. That was so epically perfect!

Well, rather than do that...and this may be a ridiculously stupid suggestion...could we possibly rent out a conference room or banquet hall at the Gaylord itself?

That's a fantastic idea and I fully support this. It's like an OCR Banquet.

Thanks - but like Rozo said, if you're just looking to pimp your music and say "here's my album!" then it's cool to post albums with the Album/Other tag, I think and see if anyone wants to talk about the music. But if you're looking for critical reviews with help in your mixing and arranging, then one song per thread will help you get there - just don't go overboard and post a ton of songs at once, since that's essentially the same thing. That's the critical difference that I neglected to post in my first response, I think.

MAG was fantastic. Much love to everyone. I was stoked I got to stay a couple nights this year instead of just popping in and out.

I get that; I was just offering some advice as I see lots of people throw down "Listen to all of my stuff!" posts and they never get anything back. But I see the difference between a released album and WIPs, now.

Hey there, Welcome to the OCR workshop forums. You'll be much more successful in getting feedback if you follow the forum guidelines. This also includes posting one song per thread, which is another sticky you should read at the top of the remixing forum. People generally don't want to listen to an hour of music critically and give feedback. Good luck!

working

Happy Birthday!

It did! I was away for the holidays and came home to it. Thanks, it was perfect. And amazingly it wasn't one of the games I bought in my Vita spree, but still looks awesome. Thanks!

Ooh, I'm tempted Meteo. I have a tin whistle that I play but getting one in every key is like a $200 commitment or more for a decent set.

This is what I would recommend: don't just practice, but practice with goals in mind. I always used to tell my students "practice makes habits - perfect practice makes perfect." If you practice being bad at something, you'll be really awesome at being bad. I learned this the hard way with piano; my practice habits were bad, so I basically learned how to do things poorly and I am still spending time un-fornicating my technique.

ZOMG How did you even find this?! Of course Everyone could benefit from a little Strader wisdom.