I was drawn to voice-over acting through my love of listening to audiobooks. I had an Audible membership and had listened to audiobooks on my way to and from work every day for years.
As I listened, I found that I was choosing titles by the sound of the narrator just as often as by the content of the book. Sometimes I’d have a title in mind that I really wanted, but because the narrator wasn’t appealing to me, I bought the hard copy of the book instead. That, along with the fact that I was a lover of literature and had often read aloud to my own children (and 2nd- and 3rd-grade students as an elementary school teacher), I thought audiobook narration would be the perfect genre for me.
As a new VO student, I jumped in with both feet, and after being chosen as the voice for a few audiobook titles, I quickly and surprisingly found that audiobooks were NOT my niche. This was a rude awakening for me. I still really wanted to continue my training and work toward a full-time career in voice-over but had no idea what type of work was out there, or what I’d be good at.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that there are and a plethora of different types of VO work to be had. Product Tutorials, Cooking Tutorials, How-To-Videos, Event Production, Casino & Gaming VO, Live Announcer Gigs, Real Estate Videos, Sporting Events, Airport Announcements, TV Narration, Craft Tutorials, Dubbing, Meditation, E-Learning, Travel Videos, VR Games, Artificial Intelligence (AI)…the list goes on
My research took my VO training and career in a completely different direction than I’d originally anticipated. Your niche is out there too! You just need to explore different ways to find what you’re drawn to. Research, record, and listen to yourself; have patience, and of course: practice. Keep a positive attitude and you’ll find your niche too!
