By: Liam Fenwick, Reporter
OMAHA, Neb. – Katie Otten is a freelance voice actor. She has worked with multiple international clients.
“I have worked with a company in China, I’ve worked with a lot of companies throughout the U.S. Right now I’m doing pretty consistent educational work with a company in Australia that’s making some English language stuff,” Otten said.
According to Voices.com, voice over actor’s work is worth over $4.4 billion dollars. With approximately 19% of the value coming from North America.
Otten said there are some challenges working as a voice actor.
“Sometimes people running these projects are authors of a book or they are game developers. Or something like that. And they don’t necessarily have a background in directing. And so when they try to work with actors, it can be really tough sometimes to figure out what they are looking for,” Otten said.
Inexperienced clients are not the only issue for voice actors. Recently the industry has been submerged with amateur voice talent.
Voice over artist Johsua Mackey said that the industry took a negative turn recently.
“The industry is kind of being flooded right now with people getting Fiverr accounts and various accounts like that. Just deciding, hey I got an USB microphone, I can do voice over it’s no problem,” Mackey said.
Although the industry has seen an influx of competitors, Mackey said it can still be very rewarding.
“If you treat it like a business, treat it with respect, and be a professional, yeah definitely lucrative. If you just want to get a USB microphone and hop on Fiverr and get an account, and try to make a million dollars, It’s probably not going to work out for you,” Mackey said.
Mackey also said even after doing voice over work for several years, he still gets excited before doing projects.
