Ensuring Prompt Payments for Voice-Over Jobs

August 27, 2006 (PRLEAP.COM) Entertainment News
New York, NY - Many voiceover artists complain of not being paid on time, or not being entirely by clients that they have worked for. Indeed it is an unfair situation – a voice over artist provides a certain service to his or her clients, and should be paid for their talents and hard work. While this would be the case in the ideal world, there have been numerous cases where the employer keeps the voice talent hanging for a payment. The experts at Voice123.com (http://voice123.com/?c=p14) have some priceless guidance to offer to voice over artists both new and experienced.

The process of ensuring timely payments, according to your terms begins from the time when you send a voice over audition to a prospective client. At that time, you should decide how much you would like to be paid for a particular voiceover recording. A word of advice here would be not to shortchange yourself and your talents. Yes, there is competition in the market, yet you should figure out your own worth as a voice talent. Do not try to sell your talented voice for anything less than what you would be comfortable with. Also, once you fall into the trap of quoting lower rates to clients, it might be difficult for you to negotiate higher remuneration at a later date. A simple step towards right pricing would be to check the project budget of a particular voiceover job and quote a price which would work out to be comfortable with both you and the client.

After the quote has been made and you have been awarded the voiceover work, you need to make clear what your terms and conditions for payment are, and stick by it. If you have won a project for voiceover dubbing, let your employer know that you would like to get paid before you send them the final voice over recording audio. Documentation of your work agreement in writing is mandatory, and this will safeguard you from getting into ugly situations with a client.

However, there are a few exceptions to the rule, when it comes to advance payments for voiceover jobs. There are some clients with whom you might be working on a long-term contract. In such cases payment is not made project on project. Instead a contract is signed at the beginning of the entire project where the terms and conditions are clearly mentioned and agreed upon by both parties. The payment is usually made monthly on a specified date. This kind of an agreement is perfectly fine as long as you make clear your terms of working.

Another scenario where advance payment might not work is when the voiceover talent seeker clearly specifies in the project description that payments will be made only after the audio is released. In most cases, a specific time frame (e.g. payments will be made within 10 days of receipt of the audio) is mentioned. What you can do in such a scenario is that mention to the client that you would like to take the payments in two installments. One before you send them the audio, and the other for later. You can mention the amounts you would like to be paid each time. Make sure that an invoice accompanies your audio, with details like project start date, project completion date, a short description of work done, and the amount paid and amount due.

These are a few things which can help you in getting prompter payments for your voiceover recordings. All you need to do is be specific and clear in your communication with your clients, and be sure of your talent’s worth. Do not be scared of losing out on projects due to what you perceive as higher rates than the market. A little bit of patience can help you go a long way in the voiceover industry.

AboutVoice123
Voice123 is an online voice over marketplace based in New York. With the largest online voice over talent database and a vast number of daily voice over job postings, Voice123 helps voice over talents to promote their voice services, and companies to find the right voice over for their projects. With a young, highly qualified, and technology-oriented team, Voice123 is always looking to provide an innovative service and be a world-class technology company.

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