Put Your Mouth Where the Money Is : How to Build a Successful Radio & TV Voiceover Business [Audio Cassette]

Sunny Quinn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1997

This is a comprehensive training package for those interested in becoming the "voice" behind radio and television commercials. It's comprised of three audiocassettes and a 176-page softbound book, encased in a molded plastic package. The audiocassettes contain samples of demo tapes of some top voiceover talent in South Florida, plus interviews with casting directors, production directors, and audio editors. The book covers topics like the nature of the voiceover business, how to use and care for your voice, how to interpret commercial copy, how to develop style and personality, how to improve speech and diction, voiceover terminology, studio etiquette, how to set up a voiceover business, where to find voiceover work, how to create a voiceover demo tape, packaging and marketing, talent fees, bookkeeping, and tax obligations.

A voiceover is the spoken voice you hear on radio and television commercials. Other examples of voiceovers include cartoon characters, narration in videos, corporate training tapes, job orientation videos, educational videos, travelogues, infomercials, in-flight entertainment, computer software programs and tutorials, audio books, and telephone voice menus. Every time you hear a voice, someone was hired to go into a studio, have his or her voice recorded, and got paid for it!

Voiceovers provide an excellent source of income. Some of the more successful voiceover talents in the larger markets of the country work at it full time, and do extremely well financially. It is a very enjoyable and profitable part time freelance opportunity for anyone...students, secretaries, construction workers, corporate executives, doctors, or professional couch potatoes!

Many people who do freelance commercial voiceovers have some amount of radio or TV experience, but it is certainly not a prerequisite! With the proper training, practice, and knowledge, almost anyone who can read and speak can learn to do voiceovers.

Voiceover work is fun, exciting, challenging, creative, respectable, unpredictable, and very rewarding. Voiceovers allow you to finally be your own boss, make your own schedule, travel around, meet talented new people, and work in different recording studios...and hear your voice on radio and television commercials.

Put Your Mouth Where The Money Is! will take you step-by-step through the entire process of becoming established and successful in the world of commercial voiceovers. It is the only tool needed to be up and running on very little cost, and in a small amount of time.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Sunny Quinn says she wanted to write the book to fill what she considers to be a void in the industry. "There is no decent training material out there to help the novice broadcaster." She is the woman most South Floridians know by her soft, sultry voice. She is the voice you hear on many radio and television commercials, and teaching others how to make a living off their voices. This is a "do-it-yourself" kit on creating and building a commercial voiceover business. -- The Jupiter Courier & Stuart News, January 4, 1998

Sunny Quinn, radio and television personality and voiceover talent, recently authored Put Your Mouth Where The Money Is, a voiceover training program. It comes with three audiocassettes and takes you step-by-step through the process of creating and building your own freelance commercial voiceover business. Sunny, who recently took a leave from radio to travel extensively with her husband, Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad, wrote most of the voiceover book in the sky on her way to rock concerts. Sunny is also a broadcast instructor for the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, preparing students for entry level radio and television. -- Women in Focus, Southern Exposure, May 1998

From the Publisher

Sunny Quinn is a well-known and popular radio personality in South Florida, and is an expert in the field of radio and television commercial voiceovers. She brings all her professional knowledge to the aspiring voiceover artist in one simple, easy-to-follow publication.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Airwave Publications; 1/Bk&3Csst edition (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966053109
• ISBN-13: 978-0966053104
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,706,813 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not Ready For Prime Time, February 14, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Put Your Mouth Where the Money Is : How to Build a Successful Radio & TV Voiceover Business (Audio Cassette)

This book and tape set promises to help "build a successful career in radio and TV voiceovers," but it's doubtful that anyone following its advice could move beyond small-market radio at best. Most of the advice here is superficial, and a lot of it is plain wrong.

For example, in the short chapter entitled "Commercial Copy Interpretation," the author contends:

"From the moment you are handed your copy, you should be mentally analyzing a number of things:

1. What is the product or service I am selling?

2. Who is my target audience?

3. Who is the competition?

4. How can one benefit from the product/service?

5. How can I best sell that product using my voice?

6. Where is the disclaimer?"

This is nonsense. The first four questions are the concern of the advertising agency, not the voice talent. The talent's job is to make the script work, by creating a characterization consistent with that script, whether it's a "slice of life" or "inner monologue" or whatever. The agency has already determined how it plans to sell the product by the choices made in writing the script -- the talent's job now is to bring that script to life.

That's also why question number 5, if taken seriously, is professional suicide: trying to "sell" the product inevitably leads to the harsh, hard-sell announcer sound that is the province of bad late-night TV. Again, the agency has already determined that the scenario in the script will sell the product; the talent's job is to make choices (who am I? where am I? what happened a moment before? who am I talking to?) that are appropriate and believable for what happens in the script. This book gives no useful guidance in that endeavor, yet it is arguably the single most important skill that a voiceover artist must possess.

The examples on the enclosed audio cassettes are, not surprisingly, mostly bad as well. Again, it's all the local, small-market radio sound: loud, mindless "announcer-y" reads that would never make the grade in national markets. Anyone who truly wants to "build a career" in the voiceover field should strive for something better, because agents are deluged with with bad demos like the examples.

I'm disappointed, because there is a need for a high-quality product of this kind. Unfortunately, this one is not it. Those truly interested in the big time would be better served by such books as Susan Blu's "Word of Mouth" and Joan See's "Acting in Commercials."

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good overview, January 3, 2000

By 

[e-mail] (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Put Your Mouth Where the Money Is : How to Build a Successful Radio & TV Voiceover Business (Audio Cassette)

I bought this book from Amazon for a general overview in voiceovers. I work in radio, and it did provide me with more information than I already knew. ONE problem was her so called friend who dominated the tapes by offering his condescending advice. What a pompous jerk. He talks about the frustration of working with amateurs, and people who "don't get it". Maybe he doesn't get it--this book IS for amateurs, and I'm sure at one point he was a beginner too. Get over yourself. Skip the tapes, but the book is helpful.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Basic overview, July 11, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Put Your Mouth Where the Money Is : How to Build a Successful Radio & TV Voiceover Business (Audio Cassette)

If you have no previous knowledge of voiceover you will get a good, very basic overview. If you have any previous knowledge there are several other books(much less expensive) that go more in depth. It seems to be overpriced for what I received.(even with the cassette tapes)