Do's & Don'ts When Submitting To Voiceover Agents!

Voiceover Agent, Allie Silber shares her expertise and tips on submitting to Voiceover agents.

Please keep in mind that this blog post is purely suggestions for educational purposes and should not be considered a promise of employment or representation.

DO:

1) Email during the respective agent's office hours! If you are a talent looking to submit to an agent for representation, I would wait to email them until their respective office hours (typical hours are from 9:30am-6:30pm EST Mondays-Fridays). If you email any time before or after office hours, your submission email may get lost in the shuffle. I usually say between 10:30am-5:00pm are the best times – it gives the agent more of a chance to catch up with emails if you give some leeway in the morning/evening

2) Send your VO Commercial Demo as an MP3 attachment rather than a link to your website! Agents are constantly multitasking, so sending your MP3 as an attachment to a submission email saves us a lot of time from having to search through the actor’s website to find their demo. Make it as easy for us as possible! If you have additional demos as well (animation, video game, narration, etc.), feel free to send those as well

3) Send us the specs of your home setup if you have one! Mostly everything is being recorded from home right now, so agencies are looking for talent that have a mic setup with patching capabilities (ex: Source Connect)

4) Let the agent know if you have any special skills/speak any other languages

5) If you’ve taken any classes or met with any casting directors recently, let the agent know that in your submission email

6) If you’ve participated in a showcase with a panel of agents, send them a follow up email within a week or so after you’ve met with them! Do not email them directly after the showcase, as your email may get lost in the shuffle (especially if the showcase is after typical business hours!)

DON’T:

1) Email asking if it’s okay to send your VO demo. Just do it! As an actor, you always need to take initiative with your choices, and this will show the agent that you do know how to take initiative

2) Follow up every day after you send your submission email. Some days we are slammed and don’t always have time to look at submissions during the day. If you would like to send a friendly follow up a few weeks after your first submission, maybe after meeting with a new Casting Director or after a recent booking you’ve had after your first submission email, I’d recommend doing that (not a requirement at all, just a suggestion!)

3) Send a list of everything you’ve ever booked before, especially if it’s not recent/it doesn’t sound like you anymore. Keep it short and sweet with some notable bookings

And as a final piece of advice, make sure to keep your emails clear, concise and to the point. Short and simple emails are usually the ones that catch my attention! I hope you find this information helpful, good luck!