People like case studies, which are basically “people watching” in better detail. Hearing how another person has handled a real life situation is more informative and interesting than a list of facts. I’d like to write about freelancing with sites like Fiverr, and since I have personal experience working there, I want to briefly share some of my discoveries and a bit about what you might expect.
Hi, I’m Dr. Ron Masa. I am a Jungian psychologist, now retired from private practice. I am also an artist, sculpted in stone for many years and sold almost a thousand small paintings online. I started freelancing with Fiverr in 2013. I wanted to learn how to make professional quality voice recordings from home.
In the 1960s, I worked as a television director for the NBC affiliate, KVOA-TV in Tucson, Arizona. So I had to do a little voice announcing, and I loved it. I’ve wanted to do more voice work ever since. My first inclination was to locate a formal training program for voiceover education. Luckily, I found out that they charge thousands of dollars a year! I say fortunately because that cost, plus the delay before I could do any real voice work, convinced me to try something new.
I decided to “adventure” my way to freelancing with Fiverr. I read several books on voice work, found a discarded plastic microphone, and created my first job on Fiverr.com. You too can start very simple and upgrade as you learn and earn. I grew a little with each job. I made mistakes. I learned how to correct them and eventually avoid them. As I gradually improved my vocal skills, I also upgraded the microphones and the software involved.
Choosing to work limited hours, over three years, I was paid over $7,000 to learn voice-over work doing voice-over work from day one. I completed 450 professional audio jobs! To my surprise, they got a 100% satisfaction rate. I canceled a couple of “difficult buyers” but almost everyone else was great to work with. Buyers know they are getting a great deal, want the services to work, and are generally very understanding.
In addition to recording traditional voice-over scripts, I have found that I especially love voice-over performances. Who knows? Yes, self-discovery is one of the rewards for designing and doing work you love. Soon I was the dramatic voice of pushy journalists, worried and brooding presidents, creepy evil villains, doting parents, brooding alien predators, and assorted World War II generals and battle-weary soldiers. These recordings, and hundreds more, are now appearing on film, television, video games, the Internet, and corporate audio systems on multiple continents.
I also discovered that I love doing educational stories for children about whales, stars and dinosaurs. I made endless commercial messages. I even got to narrate several entire books. An influential Dale Carnegie classic was far ahead of his time. Another book taught financial planning and understanding. The book I felt most honored to record was “A Summary of Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe. It summarized the life and novels of the powerfully inspiring “father of African literature”, Chinua Achebe.
I loved being able to jump right into actual voice work and learning the trade by doing actual projects. And I especially liked being paid to learn. If I count the $15,000 I saved in formal training, plus the $7,000 I earned from doing voice work, this freelance path put me over $20,000 ahead! If someone prefers traditional training methods, there is nothing wrong with that. Personally, I found freelancing more exciting and more engaging.
When you do a job you love, that invites you to be self-employed, you’re much more likely to meet kindred spirits and find related opportunities that really fit you. There are immediate, and then secondary, benefits to following your heart on the job. While practicing voice work, I also learned how to edit the audio of my own recordings. I later used that experience to teach an audio editing class online.
Now, the combination of my original voiceover training and those audio editing skills has allowed me, really empowered me, to teach classes online. (And, yes, they’ve been praised for their exceptional audio quality!) You’re more likely to reap unexpected benefits when you follow a path with heart. I now know that it is possible to make a long-term dream come true through carefully chosen freelance work. Do you want to get paid for a job you would happily do for free? How would you design the type of work or service that you would love to do, recognize it now?