Success in the voiceover business doesn't always mean immediately finding your actual niche. This can take a couple of years to establish what that is. Like so many, I wanted to get into animation when I first started and never dreamed that my niche in this business would be commercials, eLearning narration and theme park promos!
When you're first starting, getting coaching is essential but be open to trying all kinds of different genres of this business. Several years ago, I worked with a voice talent who only wanted to focus on medical narration. He didn't have any interest in doing anything else. I honored his request, but we got a little burned out on medical narration copy after several coaching sessions. So, I suggested we work on an animated character script to mix things up and have a little fun. What happened next blew me away. He nailed it! It was a skill that seemed to be bottled up inside him for years. It was quite a day in this particular coaching session. Sometimes, you never know what will come out of a voice talent.
This particular gentleman went on to do animation in L.A. Think about it. His objective was to learn medical narration, and to the surprise of both of us, animation ended up being his niche!
While it's nice to know which genre you want to focus on, it's essential to be open to several of them. The story above is proof. You may have the gift of a specific genre like animation tucked away inside you somewhere, and you're never going to be able to unleash that skill unless you're open to trying it.
Theme park promos are something I had never considered when I first started this journey many years ago. It all started when a client of mine hired me to record all the announcements for Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta. Soon after, I was getting booked for theme park promos all over the country. Amusement parks, State Fairs and other outdoor attractions that require a professional voice actor to announce anything from park regulations to amphitheater announcements.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with focusing on one or two genres in the voiceover business but never shut the door on others just because you think you can't do it.