30 Day Voice Over Trial - Day 1

I read http://expertenough.com/778/practice-like-an-expert and http://expertenough.com/658/becoming-an-expert and it re-inspired me to try my hand/voice at doing voice over work.  These articles emphasized having an expert mentor.  I think that's what I've skipped in other pursuits.  

So I started by googling 'las vegas voice over'.  I found http://www.courvo.biz/ which made me excited about doing audio books.  They're mostly done from home, but the money doesn't get that good until you're pretty established.  I need to ignore the money for the 30 day trial though.  

His site also directed me to http://patfraley.com/ who is a top voice over coach in LA.  He has a ton of free videos and a bunch of training stuff you can buy.  In some of the videos I watched, I learned some good stuff:

• Skills + Personal Style + Demo + Marketing = $$$
• Demo is 3 x 1 min excerpts
• Mimic/Matching might be a good fit, because I already do that and it can pay well.
• Learn the rules, but use your limitations to make money.  For me, my scientific, slightly monotone voice could work better than a trained actor for non-fiction books (or stuff like that).
• Its important to train the entire vocal range for injury prevention (like stretching).

I'm going to read http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/30-days-to-success/, http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/12/start-the-new-year-with-a-30-day-trial/ and http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2011/11/music-trial-recap/, but I think he says to shoot for 30 hours in 30 days.

I have a few ideas:

• Start a blog (or just post links to some sound sharing site) of me reading some popular blogs (4hww, seth godin, steve pavlina, etc).  I need to look up the legal on that.
• Find a local voice over mentor.
• Definitely post recordings publicly (daily if possible) and get as much feedback as possible.
• Find out what gear I can borrow.

I created a SoundCloud.com account http://soundcloud.com/jeremyjbarth and recorded a couple words.  It actually didn't sound that bad, so maybe I can skip the hardware stuff for this trial.