We were lucky to catch up with Philip Church recently and have shared our conversation below.

Philip, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

As far as wanting to entertain people goes, that’s been constant my whole life. I got into acting in plays when I was very young, maybe 4 or 5, and started music lessons not long after with piano then viola then guitar. Music was my main focus through high school, but creative writing called to me some then and in college. Tried getting back into acting towards the end of college then took improv comedy classes for a few years as well, all the while playing in bands and playing cover gigs in bars for cash. Suddenly, the world of audiobooks was presented to me and it was my favorite parts of acting and entertaining without having to truly be in front of someone or work with a whole cast. Had I known I’d wind up in audiobooks, I would have taken more acting classes, especially accents and dialects which are my favorite part of the job. The more you can sound like someone else, the better audiobook fiction you can make. The biggest obstacles to learning more about the craft was working in classes around an overloaded work schedule and still getting sleep (which I did not.)

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m an entertainer first and foremost. Getting behind a microphone and recording is just one, albeit very important, part of the voice-work job. Providing and encouraging creativity is so much of what I do as a voice actor, and genuine love for the craft and industry have kept my passions alive for over a decade. I found myself getting into voice acting at the suggestion of a friend who was already working as an engineer in the industry. He knew about my talents and creativity and passions, and luckily it wasn’t hard to find a local production company to see that in me and get me started. My knowledge of actors, natural vocal modification talents, and creative collaborative abilities come together to make me a force of nature that is easily pointed at a common goal. I’ve been able to branch out of audiobooks and get into other forms of voiceover like commercial and radio thanks to some of the awesome people I’ve met along this journey. My natural tone and diction tends toward the educational while my impersonation and modulation takes me into character work, so I’m able to solve a range of problems like needing help center content, eLearning module, telephony, ad reads, as well as my main squeeze of audiobooks and the many characters it requires.
It’s not just talent and passion I offer, also partnership and vision.

If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?

One of the coolest aspects of audiobooks specifically is that you often get the option of making royalties on book sales–forever! You’ll often get a fair amount of cash upfront for your time and then a share of the sales, so when you really do the research and pick carefully, you can set yourself up for months or years to come. Royalties are many a talent’s best friend!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

There are a couple: getting to meet and interact with people you respect and look up to, as well as all the fun offshoot projects you can find yourself invited to. Very little inspires me more than getting to witness first-hand other people demonstrate your craft so masterfully and seemingly-effortlessly. Thanks to the industriousness of Atlanta’s entertainment scenes, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some big-name actors and artists.
Were it not for the awesome people I’ve met through audiobooks, I wouldn’t have become a consistent collaborator on a podcast or voiced my first commercial.

Contact Info:

• Website: philipchurch.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philipchurchprovonerd
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philipchurchprovonerd

Image Credits
Photos by Russell Dreyer