If you wanted to be a doctor, lawyer, or plumber, you would have a clear career path to follow, exams to take, practical experience to gain, and professional bodies to join. The roadmap for your chosen job would be well defined and structured. If you had not achieved your dream by a certain age, you would probably have to give up.

But what if you wanted to make a living doing voice-overs, or even part-time? Let’s say you harbored a dream of narrating children’s stories, doing video game animations and voices, or hosting your favorite TV shows. Where would you start? Here there is no professional career, no academic courses in colleges or universities; even a theater curriculum may not cover that niche of interest.

In the world of voiceover, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all job: you can’t be too old, too fancy, or too ordinary; each voice style has a market from child to senior and everything in between. Confusingly, it all seems, well, so vague and dark. It is as if ‘the planet’s voice-over’ were a distant, impregnable, autonomous and elitist place. However, people (yes, ordinary people) become broadcasters. They are not necessarily actors or radio professionals; They come from all walks of life and bring skills and real-world experience that enrich your presentation.

So where, exactly, do you start? First, forget about the idea that you have to have a great voice. It’s like art: one person’s Mona Lisa is another person’s pile of bricks. In other words, totally subjective. Reading, and specifically reading aloud, is the most important quality. It’s how you bring a script (which is someone else’s words) to life. Practice makes perfect, so the more you read aloud, the better. Lock yourself in a quiet room and try to read short excerpts from magazines, newspapers, novels, in fact, anything you can find. You could even try writing your own scripts, which will give you insight into how a customer sells a product or idea.

Then you will need to record a showreel. This will become your audio calling card; without it, no one will know what it sounds like. Keep your scripts short and add variety to the mix. That means commercials (upbeat to bland) audiobook narration, a business/corporate type read, interactive phone message, and (this is optional and only for the really talented) character voice montage. You can hire a local studio for a few hours, record at home if you have the facilities, or ask a professional trainer for help.

After this comes the really hard part: promoting your reel (which should be on CD and maybe on a website too). You can approach voiceover agents, but many of them will want to have experience before they consider representing you. You can achieve this by signing up for the many voiceover marketplaces that can be found all over the web. They offer an opportunity for voice talents to showcase their products and meet potential clients, take auditions, and most importantly, land those jobs.

So it may be too late to become an astronaut, but his dreams of a broadcasting career are not out of this world.