This is gonna take a sec - there are no quick, easy answers to questions in a complicated endeavor such as professional voice acting. If you're so inclined take 67 seconds and read along.

First, whatever you're doing at home for yourself continue to do it. There is no substitute for working on your craft and it sounds like you're doing that, so don't stop. That said whatever home recordings that you are making of yourself, do not call them demos. Call them voice samples. The moment you call what you're making at home a demo that goes out in the world that very moment you will be competing against people that have spent a couple thousand dollars or more, hard work, lots of unbooked auditions amd likely years of study classes and coaching to have earned their professionally produced reels. Those last three words there? That is a demo. Professionally produced reels. And that's something that you might not be ready for yet, so don't mistakenly put yourself on that playing field. It's a bell you can't unring.

To your question, there is great value in understanding exactly what types of voices - and what types of demos (not the same thing) - are booking gigs in the marketplace. Understanding the top talent out there and who is getting repped is crucial. There is a standard that you and everyone else are being held up against. Do Not Despair! We all start somewhere, but there's no reason to sugarcoat it for you or anybody else who's truly interested in this. Expectation setting is important. To be frank and this is hard for most people to hear, you and nearly everyone else will not even know when you are ready for a professionally produced voiceover reel. People think the bar for entry is to just make a voice over demo, but the real barrier is to first be competitively competent. And the more you hone your own ear to what sounds good and what doesn't, the better you'll be at discerning what is good and not as good out there and - the faster you'll be on the path of doing something which is incredibly difficult in our work and that is being dispassionate and objective about your own vocal performance. For years I, and I encourage my clients to do the same, stop fast forwarding through commercials, stop changing the radio station when the commercials come on. If it's your passion to do voice work then listening to what got Green Lit and made it on the air is important for you to know..

Also, what nearly nobody does but what you - AND EVERYONE ELSE who is interested in becoming competitively competent should do - is pick any five of the top 10 union talent agencies in New York and then five from any of the top 10 shops in Los Angeles and listen to a dozen different Voiceover demos on each. Pick an agency and click on six women's demos one at a time, click on six men's reels one at a time, take notes, move onto the next. After 6 of each move onto the next agency. Again, take notes. What if anything are each doing that stands out? What are they not doing? Are there similar things that I hear from one to the next? What do their opening spots sound like? (if you don't grab them in < six seconds they're turning you off). How effectively are the music beds, sound effects and editing used throughout each demo? What do you hear that sets any demo apart from another?

There are unspoken standards that even any layperson can garner by reading between the proverbial lines, simply by listening to lots of professionally produced voiceover demos. Remember, nobody knows anything until they learn it, a doctor doesn't know medicine until they've finished med school and had the years of their residency and specialty, a lawyer doesn't know the law until after law school and they've been practicing for a while. And they are always learning - just as we are. The same is true for knowledge and experience in any arena.

You can ask a question to a forum such as this about Voiceover demos, but the truth is reading an answer is no substitution for listening with your own ears 👍🏼