A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over

45:21

Ep. 319 - Do Voice Actors Need a Talent Agent?...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/10/19

Send us Fan Mail Do voice actors need a talent agent? Gabby Nistico and I dig into it on this Monday live at VO Journey Academy. It started with some news. Gabby got word over the weekend that Cast Voices, a casting site that agents used to manage their rosters, is shutting its doors on 30 October. If most of your work comes through one website or one company, a closing like that can wipe out your business overnight. So we talk about spreading yourself across many places, the same way you'd s...

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20:22

Ep. 318 - Improv for Voice Actors: How to Give More...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/10/16

Send us Fan Mail How do you give more than one take that actually works? Gabby Nistico and I talk about the tool that helps most, improv, on this Open Forum Friday at VO Journey Academy. You won't be improvising the words. The script is the script. What you improvise is your reaction to the words, and that's what keeps a read from sounding like you've done it a hundred times. We go through the improv games we use with voice actors, like the boat scene and the question game. Gabby's favorite i...

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38:04

Ep. 317 - Is the Voice Over Industry Correcting...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/10/14

Send us Fan Mail Is the voice over industry starting to correct itself? Gabby Nistico and I talk about the push back toward human work. A Washington Post piece puts acting in the group of jobs AI will reorganize rather than wipe out. Distributors are limiting how many books one account can upload because of the flood of AI books. And authors are calling us because they want a real person reading their book. Gabby asks the question the AI audiobook sellers don't answer: if a human still has to...

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27:44

Ep. 316 - Should You Pay for Voice123 or Voices.com?...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/10/12

Send us Fan Mail Should a new voice actor pay for Voice123 or Voices.com? I used to say wait a couple of years. I've changed my mind, because I've seen people join in their first month and start getting work. So the question isn't when to join. It's whether you're going to use it. These are audition sites. If you pay and then don't audition, you really have wasted your money. Gabby Nistico adds the other half: treat it like a business investment. Fill every audio category, write your profile ...

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31:10

Ep. 315 - When Your Family Doesn't Get Your Voice...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/10/09

Send us Fan Mail Someone asked how to keep going with voice over during a hard stretch, and it turned into the whole episode. When you start building a VO business, the people closest to you often don't get it. You're spending nights in a closet or a blanket fort with nothing to show for it yet, and it costs money. They get worried, and worry usually comes out as frustration. I talk about what I learned the hard way: shoulder that worry instead of fighting it, keep going, and prove two things...

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55:39

Ep. 314 - Audible, AI and Your Voice: Academy Voices...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/10/08

Send us Fan Mail One week after the new Academy Voices website went live, Gabby, Angela and I got together to talk about how it's going, what's coming next, and the news everyone has been asking us about: what's being said about Audible letting listeners interact with characters in the narrator's voice, and ACX's new room tone rule. (00:00) One week in, and the new site is holding up. (01:23) How week one went. New authors posting per-finished-hour work, authors bringing their audio over, and...

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38:36

Ep. 313 - How to Edit an Audiobook Faster: My DAW...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/10/07

Send us Fan Mail If editing takes you longer than recording, this one's for you. Gabby and I talk about how to edit an audiobook faster. Learn your shortcuts, keep moving forward while you listen, and fix your room before you reach for a plugin. Then I go through my whole editing and mastering chain, the order I do it in, and why I do the exact same thing every time. (00:00) Editing audiobooks, commercials, all of it. Free Class Week is next week. (01:29) Why editing turns into a bottleneck f...

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22:35

Ep. 312 - The Auditions Numbers Game: How Many...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/10/06

Send us Fan Mail You sent 10 auditions, heard nothing, and now you're wondering if this works. In this episode I talk about why voice acting is an auditions numbers game, how many auditions it really takes to book an audiobook, and how to keep going and track your numbers while you work a day job. (00:45) The auditions numbers game. Quality matters, but quantity gets you further. Casting is subjective, so give your best take and move on to the next one. (02:11) Why people quit after 10 auditi...

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30:14

Ep. 311 - Casting Directors Now Want Video Proof...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/10/05

Send us Fan Mail Casting directors are starting to ask voice actors for video proof that they're real. One of our members was asked to send a video of themselves reading the script before they could be booked, and it was a real casting agency, not a scam. Gabby and I talk about why this is happening, what it means for your audio and your branding, and why the people hiring you want to see who they're getting. (00:00) Day two of the new Academy Voices. Unused tool credits now roll over for up ...

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51:04

Ep. 310 - Academy Voices Is Live: What's New for...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/10/02

Send us Fan Mail Academy Voices has a brand-new website, and we went live on launch day to walk through it. Gabby and Angela joined me to talk about what changed for narrators and authors, why you need to make a new account, what happened to auditions from the old site, and the new tools. We also get honest about how much work is still going on behind the scenes. (00:00) Launch day. The new site went up early this morning and people have been moving over all day. Gabby is moving about 200 pro...

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18:10

Ep. 309 - Reading Dialogue Without Tags: How to Keep...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/10/01

Send us Fan Mail When a book drops the "he said" and "she said", you can lose track of who's talking, and so can your listener. In this episode I go through how I prep a scene like that and how to make each character easy to follow without doing big voices. Then the two mistakes I hear most. (01:18) The problem. Some authors leave out the dialogue tags, sometimes on purpose. As the narrator you still have to know who's speaking, and it gets harder when there are more than two people in the sc...

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21:16

Ep. 308 - Royalty Share or Per Finished Hour? How...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/09/29

Send us Fan Mail Your first audiobook offer will make you choose how you get paid. In this episode I go through the three ways narrators actually get paid, what a finished hour really takes, and when royalty share is worth it and when it isn't. (02:02) Per finished hour. You're paid a set rate for every hour a listener hears. A six-hour book at $150 per finished hour is $900, sometimes with a part paid up front and the rest when you finish. You're paid either way, but you have no stake in the...

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21:51

Ep. 307 - Quitting in Year One, and How Not To

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/09/28

Send us Fan Mail Most people who start voice over are gone within a year, and usually it isn't because they can't do it. In this episode I go through the four things that make talented people quit and what the ones who stay do differently. Then there's one thing to set up today that will carry you to the end of the year. (02:02) The silence. You send auditions and hear nothing back. That's normal, and it isn't a verdict on you. The person casting is often the producer or the rights holder too...

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26:51

Ep. 306 - How to Prep a Book Before You Record a Word

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/09/25

Send us Fan Mail Most narrators lose hours in the booth fixing problems they could have caught before pressing record. In this episode I walk through the prep routine I use between signing the contract and recording the first line. There are five steps, and none of them need special software. I also share the time I narrated a Minnesota army sergeant with a Brooklyn accent. (00:00) Why prep matters. Pickups and re-records cost you the performance and the money. (03:18) My first audiobook, and...

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47:25

Ep. 305 - Does Your Logo Get You Work? What Casting...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/09/24

Send us Fan Mail Does your voice over logo actually get you work? Gabby Nistico spent 25 years in advertising, casting and copywriting, and she tells us what casting really notices when they look you up. We get into the five-second check she runs on every demo, the minimum a voice over website needs, and why a proper email signature still matters in 2026. We finish with the things we see people wasting money on. (00:00) Does your logo actually get you work? Short answer from the casting side:...

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15:30

Ep. 304 - Duet vs Multi-Cast Audiobooks: How Duet...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/09/23

Send us Fan Mail Duet, dual and multi-cast audiobooks get mixed up all the time. These are the highlights from our live workshop with narrators Rebecca Heddinger and Caesar Esturco. We get into what each one actually is and how two separate home studios end up sounding like one book. Then Rebecca and Caesar read a short duet scene live, retakes included. (00:00) Welcome, and meet Rebecca and Caesar. (02:27) Dual vs duet vs multi-cast. In a dual, narrators alternate chapters or points of view....

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18:27

Ep. 303 - Why Your ACX Auditions Aren't Getting Picked

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/09/22

Send us Fan Mail Your ACX auditions aren't getting picked, and it usually isn't the sound of your voice. In this episode I go through what actually decides it, from the first 30 seconds to the quality of your audio, the books you choose, how many auditions you send out, and the performance habits that get you skipped. (01:03) The first 30 seconds decide it, and often the first one to three seconds. Authors will give you the benefit of the doubt for a little while, but they stop listening long...

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21:30

Ep. 302: Why Most People Quit Voice Acting in the...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/09/21

Send us Fan Mail Why do so many voice actors quit after their first year? In this episode I get into the three reasons I see most, and what you can do about each one. These are my personal opinions, and they're the reasons I built everything we do at VO Journey Academy the way I did. (01:56) The first reason is that they don't get work. Setting up your studio and learning your DAW can take a year on its own. Then it depends on where you train, because some places tell you to train for years b...

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26:00

Ep. 301: Busy but Not Booking? Your Voice Over...

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/09/08

Send us Fan Mail You’re auditioning. You’re posting on social media. You’re working on your website. You’re emailing potential clients. You’re taking classes. You’re trying new platforms. You’re doing EVERYTHING. But is all of that work actually moving your voice-over business forward? In this episode of A VO’s Journey, Anthony Pica breaks down the idea of the WIG — Wildly Important Goal — and why having one clear objective can completely change the way you approach your voice-over business. ...

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26:58

Ep. 300: 600 Audiobooks Published and a New Beginning

A VO"s Journey: Voiceover and more voice over ·

2026/05/11

Send us Fan Mail We have published 600 audiobooks with Academy Voices and we are going strong. 50% Off First MONTH FOR VO JOURNEY ACADEMY HERE: https://www.avosjourney.com Join Academy Voices Talent Roster Here: https://www.academyvoices.com/offers/4sNBzDc9 Support the show Social Links: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/anthony_pica_vo/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/AVOsJOURNEY Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/avosjourney/ LinkedIn - https://www.l...

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