The voice actor's daily success resource · since 2007
The VoiceOverXtra.com website is retiring, and today (March 11, 2026) ends 19 years of serving the voice over community. It seems fitting that the final article be a reposting of the website’s first. Peter Drew’s ‘Acting: Find Your Natural Rhythm,’ published on May 18, 2007, continues as valuable advice today.
You love cartoons and are always mimicking voices. You love listening to audiobooks and want to narrate them. Love to teach? There’s a wide open market for e-learning, corporate and medical narration. And how about TV promos! BUT. Are these genres a good fit for your personality? Voice Over Strategist Tom Dheere invites you take this Psychological Audit …
Want some super easy ways to make any script sound better without hours of prep? Voice actor/educator Dervla Trainor shares 5 tricks she uses to instantly improve a read. The best part? It’s only takes a few minutes and you don’t need to do them all …
Do your kids what to become voice actors – just like you? Voice actor/kids coach Martha Kahn offers tips on how to help them have fun while learning the craft. (And it’s a nice refresher for you, too.)
Buckle up. The world of pharma ads could be in for a big change – with a ripple effect on other genres, especially healthcare, advises voice actor/coach Peter K. O’Connell. “Pharmaceutical companies can no longer breeze through safety information in TV ads and direct people elsewhere for details,” he explains. “They’ll need to spell everything out – every side effect, every warning – right there in the commercial.” What that means for you …
How to sound real in your voice over reads? Know the acting techniques taught by Stanislavski and Meisner. While their approaches vary, voice actor/coach Rob Marley shares how to balance them to feel just right. Try it on your next script …
Artificial Intelligence will never be a match for a good storyteller, says veteran narrator/director/coach James Conlan. Why? “Quite simply, the one thing a narrator can do that AI cannot is to tell the listener how they feel.” Here’s how to deliver with that AI-proof feeling …
Super Bowl ads are traditionally a bellweather of commercial voice over trends for the new year – and voice actor/coach/producer J. Michael Collins spots a clear one in Sunday night’s commercials: Ownership. Read on to see what ad buyers are trending toward in commercial VO reads now …
Voice acting is “all about having a conversation” with your listener, advises award-winning audio producer, coach (and more) James Alburger. But how do you create a conversation when reading from a script? James shares his method, beginning with creating a sense of drama or reality …
In conversations with ad industry players since last week’s U.S. elections, VO industry pundit (and voice actor, coach, producer) J. Michael Collins is “convinced that we are about to see a rapid shift in what gets hired for commercial voice over as a result of the vote.” It’s already affecting the way he auditions – and shares the changes he sees coming in commercial voice overs. Buckle up …