Politics has always been a tricky thing, and few times in our country’s history has it been more difficult (and dangerous) to navigate than right now. Politics are everywhere in our society and the voiceover industry is no exception. There are a bunch of definitions of politics out there, but I’m going use a very simple one from Simple Wikipedia. I didn’t even know there was such a thing! Politics is the way that people living in groups make decisions. Politics is about maki

I love New York. It’s cliche but it’s true. Not because of the hustle or the “city that never sleeps” stuff. I love the food, the skyline, the grid layout, the history, the food, and the architecture. Did I mention the food? I also love New York because of the pandemic. Not the pandemic itself obviously, but the reaction to the pandemic. As an example, my wife and I took a walk in Central Park this past Sunday to get out of the house and in the words of Billy Joel, “forget ab

Agents have not been spared from the coronavirus pandemic. My longtime agent Viola Staravoj of VS Talent Group has just decided to shut her agency down. Vi has been wonderful to me over the years and among other great projects, helped me book the Nat Geo Wild show “We Move Animals“. Alpaca-palooza forever! The Portland, Oregon-based agency In Both Ears just raised their talent commission to 25%. Agents traditionally charge 10% to 15% and managers upwards of 20%. This has caus

Goodwill saved my ass last week. Last week was one of those weeks that new voice talent hope for and veteran voice talent have come to love/loathe; I got buried in last-minute voiceover bookings and advance sessions that kept getting rescheduled. That created a ripple-effect where I had to move other sessions around, sometimes more than once. This effected the audio book I’m currently recording (see last week’s blog entry) as well as many of the VO Strategist students I’m wor

There is a lot of tension in the voiceover industry right now. It’s been building over the last five years or so. There is tension between some union and some non-union voice talent. There is tension between some who use Pay-to-Pay sites and some who think they’re unethical. There is tension among some aspiring voice talent and some veteran voice talent. There is tension on many of the voiceover-related Facebook groups. Sidebar: I have HAD IT with most of the voiceover-relate

Noted voice actor and coach J. Michael Collins is suing the pay-to-play casting site Voices Dot Com. You can read the Voice Over Xtra article announcing the suit here. To summarize the article, he is suing Voices Dot Com “for alleged unauthorized use of Collins’ likeness, voice, name and an implied endorsement of that firm in its marketing.” Basically, he told VDC to stop using a video he made for them for free and apparently they continued to use it. What does suing Voices D