🎤 So You Wanna Be a Voice Actor? Read This Before You Drop $$$ on a Mic

Thinking about getting into voice acting? Award-winning VO talent Laya Hoffman shares 20 years of hard-won insights—from training and gear to demos, rates, and a free VO Daily Grind Checklist.

TL;DR:
This is the brutally honest guide I wish someone handed me when I started in voiceover. If you’re thinking about “getting into VO,” start here. It’s packed with real talk, resources, and a free daily do-the-work checklist to help you hit the ground running—without lighting your bank account on fire.

✋ First, Let’s Get Real

I’m not a coach. I’m not an accent wizard or a dialect ninja. Hell, I don’t even speak a second language. But I’ve been a working voice actor for over 20 years—which means I’ve actually been paid to talk for two decades straight. And I get asked how to “get into voiceover” at least a few times a week.

So I wrote this.

Not to discourage you—but to prepare you.

Because despite what your aunt Karen or that one Fiverr article said, this isn’t a casual side hustle or fast path to easy money. It’s a full-on career. With overhead. Competition. Training. Hustle. A lot of self-direction and a lot more NOs. Oh, and AI. The robots are coming for this line of work faster than most.

But it can also be deeply rewarding—creatively, emotionally, and yes, financially—if you’re willing to do the work.

🎤 You’ve Got a Nice Voice? Cool. That’s 10% of It.

Maybe you:

  • Crush character voices at parties

  • Love reading to your kids with flair

  • Can mimic accents and vocal tones like nobody’s business

Awesome. That means you’re starting with potential.

Now here’s the truth:

Talent is the cherry. Training, consistency, and business savvy are the damn cake.

Professional voiceover work requires you to be:

  • An actor

  • An audio engineer

  • A client relationship manager

  • A marketer

  • A social media strategist

  • And your own damn CEO

So buckle up, boss.

🎓 Step One: Get Training. Like, Now.

Wait - hold up. Even before this, I encourage you to take a GIANT step back. The real step one is take a good hard look at what you and your family, are willing to invest. Time, energy, interest, and MONEY. It takes it to make it honey, especially in this ever changing industry. Figure out your threshold, and what you are willing to sacrifice and / or compromise to get in. It’s not easy money, and very rarely a second stream of income. It also take a LONG time to become lucrative. You are better off buying a vending machine or selling PDFs, unless… you. love. it.

Then, if you haven’t taken a class yet—start there. Period. Can you even stand the sound of your own voice or people telling you how to use it??

Voiceover isn’t about sounding good. It’s about acting, interpretation, cold reads, and adapting on the fly. There is a PSYCHOLOGY behind all this. You’ve got to learn to take direction fast and self-direct even faster.

🧠 Great Places to Train:

For those already starting to work and want to level up or keep their chops fresh, I highly recommend taking privates regularly with some of these fine folks. Hourly rates usually start at $175 and up and are worth it every time. They have all influenced my career and inform my reads regularly:

Kelly Moscinski at The Voicecaster , Mark Rider - VO Life Coach, Nancy Wolfson - Braintracks Audio, Tina Morasco - Voiceover Library, Donovan Corneetz, Thom Pinto, Dalve Walsh, Harry Dunn, and Jodi Gottlieb - all depending on your genre!

💡 Group classes are gold. Learn from other students' reads, feedback, and progress. Online is totally legit—no need to be in LA or NY.

🎧 Gear: Don’t Buy the Fancy Mic First

Before you invest in gear, get the training. When you're ready, here is a standard base line set up:

🛠 Starter Setup:

  • Mic: Audio-Technica AT2020 or Rode NT1

  • Interface: Focusrite Scarlett Solo

  • Software: Audacity (free), TwistedWave, Adobe Audition (recommended)

  • Headphones: Audio-Technica M50x

  • Booth: Closet > Echo chamber. Quiet, dead, padded > Pretty… or until you can do it like mine. 😉

Now, those are the BASICS.. but most working pros have the real deal and begin to invest when there situ allows. VO Pro Curious?
——> Check out my MTV Cribs style VO Studio video tour here.

Need gear links or a breakdown? I’ve got you covered—just click here (coming soon).

🚫 Please Don’t Make a Demo Yet

If someone offers you a $300 demo after one class—run.

A demo is your professional calling card. It’s scripted, directed, engineered, genre based, and tailored to showcase what you can actually book. And until you're booking consistently in a genre, you're not ready to demo it.

🎙 Producers I Trust:

📌 Real talk: Expect to pay $2,000–$2,500 for a quality demo. This is not a shortcut zone.

💼 VO is a Business—Not a Hobby

If you're serious about this, you need to act like a business owner from day one.

That means:

  • Setting rates (use GVAA Rate Guide)

  • Invoicing clients

  • Managing auditions

  • Tracking jobs + payments

  • Marketing yourself (website, CRM, outreach, social)

  • Understanding contracts and usage

It’s not just about reading scripts. It’s about owning your lane.

🔗 Free Voiceover Resources That Don’t Suck

💻 YOUTUBE CHANNELS

🎧 Podcasts

🧠 Communities:

👂 Want to hear what’s booking now?

Check out iSpot.tv—a treasure trove of real national spots and the voices behind them.

📥 Download This: VO Daily Grind Checklist

Want a behind-the-scenes peek at what my day looks like?

🎯 Organize your hustle
🎙 Stay on top of auditions
💼 Balance your business
💖 Protect your voice and sanity

👉 Download the Checklist (PDF)

💬 Final Thought: Ask Better Questions

Please, for the love of all things audio, don’t hop into a Facebook group and post:

“Hey! I’m new here. Any tips on how to get started?”

Instead:

  • Lurk.

  • Learn the lingo.

  • Do the research.

  • Ask better, specific questions.

I say this with love. The VO community can be incredibly generous—but it also has zero time for lazy energy. The people booking big jobs? We’re not hanging in forums all day. We're working.

💡 Still Fired Up? Let's Talk.

If you’ve read all this and you're still interested, I offer a free 30-minute consult—but only after you’ve done your homework. Send me a direct email, link is below, with the title: I’M READY TO BE HEARD and I’ll send you the link to book. Gotta learn to take direction, remember friend? 🤭
My time and yours are valuable. Show up prepared, and I promise I’ll do the same.

Good luck out there. I’m rooting for you.
And if you do dive in—make some damn noise.

—
Laya Hoffman
Voice Actor | Podcaster | Truth Teller
🎧 Listen to My Work | 📬 Get In Touch

Laya HoffmanVoiceover Actor, Voiceover, Female Voice Actor, Getting StartedComment