Voice Over Talents almost always have a background that includes music, improv, broadcast, and/or stage/TV/film acting. In my case...well, I guess it's all of the above! After 15 years in full-time radio, I left to focus on voiceovers (well, there were other reasons, but let's just leave it at that for now) and when I look back - as with any relationship - I mostly remember the fun times.

Hide your radio background to be a Voice Talent! It ain't necessarily so! Seven things we learn from years in radio that actually make us better voice talents.

I'm about to teach Edge Studio's "What Now?" Webinar, designed for students who have just completed their voiceover demo and now want to know -well - "what now?"The first thing I remind them is that they've been working all along on the next step: deciding where, and how, to look for the right clients for your brand of voiceover. And that process should have begun long before you receive your completed demo.

Voice Acting: everything we do (for work or otherwise) goes into our personalities, and can be used to interpret copy through the filter that is, well, us.

OK, time to cave. Really! Just recorded a job for a client who might have forgotten about me if not for my newsletter updates. My audiobook producer found me on Twitter. I have clients overseas who learned about me on LinkedIn.

Weird. That's all I can say. Sure, we voice talents are getting increasingly used to wearing many hats: director, producer, editor, voiceover artist, and sometimes grammarian (if the script needs a little, um, help) - not to mention blogger, marketing guru, social media student.

Tomorrow night I teach another session for Edge Studio called "Investigate Voice Over." We call it the "IVO" - and it's taught frequently in our New York main studio, our CT and DC studios, in Los Angeles, and also via teleclass.If you've ever wondered about the true path to VoiceOver success, I can't recommend it highly enough. Got the Voiceover dream?

When I teach "Investigate Voice-Over" classes for Edge Studio - either in the CT or NYC studio, on a telecall/webinar, in Continuing Education sessions or at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting - I usually begin by asking students what brought them to the class.

Here's an eye-opening article from PC World that provides a reality check re social media. Right now I'm working facebook, twitter, and the voiceover boards, since my first session today isn't until 2 pm. Yep, 80% of the VO business is spent marketing (well, that's one statistic I heard) - so how much of it do we want to do online? And how effective it is, really?

My VO Peep Alan Sklar (a generous and talented voice actor) called my attention to this blogpost by the renowned audiobook narration guru Paul Alan Ruben. Paul’s blog for audio book narrators is here. Audio Book Narrators Blog.

Increasingly, my voiceover work is done from home - and so many others in this business (and others, I know) are finding the same trend affecting them. Very cool to send files to India (what's the time difference again?), but also so nice to work in my own back yard - which in this case includes Connecticut, New York and partsof Massachusetts.

To quote Tom Daniels, a fellow VO talent and friend (at least on facebook!), If you have your equipment together (which today can be a laptop with free editing/recording software, a good USB Mic and a quiet area to record), you are just nanoseconds away from any location worldwide! The rest is passion, talent and marketing skills.

Voicing a website narration in your pajamas (does anyone really do that? I have to be dressed to work if you count t-shirt and shorts as dressed): great. Meeting people online who also get paid to talk (well, to communicate): really helpful. Connecting with these online friends and new VO talents, for real, in person?: priceless.

Had the pleasure of announcing names of riders as they bicycled over the finish line yesterday at the Connecticut Challenge for Cancer.