- Microphone Techniques - Finding the Sweet Spots for Your Voice, with Your Mic

It's not just about setting up your session, hitting record and the laying down some voiceover tracks.
Whichever mic you use, try recording at different distances and at slightly different volumes with your voice. Do many different takes where you speak louder and then slightly softer, while you vary the distance. Take a good tour to keep refining which sounds you like better. The interaction between the electronics in a mic and a specific voice involve many variables, so you have to experiment to discover the many different sweet spots for the various tones of voice you might want to use. When you speak softer and closer to the mic it's obviously more intimate AND there is more saturation in the sound that is recorded. Speaking softer and then using more "Head Room" in your spoken tone will give yet again a different effect. The important thing is to become very familiar with your own recording set up and how to best present the sonic identity of your voice based on each job.

- Here's The Follow up Exercise To Using Beat Changes

A beat change is the change in tone of voice to set up new ideas.
Find a piece of copy you like that's not too long. It can be a commercial or short descriptive narrative.
It should have at least four Beat Changes/Change in directions in the copy...places. that require beat changes:) Record yourself and vary the cadence to set up clear Beat Changes.  Try and create 20 versions that are more related than not. Yes 20 versions. This creative exercise will help develop control over the voice and tone of voice as well as improve creativity.

- Reading Copy With Beat Changes So You don't Sound Like You're Reading Copy

It's an interesting task to read copy and have it sound idea driven and spontaneous. When we are talking to a friend there is a tumbled quality to the words because the words are idea driven. Each new idea or development in the text has a natural "Beat Change"... a change in the tone of voice that marks the shift in ideas. We never really think about the musicality of this in daily life because it's a natural part of the harmonic language that we use to communicate clearly to each other. Becoming more aware of beat changes can take the quality of our voiceover work to a whole new level. I hear casting directors say things like "Nice voice, but doesn't mean it." This seems to be shorthand for the person just sounds like they're reading copy. Our reads have to sound like we're talking to a friend in a focused but conversational manner. Beat changes are simply one of the elements that help us read into a mic and not sound like we're reading into a mic.

- Going from good reads to Great Reads

Reading a sentence and getting it worked out so it sounds idea driven is fairly straight forward work.
VoiceOver artists from pros to beginners learn to do this pretty well. The real work begins after a person can do this.
Multiple takes in a studio are done to find different shades of meaning and nuance. They are not done to figure out the meaning of the copy, all of that should be done before the session.
Time is money in a studio or anywhere else for that matter.
It's relatively easy to do a good read, it's much harder to learn to do great reads. Repetition is the main ingredient. Once it's a good read, repetition will reveal nuances and other possibilities that make the read naturally persuasive. Many times a client isn't sure what they want, so it's up to us VO artists to keep giving them variations until they jump up and say "That's great, do it like that again".
Our ability to hear nuance and variations will develop as we learn to rehearse over and over. Record and play back, record and play back. Greater awareness and artistic control are a direct result of how much flying time we log.

- Vocal change ups and deceptive cadences will help get you work

I hear a lot of reads that are very well spoken that really don't sound convincing. They don't really sound conversational at all. They are articulate but not "idea driven". I've heard casting agents on large project auditions describe it like this. "Nice voice, but doesn't mean it"
Advertisers tend to pick voiceover artists who can meet all the stylistic demands of the copy and still sound like they're just talking to one of their best friends. This ability to "personalize" copy isn't magic, it has certain musical characteristics.
When we are talking to people in our "Day Voice" we naturally use a lot of vocal change ups, "beat Changes" and deceptive cadences. It's part of the harmonic geography of how we communicate in daily life. When we read copy these characteristics are often left out, making the copy sound merely like a person just reading copy. It's important to study and retain these variations in our best natural speech and not loose that spontaneous expression when we are doing voiceover work.

- Personalizing Voiceover Copy

There are many people who can read copy well. The most important skill however is to be able to personalize copy. Making the copy sound like it's a collection your own ideas that you are relating to a friend is key to getting cast. This requires an ability to make subtle change-ups in tone of voice and cadence that sound like your "Day Voice" and not like an announcer reading copy. The ability to persuade comes from staying in the tonal  bandwidth of natural conversation between friends.

- Learning To Work The Mic

It's important to stay 8" to 10" from the microphone (depending on what you're recording of course). When your recording something that gets loud it's important to back off a bit or turn a little to the side.
Aside from that common sense, there is a great opportunity to have greater "saturation" when you're saying something that is more thoughtful by moving in much closer and speaking more softly.
This gives an intimacy to the sound of a persons voice and is a very persuasive sound. Learning to "Work the Mic" can bring a much richer harmonic landscape to your recordings that is much more personal that just reading well at a good recording level.

Creating Variety By Changing Cadences in Voiceover Reads

Very often the direction one receives is, "Ok, give me three versions of that line".  It is very important to move the emphasis around when you're doing multiple takes. A lot of times people just try and vary the melody while they use the same cadence and that usually isn't enough. So try moving the emphasis.
i.e. "it is better to give than receive" "It is better to give than receive" "It is better to give than receive". Variations of cadence combined with slight shifts in the melody and where you breathe will give you endless combinations that will make any booth director your friend.