- Practicing Cold Reading

Commercials are always pretty short, 60 seconds or less. Audio books, or corporate narratives are many pages long. Even if you read a hundred page narrative or a book many times you still don't really know whats coming up next.
Practice having your eyes two to three words ahead of where you're speaking. You should not be saying the word you're reading with your eyes at the same time. Read ahead.
When you get to the end of a sentence and take your catch breath, make sure you always dart your eyes to the right to read ahead, this will reduce the number of flubs.

- Voiceover Booth , or Noise Reduction Filter

There are many points of view about this. If money is no object and you have the space, by all means buy a recording booth.A good one will cost between $4000 to $7000. Today however there are some amazing noise reduction filters. Sound Soap has been purchased from the now out of business Bias-Peak ($149) Izotrope has some truly amazing filters that cost more ($ 350 to about $800)
and of course Waves filters has all kinds of noise reduction filters, but my favorite is Waves NS 1 Noise Suppression Filter.
When you are recording, you will leave about 3 seconds of room noise space before you speak. These filters can then memorize the room noise and strip only that from your recordings leaving amazingly clean voiceover recordings without doing bad things to the sound of your voice.
Check ou these links to see if they interest you.
We make no money or commissions for any recommendations we make:)

Automatic Noise Suppression Plugin – NS1 | Waves

iZotope RX 3 | OVERVIEW

SoundSoap 3 Noise Reduction

- The Very First Read in a Session...

It's important that VO artists practice at home so you can start with a good read and not use studio time with people standing around to get "warmed up". Remember to practice your reads thoroughly before getting there and warm up your voice on the way to the recording studio. I've recently seen people in a studio wondering what was up with the VO artist who just didn't seem "ready to go" when the person showed up. Be respectful of peoples time by being completely prepared when you show up. it's the best way to be invited back

- 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.