I’m excited to share a piece of good news in my acting career: I’ve been cast as the Giant in Theatre West’s Storybook Theatre production of Jack and the Beanstalk!  After a long stretch of professional frustration  (especially in my voiceover career stagnating due to loss of SO much of that work to AI) this is "big" and exciting news about putting my "bigness" to use in my career.

For those unfamiliar, Storybook Theatre is a beloved Los Angeles tradition: a long-running series of interactive musicals for children, produced by Theatre West, the city’s oldest continually operating theatre company (and one I’m proud to call my artistic home).

This will be my first professional Equity theatre production, and while it’s a show for kids, the significance isn’t lost on me. After so much time feeling stuck  (sending out auditions, chasing voiceover leads, and watching AI voices take over gigs that used to go to real performers) it’s deeply rewarding to be reminded of what this work is really about: connecting with a live audience, sparking imagination, and bringing stories to life.

The show is double-cast, meaning I’ll be performing as the Giant in alternating performances. That helps accommodate everyone’s unpredictable schedules, since Storybook Theatre often adds special performances for school field trips and birthday parties. So, if you’re thinking of bringing your kids to see Jack and the Beanstalk, definitely check with me first to make sure I’m performing that day!

This past week brought me a much-needed boost in my voiceover journey. I recently landed a new audiobook project through ACX, and just got my “15-minute checkpoint” approved by the author. It’s only one step in the process, but after the setbacks and struggles I’ve faced lately, it feels like a real victory.

If you’ve ever auditioned on ACX, you know how tough it can be. Dozens — sometimes hundreds — of narrators submit auditions for the same project, and it often feels like shouting into the void. I’ve had my share of frustration there, uploading audition after audition with no response, and honestly, I’d started to wonder if ACX was even worth the effort.

But this time, my persistence paid off. Out of all the options, the author chose me. Not an AI voice, not a cut-rate shortcut — me. A real human voice with personality, nuance, and storytelling ability. And the fact that my checkpoint has already been approved tells me I’m on the right track.

For me, this is more than just one job. It’s a reminder that perseverance matters. That showing up consistently, even when it feels like nothing’s working, eventually leads to moments like this. In a business where it’s easy to get discouraged, that lesson is worth holding onto.
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And here’s my call to action: if this author can see the value in hiring a voiceover with a pulse, I hope you can too. Whether you need an audiobook narrator, a commercial read, or a unique character voice, I’d love to bring your words to life.

​https://www.markjohnbowen.com/voice-over.html

Sometimes, the little wins matter most. Yesterday, I completed two Fiverr orders and received 5-star reviews for both. On the surface, they might not seem like a big deal — neither order paid much, and they weren’t for my main, general voiceover gig. But here’s why I think they’re worth celebrating:

Both came from specialized gigs I had created a long time ago but had almost given up on, since they’d barely gotten any impressions or clicks.

     - One was from my Commercial Voiceover gig — to specifically focus on clients looking for that kind of service (even though I already can and have done that kind of voiceover with my generic gig)

   -The other was from my Halloween Voiceover gig, where I get to use my creepy, spooky character voice. Originally, I promoted this for fun projects, like haunted house effects or Halloween parties. But this client used it in a totally different way: they had me record a promo for their horror book. That was a cool reminder that my skills can be applied far beyond what I first imagined. While the orders were small, I see them as tiny sparks of momentum.

Every 5-star review helps boost visibility in Fiverr’s algorithm, and I’m hoping these are signs that those specialized gigs might finally start to get pushed out in search results. And with more visibility comes the chance for more clients, more projects, and hopefully some bigger opportunities.

If you’ve been following my career, you know it’s been a rough stretch lately — slow progress, plenty of rejection, and moments of doubt. But sometimes, even the smallest wins can be a reminder that the work is out there, and that persistence pays off.

So here’s me, clinging to that little bit of hope. If you or anyone you know needs a voice — whether it’s for a commercial, an audiobook, a character, or something completely out of the box — I’d love to bring it to life.

Check out what I have to offer here:  https://www.markjohnbowen.com/voice-over.html

After all, even the tiniest sparks can light the way forward.

I’ll be honest: business has been slow lately. I’ve been grinding away on Fiverr, hoping to connect with more voiceover clients, and sometimes it feels like every inquiry is precious. But sometimes, the best business decision is the one where you walk away.

Recently, a potential client contacted me with a specific expectation: he wanted me to record live over Zoom, on his schedule, whenever he arranged it. Now, I don’t mind being flexible—I understand that some projects require live direction, and I’m happy to create custom offers for those situations.

The problem? He kept changing the times. He’d request that I block off a slot for him, only to not accept the custom offer… or stand me up. Then, instead of acknowledging that he had wasted my time, he’d just keep pestering me about when we could “try again.”

After multiple rounds of this, I realized something: this wasn’t a partnership. It was me being treated like an on-call employee for someone who didn’t value my time or effort. And that’s not why I became a freelancer.

So yes, I blocked him. Even in a dry spell where I’m craving more work, I have to remind myself that I chose this career because I wanted the freedom to work on my terms. I’ll gladly make exceptions for clients who respect my schedule, but it can’t be a one-way street where I’m expected to always bend to someone else’s whims.

At the end of the day, dignity matters more than one more frustrating “opportunity.”
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Because let’s be real: if I wanted to commit to working around someone else’s schedule, I’d still have a 9-to-5 job instead of pursuing my dreams as an actor and voiceover talent. And if I wanted to be hounded 24/7 with unreasonable demands from people who have no appreciation for me… I’d still be in teaching!!!

It’s been a long, stagnant stretch in my acting and voiceover career.

No bookings. No callbacks. Just an uncomfortable silence that’s been hard to shake.

I won’t sugarcoat it—this has taken a toll on my mental health. The depression has been heavy.

But this past week… something shifted, even if only slightly.

I had four self-tape auditions—three of them from my agent, which is huge because these were for projects you can’t just self-submit for. They were real opportunities, the kind that make you feel like you’re still in the game. Will anything come of them? Honestly, I don’t know. But it’s the first time in a long time I’ve felt the door crack open.
It’s not a “big break” yet. It’s not even a “small break.”
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But it’s movement. And for the first time in months, I’m allowing myself to hope that maybe this is the beginning of something turning around.

To my friends, family, and the few followers who’ve stuck with me through this: your encouragement matters more than you realize. Please keep cheering me on—I need it. This path can be brutal, but knowing people believe in me keeps me putting one foot in front of the other.
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Here’s to silver linings, however faint they might seem.

Just how much does AI voiceover suck?  
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Videos that I voice get a lot of shit in comments about my speaking style, which tends to over pronounce the final syllable of every sentence, something I am working on… but you know what?  At least it’s humannnn.....
AI voices might not do that, but I’ll tell you… they’ve got no idea how to convey meaning through inflection, and they are known to change the entire meaning of sentences by what word gets the emphasis. They often even change phrase in a manner that effectively changes the punctuation, and that leads to the latest abomination I just scrolled to: 

Think about this script, and what it’s going to mean to an AI who has no idea what this means other than a line on a page.

"William Shakespeare wrote many classic plays, like Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet"

It could conclude there's this one play: “Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet” about some love triangle or a ménage à trois. But no, this was even worse. With this AI’s phrasing, and the way it chose to put the punctuation in, it literally asserted that Shakespeare wrote this one play named “Hamlet and Romeo”…  oh, and by the way, he also wrote this other play named “Juliet”. 
Ok, rant over.  Hire a real voice actor to narrate for your faceless channel!

For a Voiceover With A Pulse, CLICK HERE:   https://www.markjohnbowen.com/voice-over.html

These past few months have been one of the hardest stretches of my acting and voiceover career.  Not so much because of rejection, but because of replacement. Watching my biggest client switch to AI narration overnight has left me wrestling with a lot of doubt about whether the craft I’ve built my life around still has a place in this industry.
It’s easy to spiral when you feel like you’re shouting into the void, sending auditions out into the abyss with nothing coming back. But this week gave me something I didn’t realize I needed: a tiny bit of forward motion.

On Tuesday, I recorded a quick voiceover job I'd booked through Casting Call Club, a platform I’ve barely touched in years. I voiced a delightfully deadpan, sarcastic office worker, grumbling about office romance...  I think it’s for a dating app,  but honestly, who knows? It doesn't really matter.  It wasn’t a big payday. But it was work. Real work.

Then, just last night, I got word that I booked a tiny day player role in a vertical short form project shooting next week. Again: small. Again: the paycheck won’t pay the rent. But for a moment, I remembered what it feels like to work. To collaborate. To get the call that says: you’re the one we want.

Sometimes these little wins are just that... little. But today, they feel like proof that maybe the big wins haven’t given up on me yet.

If you’re a fellow actor or VO artist stuck in the waiting room of your own career, I hope you find your tiny wins this week, too. They won’t fix everything. But they remind you to stay in the game.

This week, YouTube creators have been in a panic, with rumors flying that on July 15, the algorithm will crack down on AI-generated content, stripping monetization from videos that don’t have a real human touch.

Turns out, it’s not quite that dramatic... all the videos explaining the issue emphasize that YouTube is just tightening up enforcement of an lon-standing rule: no “mass-produced" or "repetitive” content. Channels using AI for scripts, visuals, or even voices may still be fine if they aren’t overly spammy.

As a working voice actor, I’ll be honest:  part of me wishes this rumor were true. As those of you following me know, I have already lost clients to AI narration. One used to hire me to narrate his YouTube channel until he found a soulless robot voice to read his scripts instead. If platforms did stop monetizing AI voices, clients like him might come back,,, and countless faceless channels who have never thought about it before might finally be forced to hire a real, human voice- and thus create new opportunities for myself and other voice actors.

So here’s the bigger question: Why aren’t we demanding this? Why shouldn’t YouTube (and every platform) make it clear: If you want to make money, you need to put some real humanity in your content.
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At the same time, I’m not just sitting around hoping platforms do the right thing. Here’s a twist: What if we used AI strategically? Imagine faceless channels where AI handles the visuals and writing... but the voice? That’s still me. Or you. A real person, with a real pulse, telling the story. Monetized, human, and showcasing exactly why no robot can do what we do.

I know it sounds ironic... fighting the threat to our careers posed by AI, by using AI.  But that irony is just the reality of so many things that have changed the world throughout history.... it's like the meme going around: "it's ok to resist capitalism on an IPhone: the feudal lord who owned the pitchforks the peasants killed him with probably recognized the irony too!"  Why should it be any different in resisting this threat to our livelihood posed by technology?

Fellow voice actors , let’s push for smarter platform rules and find ways to work with AI instead of being replaced by it. Maybe the future isn’t about killing AI content, it’s about reminding everyone that a real voice is what makes content worth hearing in the first place.

And Content Creators... if you're sick of how boring your content sounds, and want to take things to the next level, with a "Voiceover With a Pulse", please reach out:  ​https://www.markjohnbowen.com/voice-over.html

It’s happened one too many times:  I land a promising audiobook job on ACX under a royalty-share agreement. The manuscript looks solid. The author seems professional. I record the first few chapters (sometimes the entire book) only to get the dreaded notification:

“This project has been removed. The rights could not be verified.”
Translation: You worked for free.

The platform allowed a project to go live, let the author hire me, and only after I submitted my work did ACX suddenly decide the rights weren’t in order. Why isn’t that verified before the project starts? Why are voice actors left holding the bag?

So I made a decision:  
No more royalty-share on ACX.
From now on, I only take audiobook work when the rate is agreed up front, and I get paid per finished hour.

But this past week, I ran into a new version of the same old problem.
A client hired me (on Fiverr, not ACX) and paid upfront with the intention of uploading the finished audiobook to ACX herself. I delivered clean, professional, ACX-compliant audio on time. Then came the delay in accepting delivery. The excuses. And finally the explanation:

ACX rejected the upload due to rights issues, and now she’s hesitant to complete the order.

So I still might not get paid. Not because of anything I did wrong, but because ACX doesn’t verify copyrights until after the work is done.

Now to be clear, Fiverr has its own issues. I once had a client insist that I deliver a 45-second script in 15 seconds—and when I (politely) explained that John Moschitta himself couldn’t pull that off, Fiverr still told me, “We can’t force a buyer to accept delivery.”

But this current situation? It’s different.
This time, I don’t blame the buyer. I blame ACX.
Her intentions were good. She expected to pay. But ACX’s flawed upload process burned us both. The system failed again... and the voice actor’s the one left empty-handed.

This has to stop.

To my fellow voice actors:  Stop taking royalty-share projects unless you’ve verified the client holds the rights. Don’t assume ACX will protect you—they won’t.

To ACX:  Fix your broken approval process. Require documentation up front. Your current model enables bad faith publishing and punishes good faith freelancers.

To authors and producers:  Hire talent the right way. Pay a fair rate. Verify your rights. Don't wait until after you’ve got the audio in hand to find out your project isn’t going anywhere.

I’m Mark Bowen—a voice actor who brings humanity, edge, and intelligence to every read. I don’t sound like a robot, and I don’t phone it in. I’m proud of my work, and I respect my clients. All I ask is the same in return.
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If you’re looking for a voice that brings your project to life—and a collaborator who values professionalism--I’d love to work with you.

In the meantime, to all my VO colleagues out there:

Let’s raise our voices. Let’s demand better.

Every actor’s career has peaks and plateaus,  and for me, the past couple of months have felt like a plateau. Not a full stop, but a definite stall. So lately, I’ve been doing something I’ve honestly avoided for too long: taking full ownership of the long game.
This week, I’ve started reaching out to potential managers.   Not to replace my agent (who’s doing solid work submitting me), but to find someone who can help build something bigger. Someone who sees more than just what I’m booking now… someone who sees what I could be doing, especially with the right material in hand to create his own opportunities as so many success stories in this business have done.  
The twist is... I already have the material.

Over the last few years, I’ve written two original plays  (both serious pieces with a pulse) that I believe are strong vehicles for me as an actor.  

One of those pieces is Honorable Men, a one-man show that dives into the collapse of American democracy by paralleling it with the fall of the Roman Republic. I play a disillusioned college chancellor who slips into monologues from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, actual historical speeches from the likes of Cicero, and biting commentary on how both scholars and the general public have misunderstood Caesar’s assassination (framing it as a stand against tyranny, when in fact, it was about class warfare) and what that says about the way power works today. Spoiler: Caesar wasn’t the tyrant, and even Shakespeare got it wrong.
The other play, Mr. Sam’s Place, takes a different tone but is just as personal.Set in a Southern café, it revisits an era when political disagreement didn’t mean personal hatred. Sam (a character I may not have planned to write for myself but with whom I have developed an affinity for as an actor as well as a writer) is a man who manages to meet a changing world with decency, not fury.  Despite his discomfort with cultural changes, maintains a quiet dignity and civility that’s hard to find today. Sam doesn’t lash out at a changing world, he tries to understand it. I wrote the role for myself, and I believe the play offers a chance to reflect on how Americans once disagreed without dehumanizing each other.  In today’s landscape, that feels radical.

Together, these two plays represent what I hope is a path forward — not just for my career, but for the kinds of stories I want to tell. I’m in the early stages of submitting to managers whose clients are working consistently in the kinds of shows and roles I see as a natural fit for me. It’s research-heavy, slow-going, and requires a bit of faith — but it’s also energizing.

If you’ve been following my work or just stumbled onto this blog, thanks for reading. I’ll keep sharing updates as things develop... and if you happen to know someone who wants to collaborate, represent, or produce work like this, feel free to reach out.

You can learn more about Honorable Men and Mr. Sam’s Place here.