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.

Recently, I lost one of my most consistent voiceover clients. It wasn’t because I turned in subpar work. It wasn’t because I missed a deadline or failed to communicate. It was because of something far simpler—and far more common these days:

They decided to use an AI voice instead.
This particular client runs a successful “faceless” YouTube channel. I’d been narrating their videos for a long time—long enough that the audience got used to my voice and storytelling rhythm. But eventually, like so many others facing tight margins, the creator made a financial decision: switch to an AI tool that could generate narration instantly, without needing to pay a human.
On paper, I get it. AI is fast. It’s cheap. It never needs a water break or a retake.
But then the videos went live.
And something surprising happened:
The comments lit up with people saying they missed the old narrator. Some even said they stopped watching the video halfway through because the new voice just didn’t connect. Others said it felt robotic, lifeless, or off-putting—despite the fact that the script and visuals hadn’t changed.

​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7bHxbe4b8g&t=833s

To be clear, I don’t share this out of bitterness. I genuinely like the creator and understand their situation. But it was a reminder--a validating one—that human connection matters.
A well-trained voice actor does more than just read a script. We interpret. We shape tone, emotion, and pacing. We tell the story behind the words. And most importantly, we make the audience feel something.
AI can generate a voice.
But it can’t generate presence.
It can’t create trust.
It can’t be remembered.
So if you’re a content creator, brand manager, or business owner thinking about the trade-off between cost and quality—remember this post. And remember those comments.
Sometimes, trying to save a few bucks on narration can end up costing you something far more valuable: your audience.

🎙️ Need a narrator your audience will actually listen to?
Click here to work with me »
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Mark Bowen
Professional Voice Actor | markjohnbowen.com