A (2:46)

Super cool.

B (2:46)

What time is it in Egypt? That would.

A (2:48)

That would be five hours, six hours difference. Yeah.

B (2:51)

Would be ahead. Yeah, probably, maybe like. Yeah, something like that.

A (2:54)

Not too different from European. Not too like London. I think it's the same time.

B (2:58)

Is it the same?

A (2:58)

I think so.

B (3:01)

But it is so wonderful to see everyone. But anyway, so, yeah, we're talking about that as well. But we're talking about.

A (3:07)

Yeah.

B (3:08)

Also us launching a new audio drama. So very excited about the audio drama called after the Siren.

A (3:15)

And you know, you've been wanting to do this for. Oh my God, how long? Like.

B (3:19)

Oh, yeah, it's been a long time. It's been a long time. And now we are able to finally do an audio drama as well as make money from the audio drama. A lot of what we've been talking about last week was putting on our business hats, right. For voiceover. And how are we actually going to make money? I put out a coffee time, which by the way, I'm excited to be putting back coffee time in the mix. So we. Coffee time. So, okay, so here's my idea. You're gonna laugh, but I tell you what, I did. All right. So of course we have VOJ Vo Journey Academy is something I've been doing for a long time and you know, put out coffee time. I think I'm almost like to 400 episodes coffee time. But here's the crazy thing is, is that we have Academy Voices as well. And Academy Voices has its own YouTube channel. It has its own, it's monetized. We do, we do a lot over there, but we don't necessarily have any sort of everything through. Academy Voices is basically, you know, us putting out our content for people to listen to, like you know, audiobooks and so forth. And our aud dramas will go out there. So, you know, we earn revenue through, you know, people listening to that stuff. However, there's not a face to Academy Voices and there's not something there. So I had this idea that I wanted to do which is really interesting facts about authors. Right? Like authors and our famous authors do. Right. I mean just, you know, it's, that's not like a brand new idea or something. But here's what I want to do. I want. I, because you know, I, I come on here and I'm, I'm like, you know, I'm in my whatever clothes and whatever, but I want to be like I, I want to wear a costume. So when I do, right. So I do this, I want to be like an old time writer type of costume. Now I have, I have a cigar, but I was thinking more about getting like a pipe, you know, and I'm gonna do like, you know, like facts about the office, you know, something like that. And, and yeah, like I have like, so I was trying, I got to get like a button up shirt with a tie.

A (5:21)

Smoking jacket.

B (5:22)

Yeah. You know, like glasses and I have my cigar or I Was thinking the cigar or a, or a pipe. I mean, probably a little more with it, but anyways. And then, you know, like, I'll come on and do. This would be the office fractions of day, you know, and we'll. And there's some really interesting things. And I was speaking of authors, facts of the day was. I'm sorry, I'm totally off on a tangent here, but this is interesting, is that, you know, I was looking up because, And I know you're quite partial to H.P. lovecraft. Yeah, I, you know, I didn't know a lot about H.P. lovecraft's life. And I mean, beyond, you know, what, like, you know, was he popular and everything? Right. And so forth. I'm going to find out. He was not at all. In fact, you know, he died pretty poor and pretty much thinking that he was a failure.

A (6:18)

A lot of phenomenal writers did. I mean. Yeah, yeah.

B (6:23)

And, and that, you know, but then over time, you know, in the whole. I think the cult was born with the Cthulhu, you know, the, the following with Cthulhu and the mysteries there. And I think, you know, he's become now one of the most prolific, you know, horror writers of all. But at the time, wow, you know, it was very poor. And no one, you know, was not, I mean, I think it was like, mystery. What was the, the. I guess most of his stuff was published in, like, a mystery magazine or something like that, sort of. And it just. No one, no, he, no one knew him. No one really cared about his work, and he didn't really make anything from it. And I just found that super interesting, you know, same thing. And I always say the same thing about. Now, Mozart, at the same time was, was very, of course, famous, but died penniless and a nameless grave. Right. And, you know, I, I, it's just, it's, you know, and then you look at one of the most probably famous and important musicians of all time, you know, at least in our lives or our lives in our, in our, our history. So I think that it's, it's always interesting. Which led me down the crazy pathway. They always say I didn't want to be like Mozart. And what I meant by that is getting all the way full circle.

A (7:38)

Right, Right.

B (7:39)

Is that I always said I didn't want to be like Mozart because I didn't want to do, you know, these, you know, die on the hill, these crazy things, and then die penniless in a nameless grave.

A (7:52)

Yeah.

B (7:53)

Or die with no one knowing, you know, like, poor. Right. And no one knowing who I was. I. I ventured on early saying, I don't care if I die. No one knows who I am, but I want to die with the money in my pocket so I can en life.

A (8:05)

Right.

B (8:06)

So full circle to all of that craziness we were talking about, how can you build a more financially stable business? I love somebody down there. Talking about how do you promote your audiobooks on a zero budget? You're in the right place. That's all we are about zero budgets around these parts. That's right. I'm on it today.

A (8:29)

Oh, man.

B (8:30)

Do you want to get a word in maybe?

A (8:32)

No, I'm enjoying this. No, no, I am enjoying this. You. You. By.

B (8:37)

Continue. Yeah, no. So anyways, yeah, I think that, you know, all. Again, all that being said, all that crazy stuff is for the academy voices stuff that's going to be fun. We're gonna. We're doing some more stuff there. We're really growing. But anyways, I put out a coffee time this morning talking about. I'm trying to say who. Someone had asked me who I. What I thought was the part in voiceover. And I'm gonna ask you this, Gabby, too. But what I thought was a genre or a category and voiceover that was really booming or should kind of, you know, go all in or at least put some more effort into. Right, of course. You know, I said, I really believe this morning that I've had audiobooks, audio dramas, audio production in general. Putting out audio performances in places where you can earn revenue is a great way to not only get yourself out there in front of people, but also own some of those productions and have you make some money at the same time. What are your thoughts about on specific places like that? So I put that out on coffee time this morning about what I thought and then some people were commenting on that.

A (9:45)

Yeah, for sure. I think that that's a big, big part of where we are seeing, you know, a lot of things move in a direction where actors can be a little bit more hands on in their own ability to generate residuals. So, yes, I think, I think any of that is great. I always think that being ahead of what's happening technologically because anything that's going on in tech is going to generate opportunities, and that is always important. And, you know, I kind of always go commercials because they're just so dang plentiful and there's so many of them. And if you're tracking them properly, there's always the opportunity to make money again on renewals without having to do any additional work. Work.

B (10:35)

So, yeah, I love that.

A (10:37)

Yeah.

B (10:38)

Okay, so we do have.

A (10:39)

Okay, so, yeah, we got questions.

B (10:40)

James did post. James says, what do you suggest about how to promote our audiobooks on a zero budget? I love it. So, you know, first things first, you know, if you have, I would recommend, you know, get some social media accounts. All right, That's. If you don't. If you don't have some yet, get some. If you do, that's great. What I. What we like to do, right, is first off, you've got to just simply think about, does anyone even know that you've done an audiobook or an audiobook exists? You know, because think about it, right? Like you. There's so many. Which means that if you think about it, most of the time it's making people aware. The fortunate thing about audiobooks is that everyone. I mean, we all love to listen to them. Audio. I mean, audio dramas, podcasts, I mean, they are. We're always looking for a great story. Our thirst for stories, for entertainment, for an escape these days, unquenchable more than ever. Right. And, you know, now that we can consume. Oh, go ahead. Were you gonna say something?

A (11:41)

I. Yeah, I was also gonna say there's something else to it, you know, in the fact that we've never been more connected, right, as a people, but we're also the most alone we've ever been. And so there's a very real need psychologically for people to have company in the form of a lot of these kinds of entertainment, right. It makes us feel less alone. It's like, you know, back in the day, grandma used to turn on the tv, right, just to have some background noise and to have some company. Now, you know, it doesn't. We're not stuck with just like the Price is Right and Judge Judy. You know, we have choice, and we can pick and choose what we want those experiences to be. So it's very powerful.

B (12:25)

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So. So you want to first, you know, start by letting people know, by posting, hey, list really excited, released a new audiobook. Here's a link. Check it out. Take a listen, tell me what you think. I mean, that's the first thing to do is to just post that you've done an audiobook. You know what I mean? Also, if you know the author, tag the author, all right, in it. That's one way to do it. Another thing to do it is to start, and this is a little bit more advanced, but start an email list, right? Start something to where, you know, you have People, maybe your friends. Share it with some friends and family. Start putting together an email list of people who like to listen to audiobooks and grow that email list. You know, I think we probably feel sometimes as voice actors that we're just on an island by we just saying we're on island by ourselves. No one out there is like experiencing what we have and want connection. And all of us want connection.

A (13:28)

Yeah.

B (13:28)

All of us want to feel like we're part of a group, a part of something. Right. So make that a part of what you're doing. So that's another way to do it as well. You can do things like I do and create funny shows, creative following and, you know, you can also. I like to do little minute or last snippets of the story, you know, maybe some fun facts. You can do all sorts of things and post it. But I would say social media, email, things like that. That's. That's probably the most free you're gonna get.

A (14:05)

Yeah.

B (14:06)

You know what I mean? At the moment, besides just word of mouth, telling your friends and family and.

A (14:10)

Things like that, I think this is also where reaching out to other podcasts and other outlets to go, hey, I'd love to be a guest. You know, I'd love to talk to you about some of the work I've done that can be very fruitful as well.

B (14:29)

Speaking of podcasts.

A (14:30)

Oh, boy.

B (14:31)

Dylan has a question about what places host audio dramas. Is it the same place that host podcasts? Yes, yes, yes. I mean, yes and yes.

A (14:42)

And they're effectively one in the same. Or they can be. Right. Because podcasts are. We're to a point where there's so many genres of podcasts and so many different styles that. Yeah, like there's. There's one I've talked about before, and I've. I've actually been to some of their live shows. It's called Old Gods of Appalachia. And that's basically what they do. It's audio dramas and it's true, you know, like. Like stories, mythical stories. Right. And they have. There's. They have musicians and there's. So there's a lot of different components to what they do, but it's very much story time. And. Yeah, it's just you.

B (15:25)

I love that it's a.

A (15:26)

It's a podcast, though.

B (15:27)

Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So think of it. Absolutely. So think of it as, you know, podcast as more like a radio. A radio channel.

A (15:36)

Yeah.

B (15:37)

Just think of a podcast like that, because that's really what it has become.

A (15:40)

Yeah.

B (15:40)

And Then you can have anything you want on that radio channel. All right. I mean, when it comes to audio, right, you can. You can post, you know, anything you want. So I use. So for VO's Journey podcast, I use a place called Buzzsprout. There's like Podbean. I mean, there's all sorts of ones you can use. I mean, YouTube has its own. Now, YouTube doesn't stream to other. It just streams through YouTube's podcast, but you can stream to YouTube. But YouTube has its own podcast platform. So, I mean, there's so many places out there, and they're typically. I mean, they can cost a little bit of money, just a couple bucks a month, you know, if you're going to post a decent amount. But a lot of them also, they already have revenue built in. Right. So you can put ads on your thing without even have to contact people. I mean, again, these are the. We talk about technology. Don't let. Don't let your. Our frustration for certain forms of tech that's a pain in our Patukas take away from the other forms of tech that's actually helping us earn more money, for sure.

A (16:45)

Yeah. And I mean, in most of those hosting platforms for podcasts, they're so cheap, so fantastically inexpensive. It's a wonder that literally everyone doesn't have a podcast, even though. Right. That's the joke that everybody has a podcast.

B (17:00)

Well, it is. And. And you know, all it is, everybody is literally just an audio file. You just make an audio file and then you're uploading it to that platform. And then what that platform does is it creates an API or like a stream key, just like we're using right now to go live on these other places. And basically it streams it to this platform. So like itunes used to be, before all these other places popped up, you had to go individually and create, like, account on itunes and you had all this. That was stupid. But now it's really. Now it's super nice because now you can just go through these platforms and they go everywhere. Put on Spotify, put all these places. Now you can go to them directly as well. But it's not. But these places make it easy to just stream them everywhere.

A (17:43)

Yeah.

B (17:44)

So, okay, let's see. We've got. Joy says hi, Gabby.

A (17:49)

Hi.

B (17:50)

Speaking to you, Gabby, Joy, by the way, welcome. Joy joined VO Journey Academy.

A (17:56)

Yay. Oh, my gosh, I finally got to work with you. I. I already feel like I know her. She's been such an avid viewer of my stuff on YouTube. And like, I feel like, she's here with us most days.

B (18:10)

Yes, she's always here with us. We love Gap. We love Joy. All right, so she says, hi, Gabby. Speaking of commercials, I've been seeing an uptick of video game trailers. Do you think that will be a trend in 2026? If so, how do I get to those casting calls?

A (18:27)

Yeah, I think, you know, video game trailers, slash commercials have been quite popular for a while now. Yes, I think that there's going to continue to be more of them, especially because the culture of gaming has changed so much, and with so many platforms and so many options, some games really have to advertise heavily. I mean, look, right now, it's almost hilarious. If you're on any streaming service, you cannot escape the ads for Royal Match. That sucker has been. And they have gotten every celebrity on the face of the planet to participate in that campaign. It's wild how much money they're spending. So, yeah, I do think that will continue. And the big thing in terms of booking, that sort of work, most of those companies, at that point, they are either using an ad agency or they're using a specific casting company. Now, sometimes it's the same casting route that they take for the games themselves. So it is definitely worth having those companies on your radar. But I think a lot of them, too, are just, you know, I've seen some on Backstage, but I feel like the majority of those are still going through talent agents. So that's where that becomes a really worthwhile area of your business to cultivate if you're at that point.

B (20:01)

Nice. Gabby, have you noticed. I noticed this yesterday. I've been noticing this, but I've been noticing a lot of, like, commercials that are. They're reusing from our youth.

A (20:12)

So. Yeah, the nostalgia trend. Yeah.

B (20:15)

Have you seen that? I've been seeing that. Like, I saw for the first time in a long time, I saw an, like, a Keebler yesterday that was, like, old. I mean, now, mind you, it was a little bit more up to date, like, when it comes to, like, the a. The. I don't know if it's AI. The. The cartoon, but it still was the old Keebler in the tree with the vaults. And then, of course, you know, the lollipop. What was the Tootsie Pop one? Of course, that ones. You know, that was it. But have you been seeing that?

A (20:42)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. About two years ago, Campbell's Reintroduced, and it's the exact same ad from when we were kids of the little boy who comes inside and he's a Snowman and his mom gives him the bowl of Campbell's soup.

B (20:54)

Yeah.

A (20:55)

And that they. This. So part of it is, yes, they're capitalizing on nostalgia. They're capitalizing on recapturing the childhood moments of kids of the 80s and 90s. And it's mainly because this stuff was iconic for us. You know, our generation talks a lot still about the slogans and the jingles and. Right. That they're really captured us because they were so prolific during our upbringing. So, yes, a lot of places are. Are latching on to that and trying to come up with innovative ways to reincorporate them into their advertising. Yeah.

B (21:35)

Yeah. You know, so I think that there's. There is a lot of. There. There still is a lot of opportunity in, you know, the commercial arena. There's a lot there. I mean, it's funny because I was. I woke up and I had a couple different jobs from a couple different platforms this morning, so that was nice.

A (21:52)

Yeah.

B (21:53)

You know, and that's always fun, but, you know, you never know what it. What the. What's going to happen in our industry and what's going to be, you know, you know, happening in the world. You know, even though, Gabby, you've only been along just a little bit longer than me, but you know, for the. For the years I've been doing this, you know, lots happen. I mean, you know, we could argue, you know, with COVID and everything like that. A lot's happened. So, you know, things are going to happen in the. Lots happening in the world right now. You know, a lot of stuff with. With just people. Economy and.

A (22:30)

And yeah, for sure.

B (22:32)

Everywhere. So, you know, that does affect advertising dollars and it affects people's spending. And that's why I think it's a great idea to continue following the path that you. That you want to on focus, follow this, your business, but also keep that business hat on and be aware that there's also places that don't seem to be affected. There are a few. I know I'm harping on audio books and. And audio productions, but there are a few that don't. Video games. I'll be honest with you. Video games. There's somebody that. It's the entertainment stuff. Yeah, right. Because when crap hits, I think you talked to we. I remember. I remember you talking about this too, Gabby. When crap hits the fan. Right. What are we gonna. When we're miserable, what are we gonna do? We want more entertainment.

A (23:16)

Entertainment. Yep.

B (23:17)

I mean, you know, so. And. And, you know, when we're working hard, we want entertainment. I mean, like.

A (23:23)

Sure.

B (23:24)

So it's just a part of, I think, actually good thing for us.

A (23:28)

It is. It is. People always need a bit of an escapism, and we're happy to provide. Andy from Cancun, man. Cancun, Egypt. I am so jealous. Hi, Andy.

B (23:38)

That is awesome. Andy's always in Cancun.

A (23:41)

All right, so I guess we will.

B (23:45)

Yeah.

A (23:45)

Group tomorrow and.

B (23:47)

Absolutely. I love it. I think. I love the idea about maybe talking more about the promoting with a zero budget and, you know, different ways, you know, to get into, like, different things to do on social media. Really? Have we talked about social media?

A (24:09)

A little bit.

B (24:10)

A little bit.

A (24:11)

I mean, it's always kind of woven into everything we do, but, yeah, sure.

B (24:16)

Yeah. I just. I. I think that I. I think that we could chat more about how to take it more seriously.

A (24:22)

Yeah. We can also break down some of the different areas because I do think the platforms are important to explore, because if you don't. If you. If you're reaching or trying to reach the wrong audience, you know.

B (24:35)

Absolutely. That's a good point. All right, everybody, thank you so much for watching. Yay. Talk to you guys. Goodbye.