Audiobook Pronunciation: Agree How the Names Sound

An audiobook can have a warm voice, clear sound and a convincing performance while leaving an important question unresolved: how does its central character’s name sound? If that name changes between chapters, a listener may have to work out whether they are hearing one person or two.

For an independent author, pronunciation deserves a production decision before it becomes a repeated habit. A short, agreed guide can carry that decision between author, narrator and editor. Where digital narration is involved, it also provides a reference against which to assess the generated speech.

Begin with the names on the cover

ACX’s director’s-notes template, published on 3 September 2024, includes the author’s spoken name, a phonetic pronunciation cue and specific notes for names and places. It suggests discussing pronunciation with the narrator and highlights invented names and languages as cases requiring particular preparation.

Include the author name actually used for the edition, especially where it differs from the production account holder’s name. Then identify the recurring characters, places and terms whose intended pronunciation is not clear from spelling alone.

Keep the working record compact:

• The word exactly as it appears in the manuscript.
• The approved pronunciation cue and, where useful, a short spoken reference.
• The first chapter or passage where it occurs.
• Who confirmed the decision and when.
• Any deliberate exception that the story requires.

Make uncertainty visible

Consider a fictional fantasy project whose author has invented the name “Kavren”. During preparation, the author and narrator discover they place the stress differently. The spelling alone leaves that choice open. They can agree the sound, record it and try it inside a sentence.

That sentence matters to the editorial decision. The author may recognise the intended sound immediately when saying the name alone, then hear that their written cue leaves room for a different reading. The spoken reference and the cue should support the same decision.

For a real person or place, record the basis for your choice instead of presenting an unsupported guess as authoritative. Mark unresolved entries clearly. An uncertain note should remain a question for the production team until someone has checked it; copying it into a tidy document does not resolve it.

Keep pronunciation and performance separate

Google Play Books’ narration guidance distinguishes several issues relevant to digital voices: accent can affect pronunciation, some identically spelt words have different readings, and pronunciation changes cannot add extra emphasis. It recommends matching the narrator’s language to the ebook’s language.

That distinction is useful when giving feedback to a human narrator too. In the fictional project, the author can approve how “Kavren” sounds while leaving room for the actor to speak it tenderly, impatiently or in surprise. Fixing a name need not prescribe every dramatic choice.

Describe the actual issue. “The name has the wrong stress” requests one correction. “The warning needs more urgency” concerns performance. Separating those requests lets the team decide what to revise without treating every difference in delivery as a pronunciation error.

Choose an early sample that tests the difficult parts

ACX’s rights-holder checklist, dated 6 October 2026, says its 15-minute checkpoint script can combine material from different parts of a book. It recommends including main characters, dialogue, descriptive writing and tricky pronunciations, with clear corrections requested before proceeding.

For our fictional novel, the opening might contain only one character and no invented place names. A sample chosen solely because it comes first would leave important decisions untested. Select passages that actually contain the entries in the pronunciation guide.

Listen to the relevant word inside the passage, compare it with the agreed reference and record any requested change. Treat approval as applying to the material you reviewed. An early sample cannot demonstrate that every later occurrence has already been checked.

Know what a digital pronunciation control changes

For titles eligible for Google Play Books auto-narration, the pronunciation-check guidance describes reviewing categories such as people and place names. Playing a specific word in that view plays its occurrences through the book. The editing instructions include selecting an available alternative pronunciation, entering a phonetic spelling or using the International Phonetic Alphabet, with language-dependent availability.

These are capabilities of that particular service. In any chosen tool, inspect the available controls and listen to the result. A stored correction is a setting to verify, rather than evidence that every surrounding sentence now sounds as intended.

Check the scope of an edit before relying on it. Determine whether it affects one occurrence or several, and review the affected passages. Keep phonetic production notes separate from changes to the manuscript’s intended spelling. The reader-facing name and the instruction for speaking it serve different purposes.

Give a correction somewhere to land

A useful correction record can be brief: identify the chapter and location, give the word as heard, state the agreed replacement and link to the reference used. Add a status such as requested, revised or checked.

Suppose the fictional author changes the approved pronunciation after reviewing the sample. Update the guide, identify which recorded passages use the earlier choice and agree how those passages will be handled. Sending a new voice note alone leaves the editor to discover the extent of the change.

Once revised audio arrives, close the item only after listening to it. Record which audio version you checked so the confirmation points to a specific revision.

Keep the guide with the finished edition

Save the approved guide with the manuscript version, final audio and correction record. If a later book introduces another narrator, those materials provide a starting point for discussing continuity and any intentional changes.

This fits the wider practice in MaryChuks.com’s guide to maintaining a published book’s backlist: preserve the working records that let a creative asset remain usable. For an audiobook, that includes the decisions about how its words become sound.

A pronunciation guide does not need to direct an entire performance. It needs to answer the recurring questions clearly enough that the author, narrator and editor can concentrate on telling the same story.

Sources

• ACX: Director’s Notes for Your ACX Production — 3 September 2024.
• ACX: Rights holder checklist — dated 6 October 2026.
• Google Play Books: Narration and interpretation tips — checked 24 October 2026.
• Google Play Books: Check and adjust pronunciation — checked 24 October 2026.