When to use Quick Fix vs. full re-narration
Quick Fix is built for surgical edits. Use it when:
- A proper noun (character name, place, brand) came out wrong.
- A homograph went the wrong way — "lead" the metal vs. "lead" the verb, "read" past vs. present.
- The narrator rushed a punchline or under-emphasized a key beat.
- A line break got eaten and two sentences ran together.
Don't reach for Quick Fix when the entire chapter feels off — wrong narrator, wrong pace, wrong tone. In that case, change the voice or settings and re-narrate the whole section. You'll spend less time and the audio will be more consistent.
How to edit audiobook recordings, step by step
1. Open the chapter that needs fixing
From your dashboard, go to Projects and click into the book you're proofing. Each chapter or section is listed with its narration status, duration, and a Proofed checkbox.
2. Play back and mark the timestamp
Hit play on the section. When you hear the problem, pause and note roughly where it falls. The waveform and transcript scroll together, so you can scrub back a few seconds without hunting blindly.
3. Select the exact text to re-narrate
In the chapter's text panel, highlight the words you want to replace. Quick Fix works on selections from a single word up to a full paragraph. Smaller is usually better — a 5-word fix blends more invisibly than a 50-word one because the surrounding audio doesn't change.
4. Run Quick Fix on the selection
With text highlighted, click Quick Fix. The system re-narrates just that selection using the same narrator and voice settings as the rest of the chapter, then splices the new audio in place. This typically completes in 10–30 seconds depending on selection length.
If you want to tweak phrasing — say, spelling "Siobhán" as "Shi-vaughn" so the AI gets it right — edit the highlighted text first, run Quick Fix, then revert the visible text afterward if you need the printed version unchanged. The audio keeps the corrected pronunciation.
5. Listen, and re-fix if needed
AI narration is non-deterministic. The first regeneration might still get a name wrong, or the inflection might land oddly. Just run Quick Fix again on the same selection — you'll often get a clean read on the second or third try. Each Quick Fix is cheap on credits compared to re-rendering the whole chapter.
6. Flag the section as Proofed
Once you're happy, tick the Proofed flag. This is your own checklist, not a quality gate — but for a 30-chapter book, it's the difference between knowing where you are and starting over every session.
7. Re-export your master files
After your last fix, export a fresh ACX-mastered MP3 ZIP or single-file M4B. The export pulls your latest audio for every section, including all Quick Fix patches. If you've already submitted to a distributor, upload the new master to replace the previous version.
A realistic editing budget
For a 60,000-word novel (~7 hours of audio), plan on:
- 3–5 hours of focused listening at 1x–1.25x speed.
- 15–40 Quick Fixes across the book — mostly proper nouns and the occasional homograph.
- One full re-narration of maybe one or two sections where the original take just didn't work.
Authors who skip the proofing pass and ship the first render almost always get a return-rate spike from listeners who notice the rough edges. Two evenings of editing is cheap insurance.
If you're earlier in the process, our complete guide to making an audiobook covers the steps before this one, and turning a book into an audiobook walks through upload and narrator selection. For why we don't recommend targeting Audible directly, see making an Audible book.
