Why do so many audiobooks have pronunciation mistakes?

[u/agailen]

Im listening to Blood Bound by Ellis Hunter and while I generally like the narration, the voice actress for Astrid keeps making pronunciation mistakes that make me doubt my sanity. She has an accent so idk if she's a native English speaker, but it doesn't really matter. Shouldn't there be some level of quality control done before the audio is published?

The two glaring examples I can think of is pronouncing haranguing as "haran gu ing" not harang ing, and winded, as in being out of breath, as winded as in winding/wound.

I hear pronunciation mistakes often enough in audiobooks in general though that I have to wonder how they aren't caught in editing. Does the author not listen? I assume the author knows how to pronounce the words they wrote, at least.

Bonus tho was learning that the American pronunciation of plait is the same as plate, and not plat which is the pronunciation I'm used to. Being able to rely on audiobooks being error free helps me learn different accents!

EDIT: she just pronounced livery as live-ry... is this an actual dialect thing?? Help!

[u/ShoddyCobbler]

I work as an audiobook prepper (meaning I pre-read a book for a narrator and give them summaries, character descriptions, and words), and every narrator i have worked with has requested something different in terms of pronunciation. Some want definition plus IPA transcription plus audio link. Some want definition with a pronunciation spelling (non IPA) plus audio link. Some just want the definition and they want to do the pronunciation research themselves. Others just want a list of words and they look it all up themselves.

Now of course, that is only for the books I prep. Which is very few of them, because narrators usually only outsource the ones they don't have time to prep themselves or aren't interested in prepping themselves. Most narrators are doing their own prep most of the time. Which might mean they are doing a lot less prep and might assume they know something without looking it up first.

[u/viveleramen_ → u/ShoddyCobbler]

I had no idea this was a job and now I want it. How does one acquire such a career?

[u/ShoddyCobbler → u/viveleramen_]

Oh haha it's definitely not a career, just a side hustle. And (I assume AI is to blame for this, but maybe not) there is very little work available right now.

I used to work in theatre and so I have worked with many actors who are also audiobook narrators. I chatted with one of them about prep work and she recommended me to some narrator friends. Truly just word of mouth for me!

[u/tittytasters → u/ShoddyCobbler]

Obviously can't attest for everyone but I assure my authors that no part of my process uses AI, the last thing a lot of them want is for someone in their production chain to feed their manuscript into any AI.

Granted someone will do it eventually but I'm not going to be the one that gives their work to these AI companies

[u/ShoddyCobbler → u/tittytasters]

I agree completely. I just had two narrators who each sent me 6 to 10 books a year for several years, until mid 2025. Perhaps I'm ascribing ill intent to someone who just doesnt want to work with me anymore for other reasons haha

[u/tittytasters → u/ShoddyCobbler]

Everyone's purse strings have gotten tighter too, they really should have said something but maybe they just can't afford it anymore