Audible Denial For "Extraneous Noise"

Hi,
FindAwayVoices.com submitted a 6-hour audiobook I narrated to Audible on the author’s behalf and it was denied for the following reason:

“free from extraneous noise”

They didn’t give any other info and I’m not sure how to correct this because I can’t find the noise or noises they are referring to. Does anyone have any advice on how I can figure out where the error(s) are to correct so we can resubmit?

The book passed may other audiobook platforms except for Audible’s so I’m at a loss as to how to correct this. The author isn’t even hearing anything that’s jumping out at her either.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

They didn’t give any other info

Post the actual response. Do you still have it there? It’s a mistake to summarize their posting because they usually give examples and directions to their own in-house tools, suggestions, and classes. Even with them running in overload as they have been the last couple of months, people arrive on the forum with details about a submission failure.

"Dear whatever, we are not able to consider your submission, etc. etc. etc.

Did you post a short Audition Sample before you pushed the whole book up to them?

We can do an evaluation here, but you can only post about 20 seconds of WAV format on the forum. You shouldn’t do it in MP3 because MP3 distortion may hide some sound damage.

Is there any way to listen to longer selections outside the forum?

Koz

Does FindAwayVoices post a list of technical specifications like ACX does?

https://www.acx.com/help/acx-audio-submission-requirements/201456300

ACX tends to be the gold standard. If you can publish there, in general, you can publish anywhere else including broadcast. Their standards are similar. It doesn’t work the other way around.

Noise just kills home readers. It’s really hard to get a good, quiet background — or— it’s hard to fake it with software correction tools.

Koz

If that quote is correct, sounds like they don’t accept readings where a noise-gate has removed all the noise between phrases.

Alternatively the full quote is “not free form extraneous noise” , in which case there’s sound other than speech on the recording.


https ://blog.findawayvoices.com/the-audiobook-mastering-guide/

It appears they got most or all of the readings from the ACX specifications. That’s a good thing. You won’t have books that change volume between different suppliers.

I see they’re using a sound editor that has dB values on the timeline. There’s an idea.

Koz

I had an audiobook producer review the audiobook, she does this for a living and said it was very well mastered other than where the problem was. The problem was a chapter that got in there that wasn’t edited at all and full of clicks, echo, etc. I had accidentally deleted the revised version and the terrible raw unedited version was submitted instead. :frowning:

I just have to redo that chapter and I’ll be good. My home studio is actually quite silent but this chapter, in particular, was done out in my living at the beginning of the book before I created a padded pretty soundproof studio where I did the rest of the book.

Thank you for the help though!

I had accidentally deleted the revised version and the terrible raw unedited version was submitted instead

That’s right up there with the book that got rejected because the reader put the wrong number of seconds of silence at the end of the chapters.

We note the bad chapter would not have made it past Audacity’s ACX Check, either.

Glad you’re rolling.

Koz

Thank you!! Honestly, I am where I am because of the help of others and you on here! So thank you again! Audacity rocks!