Now it gets soft and mushy. In My Opinion, as long as you’re not medically messed up, natural breathing sounds might be left in. I’m in a minority. Most performers want to apply extensive surgery to the work, getting rid of mouth ticks, pops, breathing, etc. I agree with the mouth ticks, but not the breathing, I know some performers that build breathing into the performance.
There is also a split between voiceover work and audiobooks. Voiceover work (voice of a cartoon or host of a show) needs to be perfect, Audiobooks need to meet ACX Check and then it’s their opinion.
And another item. ACX Check is our tool. Flynwill developed it from several other, existing tools. We have strong evidence it matches the AC Robot, but they have no idea we’re doing this.
I looked up one of the other posters that submitted a test to ACX ahead of the “real” read.
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-send-a-test-to-acx/49588/1
You should probably do that before you read the whole book again.
I said there are a couple of obsessive things I would do further. I would apply very gentle Noise Reduction to make the background noise sink even more into the background. Then I might apply a tone shift to make the voice a little less sharp and crisp. That will help suppress mouth ticks in addition to being a little easier on the ears.
Somebody will post you need to apply the De-Esser tool.
But these are all slight improvements and they may not prevent your publishing.
So now it depends on your theatrical goals. I know, right? It’s read the stupid book and go home.
Koz