Thanks for the sound file.
First audiobook?
I mastered it and it did pass ACX Check, but noise did it by fractions of dB not the recommended 5dB. -60.29dB, not -65dB.
Nobody can read directly into ACX. Or if you do, it was by accident and you can’t do it twice. You’re stuck with recording close and using the mastering steps.
This is the approximate recording standard. Wave tips occasionally at about half way. This illustration is an actual non-symmetrical voice towards up. Some people announce like that. Sometimes a microphone can do that. There is one insanely affordable microphone which does that to everybody’s voice.
The bouncing sound meter should occasionally try to turn yellow.
Your “Opening Room Tone…” sample doesn’t have very good Room Tone.
[Shuffling, shuffling, adjusting pants, settling in, arranging pens and pencils, breathing, hitting the desk] “Welcome to AWS certified…”
This is the classic place where you would be intentionally recording clean, clear room tone and duplicate/copy/paste that wherever it’s needed.
I think there’s a microphone defect. I hear sharp frying sounds instead of gentle, spring rain in the trees of normal microphone noise (ffffffff).
-60dB background noise, in English, means your noise has to be a thousand times quieter than your voice. Nobody gets that relationship until the first time they set up a microphone in their house or apartment.
It’s also possible you are recording your computer fans or other ventilation or air conditioning noises in the room.
And that brings us to voice quality. When you pass the actual ACX company version of ACX Check, you then have to pass Human Quality Control where a real person evaluates theatrical quality and your ability to read. You can read OK, but it sounds like you’re recording in a bathroom. ACX’s ideal is sitting across from somebody telling you a fascinating story over cups of tea, not talking to you down a long hallway.
There is no fix for echoes. “Big Room” sounds are permanent, so you have to not make them during the recording. There are a number of relatively simple fixes for this.
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/too-compressed-rejection/52825/22
You may have a content problem. Can I buy your presentation on Amazon as either a real book or eBook? That’s a step one requirement. There was one poster trying to publish both at the same time. It wasn’t fun.
There is also a list of book types they don’t like. Scroll down.
https://www.acx.com/help/200878270
Koz