Narrator guide
Good prep is what separates a clean first take from a week of pickups. Here is the process narrators actually use, in six steps, from the first read-through to the tool you narrate from.
Manuscript prep is everything you do to a book before you record it: reading it through, deciding how each character sounds, working out the words you are unsure of, and marking the page so nothing surprises you mid-take.
It is unglamorous, and it is the single biggest lever on how many pickups you end up with. A misread you prevent in prep never becomes a re-record. Here is how to do it, step by step.
Step 1
Read the entire book before you touch the mic. It is tempting to skip this on a tight deadline, but you cannot foreshadow a reveal you have not read, and you cannot pace a scene when you do not know what it is building toward.
As you read, note the shape of the book: where it starts, where it ends, the emotional high points, and the moments a line lands differently once you know what comes later. This first pass is where prep actually begins.
Step 2
Keep a running list of every character as they appear. For each one, note the voice you will use, their pronouns, any accent or vocal quality, and the chapter they first show up in so you can stay consistent across a long book.
Record a quick sample of each voice and, when you can, share the character guide with the author or rights holder before you record the bulk of the book. It is far cheaper to align on a voice now than to re-record chapters later.
Step 3
Go hunting for the words that will trip you: character and place names, foreign words, invented fantasy terms, medical and technical vocabulary. For each one you are not certain of, look it up and write a phonetic spelling you can read at speed.
Collect these into a single pronunciation list and send it to the author or publisher to confirm. An invented name has no right answer until they tell you, and a prooflistener flagging the same word in twelve chapters is the expensive way to find out.
Step 4
Mark the manuscript the way you will perform it. Note the words to emphasize, especially the ones the author italicized on purpose. Put a mark where you want to breathe or pause, and flag where dialogue shifts between characters.
Call out every point-of-view change and time jump. Knowing a chapter switches narrators or leaps forward a year, before you are reading it aloud, is what lets you set the tone from the first line instead of correcting it two sentences in.
Step 5
A manuscript you read from is not the same as a manuscript you edit. Give yourself a clean, uncluttered layout, a font size you can read without leaning in, and generous spacing so your eye does not lose its place on a long paragraph.
Reduce the number of page turns where you can. Every turn is a chance for a noisy edit or a lost place. PDF and DOCX both work fine; what matters is that the reading view is calm and legible.
Step 6
The last prep step is deciding what you actually read from while you record. Hand-scrolling a PDF works, but it means one hand on the trackpad and your place drifting every time you stop to fix a line.
A teleprompter that follows your voice keeps your hands free and your place steady, and if it flags misreads while you read, a lot of prep pays off the moment you narrate instead of after a prooflistener sends notes. That is the job PromptVO was built for.
Steps two and three, the character guide and the pronunciation research, are where prep eats your hours. PromptVO does the first draft of both for you. When you upload a manuscript, its book prep splits the book into chapters and builds a character cast and a per-chapter vocabulary list with pronunciation hints, so the hard names and invented words are surfaced before you ever hit record.
Then you narrate from a teleprompter that follows your voice, and it flags misreads live as you read. Prep stops being a document you set aside once recording starts. It becomes the thing working alongside you in the booth.
It varies with the book. A straightforward nonfiction title might take a couple of hours: a read-through, a short vocabulary list, and light markup. A dense fantasy or sci-fi novel with a large cast, invented names, and shifting points of view can take considerably longer, because the character guide and pronunciation research are where most of the time goes.
Yes, ideally. Reading the full manuscript first is what lets you foreshadow, pace scenes, and keep character voices consistent. Narrating cold means discovering a reveal, an accent, or a point-of-view change while the mic is live, which usually turns into pickups.
Research each one, write a phonetic spelling you can read at speed, and collect them into a single list you confirm with the author or publisher. Invented words have no correct pronunciation until the author tells you. PromptVO’s book prep builds a per-chapter vocabulary list with pronunciation hints automatically, so the hard words are surfaced before you record instead of caught after.
A clean, readable layout with a comfortable font size and as few page turns as possible. The content matters more than the file type: PDF, DOC, DOCX, and plain text all work. The goal is a reading view that keeps your place steady through a long session.
PromptVO preps your manuscript, follows your voice as you narrate, and flags misreads before they become pickups. Free hours every month to start.
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