Publishing & Distribution

Radio Novel doesn't publish anywhere on your behalf — you own the finished files, and you submit them yourself to whichever podcast directory, audiobook store, or aggregator you choose. This page covers exactly what you get to work with, where it's realistic to send it, and what to expect when a given service asks for something beyond the file itself.

What we deliver

Every completed take includes:

  • The compiled final mix — narration, Foley, ambience, and music blended into one MP3.
  • Individual tracks — a separate, perfectly-synced MP3 for every character, plus Foley, ambience, and music on their own, so any single element can be remixed, replaced, or dropped without starting over. All audio is delivered as 320kbps MP3.
  • Video, if you've converted a take — an MP4 with AI-illustrated scene images synced to that take's own audio (see Video Productions).

Because each chapter or scene is its own take, a book made up of several takes already comes to you as one finished audio file per chapter — the shape most audiobook services expect a submission to be in.

Where you can publish

A finished take can be released as a podcast serial (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube), an audiobook (Google Play Books, Apple Books, Kobo), or distributed to a wider network of retailers and libraries through an aggregator such as Author's Republic or PublishDrive. Video takes are just files, too — upload the MP4 anywhere that accepts video.

Every one of these AI-narration policies works the same basic way: disclose that the narration is AI-generated, and you're allowed. We don't currently list Audible or any service whose only AI pathway requires producing the audio inside that service's own tool (rather than accepting an independently-produced file like ours) — those platforms aren't a fit for a Radio Novel production today.

Bundling a whole book: the LPF package

Submitting one file per chapter is the norm, but some audiobook stores and aggregators instead expect — or accept — a single package for the whole book. For that case, Radio Novel can bundle every chapter in a group into one .lpf file: a W3C Lightweight Packaging Format audiobook, an open, non-proprietary format — a zip containing a JSON-LD publication manifest, a table of contents, and every chapter's compiled audio in reading order.

Bundling assumes your book is already organized as a group on Audio Productions — groups are just how that page organizes chapters that belong to the same book, and they're what the LPF builder bundles. If you haven't set one up yet:

  • Create a group from the Manage Groups option on that page, or just type a new group name the first time you assign a chapter to one (below) — either way makes the same kind of group.
  • Add chapters to it from each audio production's own card menu (Assign to Group), or simply drag a chapter's card into the group's section.
  • Chapter order matters for the LPF's own reading order, but you don't have to fix it here first — the Publish LPF review screen below lets you reorder chapters directly. If you'd rather do it on this page instead, switch Sort by to Manual Order, then drag a chapter's card up or down within the group's section; any other sort re-sorts the list by that criterion on every visit, so a drag made under it won't stick.

Every group's header carries its own Publish LPF button once it exists, whether or not it has chapters in it yet.

To build one:

  1. On Audio Productions, find the book's group header and click Publish LPF.
  2. On the review screen, set the book's Title and Author, then check the chapter list — it's in the order the package will play in. Rename a chapter or move it up/down right there; both save immediately, the same as elsewhere in the app.
  3. Reconcile voice credits. Because each chapter casts its characters independently, the same underlying voice can end up under a different character name in different chapters — this screen groups those together by voice so you can give it one consistent credited name. Every voice is always credited as an AI voice (following the Audio Publishers Association's own recommended disclosure format), regardless of what name you give it.
  4. Every chapter in the group has to be Complete before the button unlocks — anything still in progress is listed so you know what's holding it up.
  5. Click Generate LPF. The build runs in the background, so the page goes read-only ("build in progress") until it finishes — you can navigate away and come back. Once it's done, the page shows a download link for the finished package plus when it was built; that link stays there on future visits too, not just right after building. Rebuilding replaces it with a fresh one, named after whatever the book's Title was at build time.

Preparing a submission

Every service sets its own technical bar for a submitted audio file — loudness level, silence padding at the head/tail of a track, sometimes a short spoken chapter announcement, sometimes separate opening-credits/closing-credits/sample-clip files alongside the main recording. None of this is unique to Radio Novel's output; every audiobook, AI-narrated or not, goes through some version of this prep before submission. Two things make it straightforward starting from what we give you:

  • Loudness and padding are ordinary edits in any audio editor, applied to the compiled mix you already have.
  • Extra pieces like opening/closing credits are just more chapters — create a short take from the credits text you want read aloud, the same way you'd produce any other scene.

The individual character/Foley/ambience/music tracks exist for exactly this kind of situation too — if a service's requirements call for a different balance than our default mix, you have every piece on hand to remix it yourself rather than being stuck with only the finished blend.

Requirements change — verify before you submit

Every platform named on this page and on our homepage sets its own rules, and those rules change over time, without notice to us. We do our best to keep this page reasonably current, but we don't control any of these services and can't guarantee that what's written here still matches a given platform's actual requirements on the day you submit. Before submitting anywhere, check that service's own current documentation for its audio specifications and AI-narration disclosure requirements — see also our Terms of Service for the full statement on third-party distribution platforms.