How to publish an audiobook
Huge is a great tool for publishing audio content to a specific audience.
Here is how you can use Huge to publish an audio book in podcast form, enabling listeners to either listen online or load your book in their podcast app of choice.
Publish content
Audiobbooks work great as podcasts because both audiobooks and podcasts are both delivered using audio files.
To create an audiobook on Huge, start a new publication and then create a post for each chapter.
Each post should be titled as the chapter name. This will ensure that when viewing your posts on your hosted site or in podacst apps, your listeners will see a list of chapter names.
You can add a quick summary for each post into the Summary field below the title, which will be displayed in post lists on your hosted site and in podcast apps just beneath the episode title.
To add even more detail you could write content into the main post body, which will be used as “show notes” in podcast apps as as the post body on your hosted site. A summary or even a full transcript could work here, too.
Upload your chapter audio file to the post and then click publish.
Posts in Huge are ordered by date. Make sure your first chapter is dated with the earliest date and then the latest chapter with the latest date.
To make sure your chapters are listed in the correct order on both on your hosted site and in podcast apps, change the “Post ordering” setting to “Oldest first” in your Publication settings. This will also tell podcast apps to start new listeners at your first chapter rather than the latest chapter (which is default for all podcast apps).
Public vs Private posts
You have a lot of flexibility to make your chapters publically available or private to members only.
The default for an audiobook is probably to make all posts member-only. You can charge access to the audiobook and then use Huge to deliver the content to your customers.
For a free audiobook you can set all posts as public. This will allow anyone to listen to the podcast. You can also publish your public podcast feed to podcasting directories so that it becomes discoverable in podcast listening apps.
Add members
If you choose to make your audiobook member-only, you will need to add members to your Huge audience.
You can import email addresses from any other platform (for example, a storefront or membership system).
Any imported member will be able to log in to your Huge-powereed hosted site to both listen to your audiobook as well as grab the URL for their unique member podcast feed, which can be added to their podcast app of choice.
Note: Adding a way to charge members for access natively on Huge is on the roadmap.