Custom audiobook table of contents (TOC)

Overview

When you upload an audiobook to Google Play Books, you can specify a custom table of contents (TOC) as described in the W3C Audiobook Specification.

With this simplified example, you can learn how to upload audio files and a custom TOC. Detailed use cases are covered in the specification.

At a high level, to upload audio files and a custom TOC:

1. Create an HTML file with a name “toc.html” that specifies your TOC.
   • Example
2. Create a manifest file with a name “publication.json” that lists your audio files and points to your TOC.
   • Example
3. Add “toc.html” and “publication.json” to a folder alongside your audio files.
4. Zip the folder.
5. Change the file extension from “.zip” to “.lpf.”
6. Upload the “.lpf” to Books Partner Center.

Simple example

Important: The sections below provide more detail with the use of a simple audiobook as an example.

To upload a custom TOC for an audiobook called “My Cool Audiobook” with an ISBN of “123,” that comprises 5 .mp3 files:

• 123_1of5.mp3
  • Prologue
• 123_2of5.mp3
  • Chapter 1: Beginning
• 123_3of5.mp3
  • Chapter 2: Middle
• 123_4of5.mp3
  • Chapter 3: End
• 123_5of5.mp3
  • Epilogue

Step 1: Create a directory

To start, create a directory or folder with the name “123,” since “123” is our audiobook’s ISBN.

Step 2: Put audio files in the directory

Add your audio files to the directory you created. The directory structure looks like this:

123/

├── 123_1of5.mp3

├── 123_2of5.mp3

├── 123_3of5.mp3

├── 123_4of5.mp3

└── 123_5of5.mp3

Step 3: Create a TOC file

Create a file with a name “toc.html” to hold the table of contents:

123/

├── 123_1of5.mp3

├── 123_2of5.mp3

├── 123_3of5.mp3

├── 123_4of5.mp3

├── 123_5of5.mp3

└── toc.html

Step 4: Populate the TOC file

With a list of the files and the names that should shown for them in the TOC, populate toc.html:

<nav role="doc-toc">

 <h2>My Cool Audiobook</h2>

 <ol>

  <li><a href="123_1of5.mp3">Prologue</a></li>

  <li><a href="123_2of5.mp3">Chapter 1: Beginning</a></li>

  <li><a href="123_3of5.mp3">Chapter 2: Middle</a></li>

  <li><a href="123_4of5.mp3">Chapter 3: End</a></li>

  <li><a href="123_5of5.mp3">Epilogue</a></li>

 </ol>

</nav>

Tips:

• The title of the book goes between the <h2> tags.
• There’s one <li> for each audio file.
  • For example, if you want to split one audio file into multiple parts, it’s possible to specify multiple table of contents entries.
• The href attribute is the relative location of the audio file.
  • In your case, this is just the name of the audio file since toc.html and the audio files are in the same directory.
  • If you put the audio files in a subdirectory with a name audio, the value of the prologue’s href attribute will be audio/123_1of5.mp3.

Step 5: Create a manifest

Create a file with a name “publication.json” to hold the audiobook’s manifest:

123/

├── 123_1of5.mp3

├── 123_2of5.mp3

├── 123_3of5.mp3

├── 123_4of5.mp3

├── 123_5of5.mp3

├── publication.json

└── toc.html

Step 6: Populate the manifest

Populate publication.json with details about the audiobook:

{

  "@context": [

  "https://schema.org",

  "https://www.w3.org/ns/pub-context"

 ],

  "conformsTo" : "https://www.w3.org/TR/audiobooks/",

  "name": "My Cool Audiobook",

  "resources": [

  {

   "name": "Table of Contents",

   "rel": "contents",

   "url": "toc.html"

  }

 ],

  "readingOrder": [

  "123_1of5.mp3",

  "123_2of5.mp3",

  "123_3of5.mp3",

  "123_4of5.mp3",

  "123_5of5.mp3"

 ]

}

Tips:

• The value of the name is the title of the audiobook.
• The resources array contains a reference to toc.html.
  • When you adapt this example to your own audiobook, you shouldn’t change this element of the resources array unless you put a different name for your TOC file other than toc.html.
• The readingOrder array contains a list of relative URLs for audio files, listed in the order they should be presented to the listener.
  • In your case, entries in the readingOrder array are just names of audio files since publication.json and the audio files are in the same directory.
    • For example, if you put the audio files in a subdirectory with the name audio, the URL that represents the prologue file will be audio/123_1of5.mp3.

Step 7: Zip the directory

Compress the 123 directory into a ZIP archive named “123.zip.” The exact steps vary by operating system, but here are instructions for:

• MacOS
• Windows

Step 8: Rename the zipped directory

Change the file extension of the zipped directory from “.zip” to “.lpf.” So, 123.zip becomes 123.lpf.

Result

In the example, the above steps should produce a ZIP archive with this structure:

123.lpf

├── 123_1of5.mp3

├── 123_2of5.mp3

├── 123_3of5.mp3

├── 123_4of5.mp3

├── 123_5of5.mp3

├── publication.json

└── toc.html

Step 9: Upload to Google Play Books

Upload 123.lpf through the automated fetch process or in the Google Play Books Partner Center.

Related resources

• The Settings tab