How to create audio books in iTunes

By Donald Bell on 10 December 2008

Getting iTunes and your iPod to treat audio books as audio books — not some random playlist of songs — can be a struggle. Here's how to do it.

Digital audio books come in all shapes and sizes. You can purchase them online from sites like Audible, eMusic, and iTunes. You can download free audio books from places like Archive.org. Or, you can rip audio books to your computer from CD. Unfortunately, no matter where your digital audio books come from, getting iTunes and your iPod to treat them as an audio book — not some random playlist of songs — can be a struggle.

If you've ever purchased an audio book through iTunes, you may have noticed that the file appears in a separate audio book tab in your media library. Keeping your audio books separate from your music library not only makes them easier to find, but it also prevents chapters of Crime and Punishment from popping up in a party music playlist.

iTunes even treats the playback of audio books differently than music playback, allowing you to adjust the playback speed of the file and automatically resume any previously played chapter where it left off instead of starting at the beginning.

You don't have to purchase your audio books from Apple to get the special iTunes audio book treatment. By tweaking a few settings, you can make iTunes and your iPod recognise any audio file or group of audio files as an audio book. To find out how, take a look at our step-by-step guide to creating audio books in iTunes. Note that this tutorial requires Tunes 8.0.1 or higher.

To create an audio book file in iTunes, first import the audio you want to use. This could mean ripping an audio book from CD, downloading an audio book from the Web, or even recording your own audio book using an application such as Audacity. Whatever it is, drag and drop the audio into iTunes or import it using iTunes' "Add file to Library" or "Add folder to Library" commands, found in the iTunes File menu.

(Photo credit: Donald Bell, CNET.com)

Topics: audiobooks, itunes, audio, itune, book, photo credit, books, cnet.com, audiobook, file

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Comments (13)

  • Thanks commented on 04/10/2009 00:07 Report abuse

    That was a very easy and non complex explanation. Thanks heaps!!! Great help!

  • Tim commented on 28/09/2009 08:19 Report abuse

    Thanks! This article was a great help to me. I was able to import a couple audio book CD's following your instructions without any problem whatsoever.

    I have a couple questions:

    1) Do you know how to create a single file of all the chapters that still have the chapter breaks?

    2) One of my older audio books (that most important 20th century classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, read by the author) created a single file without chapter breaks. Do you know how to put chapter breaks in?

  • Star_Fox commented on 22/07/2009 23:37 Report abuse

    Great guide. Thanks!

  • Claymano commented on 13/06/2009 01:57 Report abuse

    One other thing...I don't understand why Apple doesn't incorporate a drag and drop for organizing the files. I am having lots of trouble with the number putting the tracks in the wrong order for audiobooks. I have tried after the fact to make it work by renumbering but they don't change their order. I have to make a playlist for each disk as I go or it gets jumbled.

  • Claymano commented on 13/06/2009 01:53 Report abuse

    It worked great! Thanks a lot. The only problem is that while it removes them from the Music on the ITunes list, it still lists them under the music as well as under the audiobooks on the IPod. I have not tried the shuffle to see if it will play only music but I will. But all in all it helped organize beautifully on the ITunes.
    Thanks.

  • jd commented on 22/05/2009 23:38 Report abuse

    Are you kidding this doesn't work I have done this and my audiobooks with similar titals show up track 1 first for ALL the disks then track 2 for all the disks please try again.

  • Nellee commented on 04/05/2009 06:45 Report abuse

    Why do all the other websites try to make this process so hard!! Thank you!!

  • V commented on 12/04/2009 23:58 Report abuse

    This is fantastic. Thank you. Solves a long standing annoyance for me, that I had repeatedly tried to solve without success (and without any help from Apple!)

  • macropod commented on 09/04/2009 16:23 Report abuse

    The problem is this routine doesn't always work with a non-ipod mp3 player.

  • vinniethevole commented on 06/04/2009 08:48 Report abuse

    That was awesome. Thanks!

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