Creating Audiobooks with Chapter Divisions from MP3 files.

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Level 1

8 points

Creating Audiobooks with Chapter Divisions from MP3 files.

I can create a plain old audiobook file from mp3's using this program...

http://www.freeipodsoftware.com/

I have several unabridged books that have one 15-20 min mp3 file per chapter. I have heard that i want to keep audiobook file sizes below 320MB for stability reasons, so i've been breaking up the audiobooks to have 8-15 chapters per file, which yields about 5 audiobook files per book. My problem is that sometimes i want to skip a whole chapter. The program i listed above doesn't have the capability to insert chapter bookmarks/divisions.

Can someone please provide instructions or a link that shows how to take mp3 files that have 1 chapter per file, and turn them into audiobook files that have the appropriate file size for stability/quality and chapter divisions/bookmarks that i can skip to within each file?

Windows XP Pro

Posted on Oct 16, 2008 9:18 AM

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Answer 1

PeishMan Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 17, 2008 6:13 AM in response to PeishMan

That only sets the import settings when i insert a CD, does that work when i import mp3 files from teh hard drive? Since each mp3 is a chapter, can iTunes combine multiple files/chapters into a single larger file?

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Answer 2

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Oct 16, 2008 8:26 PM in response to PeishMan

I can create a plain old audiobook file from mp3's using this program...

You can also do it using iTunes 8.
select the files in iTunes, right click - get info.
Click the Options tab and set the *Media kind* to Audiobook.

I have heard that i want to keep audiobook file sizes below 320MB for stability reasons

If you are importing from CD, import them using AAC 32 kbps and tick *Optimized for voice*. This will keep the file size pretty small (around 10-12MB per hour). Since they are only audio (not music) you will likely not be able to tell the difference.

No idea of anything for Windows to make multi-chapter audiobooks.
Check out www.versiontracker.com

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Answer 3

PeishMan Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 16, 2008 8:33 PM in response to Chris CA

Thanks for the reply. I'm not importing them from a cd, i just have the mp3 files sitting in folders on my drive. Can i convert them to 32 kbps AAC files from mp3 files? I really don't want to have 50 files for each book. That was one of the reasons for converting them to audiobook format and combining them. Now instead of 50 files per book i have 5. any thoughts?

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Answer 4

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Oct 17, 2008 6:45 AM in response to PeishMan

That is used to Import from CD and also works when converting songs in iTunes.
You can convert directly when adding songs to iTunes.
If you look under the Advanced menu, there is an option to Create AAC {or whatever is set in Import settings}. This is used (as mentioned above) when converting songs in iTunes.
If you hold {Option on a Mac, not sure what it is on Windows - maybe alt}, you can select it and then select a file/folder on the HD.
This will import the songs into the library and convert them directly to the selected format. This is instead of adding the files, then converting them then deleting the original file.

Since each mp3 is a chapter, can iTunes combine multiple files/chapters into a single larger file?

No. As I noted above, I do not know of any Windows programs to do this. There are a few available for Mac.

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Answer 5

PeishMan Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 16, 2008 8:03 PM in response to PeishMan

bump

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Answer 6

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Oct 16, 2008 8:37 PM in response to PeishMan

iTunes prefs -> General.
Click the *Import settings* button and set it to what you want.
Select all the audiobook files in iTunes, right click - Convert to AAC.

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Answer 7

PeishMan Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 17, 2008 6:57 AM in response to PeishMan

what if i jsut wanted to turn them into multi chapter audiobooks say ten chapters per file, that DIDN'T have the chapter divisions?

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Answer 8

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Oct 17, 2008 7:00 AM in response to PeishMan

You would need a 3rd party application to combine multiple MP3 tracks into one track.
Check out Audacity (google it). This may allow you to import multiple files and save them as one.

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