iTunes 12 Audiobook Creation

Not sure if this will help you...but this workaround seems to work for me:

1. Put the CD in, but don't select auto-upload. Instead, let the list of the tracks load. Sort by tracks (to make sure they're in order) and then highlight all the tracks.

2. In the upper right corner, there's a dropdown list. With the tracks highlighted, select Join CD Tracks. The tracks will be bracketed together now.

3. Then select import.

4. When the dialog box comes up, change from iTunes Plus (which was the default for me) to Spoken Podcast. Also, I have the Import Using option set to AAC Encoder.

5. After the tracks are imported, it looks like you still can't change the setting from Music. But, go to the little Music icon in the top left corner. Then Playlist. Then recently added over in the sidebar. Sort to have your last addition at the top of the list. Whew. Almost there.

6. Right-click on your audiobook and go to Get Info, then to Options. From there, you should be able to (FINALLY) change to Audiobooks under media kind. Also, it's good to select the other checkboxes to remember playback position and skip when shuffling.

A couple of other tweaks that have helped me and may work for you as well:

• If you've already imported an audiobook and it's stuck with its media kind locked as Music, I have been able to extract audio versions of these by right-clicking on each and then selecting "Create AAC Version." While this doesn't convert the file, but rather creates a separate version, the new file allows you to set it with audio kind set to Audiobook. After converting, you can change the new file to audiobook and it will have appropriate meta data options that work better. (To save file space and confusion, after confirming all is well with the new file...I delete the troublesome, locked down "Music" version.)
• Also, once you have your separate CD's imported or recreated as AAC, if you take the time to update the Title and Author to consistent labels and check the box for "part of a compilation," you can then assign the Chapter labels differently for each CD--and all the CD's under the same title/author will automatically merge into a single audiobook. Yay.

These are tricks that I'm using to maintain integrity and playability of my imported audiobooks. There may be better ways to do these things. In fact, I hope so. 😝

I was beyond frustrated with iTunes 12 until I read your clear directions! My audiobook now works fine! Thank you!!!

You could just go the audiobook screen and import the folder or single file. No need to change media type. Cheers.

This solution did not solve my problem. The drop-down menu did not appear.

I read on a different thread to turn off iTunes Match. Then the drop down appears with more than Music. And you can change to Audiobook.

This is great, thank you. Is there a way to join multiple CD's?

Hi,

If you make sure the title, author, and other optional details are the same for each CD (except the track numbers and actual tracks), you can just fill in the disc numbers. So, something like Disc 1 of 3. This will combine multiple discs into one audiobook. If anything is a little different, the discs will remain separate (example: P.G. Wodehouse vs P. G. Wodehouse...just the extra space will keep the discs from combining.)

Note: Be sure not to accidentally over-write the tracks with your disc numbers...as I have sometimes managed to do. 😊

Hope this helps.

Debra

If you don't see the option to join tracks, click the header above the track number first, then it will appear.

So helpful, thanks a ton.

The issue I'm having is that although I can "Get Info" and correct most of the missing info I am unable to add the narrator's name.

This options shows when you got to "Get Info" on the individual tracks, not the whole book, the field exists but is not selectable!

Really stuck on this one.

Any suggestions?

Thank you

EP

that didn't work for me, still can't see drop down box

Hi DLMartin! Thank you for this helpful response. I am able to import my audiobooks into "joined tracks" CDs, but I'm still having trouble getting them to "automatically merge" into one audiobook—can you give more info on how this is done? Is there anyway to force iTunes to "auto merge" tracks into 1 book? I am right clicking the full-CD-tracks (let's say I have 5 tracks for the 5 CDs in my book), "get info"—making sure title, author, composer, genre(audiobook) are all the same, clicking the check box for "album is a compilation of songs..." but they are still not auto merging into 1 book. Very frustrating—because when opened up in iBooks app on iPhone, they're not organized. Do they HAVE to be AAC in order to auto merge? Maybe that's what I'm missing? In which case, I have dozens of audio books already imported as MP3 tracks (again, combined by CD), so is there anyway to merge those? Any advice is appreciated!