Playlists for Audio Books in iBooks

Thanks so much this works like a dream...I hope you win the lottery!! Ram3799

So I stumbled upon a solution to this... while updating some IOS apps I saw an update for Google Play Music... and then I remembered that a few releases back of OS X I had a tool in System Preferences that would sync my playlists with Google Music. So I checked online and sure enough, my playlists were there and most importantly... in the order I want them in. I listen to a lot of sermons when driving. Oftentimes to get a balanced interpretation of things, I'll listen to more than one person speak on the same portion of scripture. So maybe I'll listen to Jon Courson teach on Gen 1:1 and then listen to Chuck Smith teach on the same thing. Then back to Courson for Gen 1:2, etc. Some pastors do topical studies as well, so I might listen to a "through the Bible" message from Courson of Genesis 1:1, then 1:2, then 1:3, but then listen to a "topical" teaching on "Creation" also from Courson. My point is simply that I have my own order I like to listen to them in. This has worked fine for years, but recent changes with iTunes, IOS, etc have obviously broken this.

BTW: why is that I still manage Audiobooks in iTunes on my Mac, but they're iBooks in IOS? Wouldn't it make sense to have them *also* be in iBooks in OSX and for say iTunes to sync with Music between the OS's but for book/audiobooks to both be managed and sync'd between iBooks in both? I think this is part of the core issue... my "sermons" playlist is in iTunes on my Mac, not in iBooks. But on my phone, there's an Audiobooks section in iBooks now. The problem, as others have pointed out, is the audiobooks section of iBooks on my phone show all the sermons, but not in my playlist order. I'm sure this has to do with CarPlay and Apple Music and wanting to put everything into the cloud. But the fact that I can't cable-sync some items and cloud sync others is a pain. At minimum, Apple needs to show the "Playlist" under the Audiobooks in iBooks on IOS, not just the title, author, genre, etc.

Regardless, today I re-installed the Google Music Manager and let it re-sync (took a bit as a lot had to upload and update). Once done, I fired up the Google Play Music app and low and behold it was all there. It shows my "Sermons" playlist (which is just MP3's) as a music playlist and works just as it should. The only gotcha is I lost the ability to play them at 2x speed, but at least its there. Once I went to IOS 9, they weren't there at all, much less at 1x speed (and yes, I tried setting all as "music" in iTunes... they still didn't come over). The next plan is to see if I can do the same thing with Amazon since I'm also a Prime user.

I hope this benefits some of you. I saw the guy on this thread that posted about his own app. I appreciate it, but I saw the same thing his screenshots in his App Store listing showed: namely no playlists. Google, for now, seems to still let me have audiobooks listed as a music playlist and control the order "my way". I do like Apple and am in their eco system on multiple levels, but the "their way or else" mindset is getting a bit old. Maybe I'll get lucky and get a Google or Amazon music player on my Gen4 ATV soon...

So now we're at iOS10 - has anyone found new methods or fixes for using playlists for Audio Books? I'm still using MagnusB's Audiobook Browser, which works, but I still wish there were a native Apple option.

For what it's worth Audiobook Browser didn't work at all for me initially in iOS10 - I'd select an audiobook and instead a random song would start playing. But that problem went away after a couple of restarts and, well, typical iTunes/iOS syncing stuff - erase everything, reload, all that kind of stuff that's now part of Apple's "It just works" approach. (I doubt this is a problem with the app at all; it's just how Apple works these days!)

I've also noticed that my Audio Book playlists are once again appearing in the Music app. Alas, there's no content in them, so they're just annoying clutter.

So, I had the same problem and finally figured out a way to fix it.

First, iBooks is a kludge. Does not work at all with audiobooks. There is, however, an Apple app that was designed specifically for large audio files - Podcast.

Hook our iPad up to your computer and move all of your audiobooks to the iPad. They will show up in the 'Audiobooks' folder of your iPad. Go to that folder and you'll see all of your audiobooks. Select all of them then right click on the selected group. You'll get a message asking you if you want to edit all of these file and just click the 'OK' button. Click on 'Get Info.' As part of the 'Get Info' dialog you'll see the 'Options' button. Click on that tab and look for 'media kind.' It should indicate 'audiobook'. Change it to 'Podcast'. Then click 'OK.' Wait for a bit because the iPad has to munch along on these files.

Go to your iPad and start the 'Podcast' app. You'll se your audiobooks there. So easy a cave man could do it....

Hmm ... thanks Bob Holiday, and I'll consider that, but one problem is I already despise Apple's Podcasts app and started using Overcast instead about a year ago. I was almost gleeful a few days ago when I finally managed to delete the Podcasts app with iOS 10! Now I don't sync podcasts at all with my computer. However, Overcast does have a "File Uploads" option, and I'll look into that.

Let's see ... I dislike the native iBooks app, and use Audiobook Browser instead; I dislike the native Podcasts app, and use Overcast instead; and I'm trying to figure out an alternative Music app as well ... there aren't any apps out there that do what Music used to do, are there? Just display all your audio content in playlists? All in one app? Ah, those were the days.

My wife is the one who is addicted to audiobooks - they just put me to sleep. My solution for her was to keep an older iPod and not upgrade the iOS. Turned WiFi off and use it solely as an audiobook player. She's happy and so am I. The Podcast solution was for my sister-in-law. She'll be happy too. Now, maybe someone can tell me how to stream from her iPad Pro to her Amazon Echo device. She's really like that.....