Audiobooks are coming into hype rapidly. With the growing audiobook apps, more and more people are switching to the habit of getting into audiobooks. Few of the services like audible and Google Play books gives such good curated contents that make people clung to their services. But all this comes with a monthly paid subscription plan which can be a bit on the expensive side for a few users.

If you are thinking to get hand-on with the audiobooks from somewhere else or use the cracked version then you are wrong, since the audiobooks are DRM-protected and cannot be accessed that easily. Even though these books are readily available with lifetime access to purchase content, but the content is mostly confined within their own ecosystems.

While, on the other hand, there are numerous different websites and services that provides a large library of different high-quality audiobooks for free of cost. And if you are very much keen on reading audiobooks, then chances are you must be already having a good library of audiobooks.

if you want you can download most of the audiobooks in MP3 format from the internet there are many websites that provide audiobooks that can be downloaded, however, you will miss out on some of the features like bookmarking, chapter wise navigation and many more such as small features which aren’t included in an MP3 file.

So, if you want to download an audiobook of the MP3 format and then create an audiobook of your own, then below we have a very good tutorial on how you can create your own audiobook with compatible support for chapters and bookmarks.

See also: How To Download Videos From Any Website

M4B- The audiobook file format

First things first, an audiobook is usually in the form of M4b format and has an AAC encoding with MPEG-4 audio file. Not to mention you can also use the digital bookmarking feature and chapter markers which is supported by the M4b file format.

The Source of your Audiobook

Usually, the audiobook is bundled with one or more audio files and are created from the below sources.

1. Multiple audio files in the format of WAV or MP3 format are downloaded from one of the online websites that provides audiobooks for free and that can be downloaded.
2. If you have good narration skills and your voice is good, you can even try to record your own voice for an audiobook in the format of WAV or MP3 format, make sure you have a good quality mic as well.
3. There is software that provides audiobook creation, like the Audiobook Creator, which can convert EPUB, PDF ebooks into audiobooks through its built-in text-to-speech (TTS) engines.

After you have got the audio file of the desired audiobooks, now you need to convert it into M4B format, and while doing so you need to add the chapters as well as other features which the usual audiobooks have.

Optimize your audio files for the Audiobook

The audio files which you have created as the audiobook might need some postprocessing in order to be audiobook ready. For instance, if you have a single file for a multi-chapter audiobook, then you need to split the file into multiple ones in sequence and equivalent to a number of chapters the file should be split. Not to mention, if the source file is WAV, then we recommend you to convert it into AAC encoding as it will take less space on your hard drive and it will be easier to process AAC files.

The above-mentioned post-processing steps can be performed using any audio editing apps, like iTunes that comes for both macOS and Windows.

Convert MP3/Wav to AAC in iTunes

1. Make sure you have iTunes installed on your computer, if not then download it from here.
2. Launch iTunes and then go to preferences, and then click on Import settings in the general tab.
3. Here you need to select import using AAC Encoder and then select an ideal encode bitrate, usually, it is 64 kbps and it should be good enough for a good high quality audiobook.
4. Now, import the audio files into iTunes simply by selecting all the audio files and then dragging them inside the iTunes window.
5. Finally, select the track which you need to convert and then click on File >> Convert >> Create AAC version. A copy of the file will be created in AAC format.

Customization doesn’t stop here, you can even further go ahead and organize the audio files in iTunes by updating the title, chapter and author of the book, to give it more feel of an audiobook, to do so follow the steps written below.

1. Select all the audio files of a single audiobook, if it has multiple if it has one file then select that, click on Edit items on the popup prompt.
2. Now, go to the options tab and select media kind as an audiobook.
3. Go back to the Details tab and provide the book details.
4. Finally, click on OK. The file will now move to the audiobook section of iTunes.

How to Split an audio file into multiple parts using iTunes

At times you would have a single file for an audiobook and inside which you have multiple chapters. So in that case you need to split the file into each individual chapter-wise. So below we have a quick tutorial on how to split the audio file into different parts chapter wise.

1. First, open iTunes and then head over to Preferences.
2. Click on Import Settings in the General tab.
3. Make sure that while importing the file you have selected import using as AAC encoder and the encoding bitrate is set to 64 kbps or 128 kbps.
4. Now, import the audio file into iTunes that needs to be split, using the drag and drop option.
5. Here, select the audio file and then select GetInfo.
6. From the options tab, you have to select the type of media as Audiobook.
7. On the next screen, you need to enter the start and end time of each chapter for which you want to split the file.
8. Click on Ok and then the file will automatically move into the Audiobooks section of iTunes.
9. head back to the Details tab and then update the book details, which includes chapter names, author name and more.
10. Repeat the same process for each chapter which needs to be split.

Convert Audio files to Audiobook with Chapters

By now you know how you can create your own audiobooks, and even how you can split your audiobook file into multiple files so that it has chapters as well. However, there’s still one method left through which you can get hands-on an audiobook with chapters. If you have followed the above tutorial then you must be having an audio file in the format of AAC which is split into multiple files depending on the chapters and is saved inside iTunes.

Let’s try and export these audiobooks from iTunes to a different location for better reachability. So to export it to a different location all you need to do is right-click on one of the completed audiobook projects and then select show in finder for mac or open file location on Windows. It will export each of the individual files to that location, so from here we will try to bind all the chapters into one single file with the help of a software tool.

Below is a tutorial in which we will be using an Audiobook binder for Mac, and we will bind the chapters into one single file.

1. First, download and install the Audiobook Binder for mac from the mac App Store.
2. Open the App and then select the files tab.
3. Here, click on the + button located at the bottom left corner of the screen and then select the processed multiple files which are already split into chapters. make sure that you select each files chapter wise in a sequence that will be shown on your final audiobook.
4. Next, enter a few details about the audiobook like author details, title and the preferred genre of the book.
5. You can also add an image for your audiobook by clicking on the cover tab.
6. Finally, find and click on the Bind button and then select the location where you want to export the M4B file. Now, wait for the process to complete.

Your new audiobook is ready as a single file and it includes chapters as well. You can transfer the audiobook to your Android or iOS device from where you can listen to it anytime anywhere you want it to.

Listen to Personal Audiobooks on your iPhone or Android device

There are a few apps that are available on both the Google play store and the Apple App store that can play M4B or MP3 formatted audiobook files which are stored locally on your device. Since the official apps like iBooks, Google Play Books, Audible provide DRM protected content, so to play the audiobooks which are stored locally on your device we need some external apps.

For iOS devices, users can transfer their newly created audiobook m4b file from computer to their iPhones or iPad using iTunes sync or WALTR 2 and then further they can listen to them using the iBooks app on their device. However, if you want to stream M4b audiobooks from cloud storage then you can use CloudBeats Audiobook and bookMobile. These two apps are the most popular audiobook streaming apps which can play from cloud storage like iCloud, Google Drive and more.

Similarly, for Android counterpart users can use Smart Audiobook Player and Listen Audiobook Player are the two of the reliable apps that supports cloud streaming of audiobooks from Google Drive, One Drive etc.

To Conclude

With this, you have one less reason to skip listening to audiobooks in your free time. use any of the above methods to compile your own audiobook for free and then save it on your Android or iOS device so that you can listen to it anywhere anytime on the go.