Perfect Audiobooks in iTunes

Do you want to get your audiobook from CD to iTunes? But not just as thousand songs – but as one file that goes into the audiobook tab both in iTunes and on your iPod? Do you even want chapters for your audiobook?

This tutorial will show you how to import your audiobook from CD and then get it into iTunes to show up under audiobooks with chapters!

So, let’s get this thing started.

This tutorial has two starting points. One of them is, if you have already imported a audiobook into iTunes. The other starting point is, that you still need to jam all of those CD’s into iTunes.

If you still need to import the audiobooks into iTunes, then start with the first step. If you have them in iTunes already, skip to step two.

1. Get your first CD of the audiobook and put it into your Mac’s CD drive. Open iTunes and navigate to the CD.
   If you want chapters for the audiobook, then set the titles for each track. Without joining the tracks, import them into iTunes.
   If you want to not have chapters, then select all the tracks and the go to “Advanced” in the menu bar. Choose “Join CD Tracks” and then import.
   

   

2. Now that you have your audiobook in iTunes, select all the tracks for it. If you chose to have chapters, then you will have some hundred files. That’s fine! If you didn’t want the chapters, then you only the same amount of tracks as CD’s.
   In any case, as said, simply select them. Make sure you do not have any other songs running.
3. Now visit Doug Adam’s AppleScript Collection for iTunes and download his free Join Together application.
   As soon as you have downloaded it and dragged it onto your HD, open it up.
   Remember, you still have your audiobook tracks selected in iTunes!!!
   If you want chapters, you will also have to download the Chapter Tool and place it in the Music folder of your account. Thus, it should be found at: Username/Music/ChapterTool/.
4. Join Together will now do some work and then return a list of your selection in the list on the left. Rearrange them, if needed, into the correct chronological order.
   

   

5. Now fill in the audiobook information on the right. Now let’s move on to the QuickTime settings.
   Set the data rate to any value you wish. The usual standard is at 128 and the high-end is at 320.
   Then hit “.m4b” for the “Save as” option. This part will make the audiobook go into the audiobook section of iTunes and of any iPod (iPod nano, iPod video, classic – whatever).
   Lastly, if you wanted chapters, go ahead and tick the “Use ChapterTool.” Don’t forget that you cannot tick this unless you have moved the ChapterTool to the Music folder as described two steps earlier.
6. Now hit “Proceed.” “Join Together” will now open a zillion QuickTime windows and join your tracks. It will then export the whole thing. It might look like that “Join Together” has frozen – but it has not. That is just the nature of AppleScript.
   When finished, “Join Together” will automatically add the new audiobook to iTunes. If you have chosen the “.m4b,” it will add it to the audiobook tab.

There you go! All steps done! You can now enjoy a audiobook, chapterized , bookmarkable and audiobookized. Have fun!