Audio-Bibliophiles discussion

If you have a question about downloading books or maybe want to know if someone else had the same problem as you & what they did to fix it. Post Here!! :)

I've been listening to audiobooks for many many years. First in tape cassette format, then in CD format, and now in audio download (MP3 and WMA) formats. Here are a couple of tips that I've learned:

I frequently download audiobooks from the public library. They are in MP3 or WMA formats. The WMA-format books are generally licensed for 3 weeks, and then they stop. This can be a big downer, since it can take longer than 3 weeks to finish a book. So, I use a computer utility called Tunebite to re-format the files. It's a bit inconvenient, but it removes the time limitations of the audiobook. The Tunebite web page says that it's completely legal--I think that it is legal, as long as you do not share the files with other people.

So, my process is:
1) Use Overdrive to download audiobooks to my computer.
2) Use Tunebite to translate the format to MP3 files (56kbps, Monophonic--not stereo)
3) Transfer the MP3 files to my Sansa Clip player.

And another tip for MP3 players:
a) Would you like to listen to audiobooks faster (or slower) than normal, without the "Donald Duck" effect?
b) Would you like to set multiple bookmarks--even if your MP3 player seems not to support that function? For example, set a different bookmark in each book you may be listening to?
Then you may be interested in a free product called Rockbox. It has been developed for many different MP3 players and other portable devices. It's extremely powerful, but somewhat complicated at first. Use at your own risk.

Here is an article I put together on downloading WMA audiobooks to your Apple iPhone/iPod touch.

More specifically: getting past the "Parameter is incorrect" error that you will receive if Windows Media Player's DRM files are not up to date & then getting the book onto your device.

I downloaded She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, got to part 3 chapter 7 and it won't go any further. Told me to send them a bug report. I returned it to Audible but now deciding what to do to finish this book. Maybe get it from the library. I didn't LOVE it enough to buy it but geeessh would like to know how it ended.

Christine wrote: "I downloaded She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, got to part 3 chapter 7 and it won't go any further. Told me to send them a bug report. I returned it to Audible but now deciding what to do to finish ..."

Hi, I got that one as well . . . I went back and downloaded it and had to reload the second part twice . . . but finally was able to download the whole book. Did you try to download the file again? Sometimes I get a corrupted file message and I have found if I wait a few minutes and then retry the download it finally loads correctly.

thanks Tomerobber. I will try that :)

My husband does (I believe) pretty much what David does. But he uses Audacity and loves it. (just an fyi)

I hope I am not suggesting anything illegal, but I have quite good results with tts software (I use this one http://www.spesoft.com/free-text-to-m... ). I know, many people say how horrible tts generated voice sounds, but I have realized that even in normal audiobooks, many times I do not remember whether the narrator was male or female. With tts software it takes a bit getting used to, but after the first hour or so you should not have a problem listening to it, and I have to say that I no longer recognize that it is not a real voice (I now it is weird, I remember how robotic it used to sound...brain is simply amazing). Other good thing is that you can gradually increase the speed of the reading so I am now quite close to my actual reading speed. This way you just need to purchase or rent an ebook, and you can have an audiobook out of it within minutes. As I said, I am not sure about the legal side of the thing, but I myself do not keep the mp3s (no need, you can always generate them again) so hope I am safe :).