Tagging audiobooks

Because audiobooks use the same tags as your music files, you need to ‘translate’ audiobook information to music-based tags.

There’s no common standard for which tags to use, so much will depend on how your audiobook player translates those tags.

Try the following tag scheme: Author (First name Last name) should be Artist, while Narrator (again First Name Last Name) should be Album Artist. Use Album Title to record the book’s title. If your audiobook is split across multiple files, use the Title field to record chapters or parts (for example, Chapter 1, Part 1); if not, record the book’s title here too. Don’t forget disc and track number information if relevant. Finally, use a single genre – Audiobook – to help filter your audiobooks in other programs.

All this tagging must be done by hand, unless you’re an Audible user, in which case you can use OpenAudible to download your previously purchased books in MP3 format, complete with ID3v2 tags and embedded artwork. You’ll need Java, then download the DEB version of OpenAudible from https://openaudible.org. Open a terminal window and use the following commands from your Downloads directory:

$ sudo dpkg -i OpenAudible_deb_1.5.3.deb

$ sh /opt/OpenAudible/OpenAudible

When it opens, press Ctrl-B to open your browser, navigate to the Audible website and log into your account. Once connected, your library should appear ready for you to download.