Audiobooks Builder — Fablehaven
I was assigned to create an audio book using audiobooks builder for my Immersive Authoring class. This would include creating both cover and chapter art for the book, as well as ensuring the right metadata is correlated with the file. As I started to look for free audio book files that I could use for my project, I realized that files would be much more difficult than it sounds unless I wanted to create an audiobook about a very long book that I have never read that was most likely very old. Therefore, I decided to go looking at libraries for the book Fablehaven — a book I both have read, and enjoyed.
After downloading the files for the audiobook, I realized they had downloaded in a bunch of separate files that were categorized into folders labeled as separate “discs”. There were approximately 8 downloaded disc files and each file contained anywhere from 10–13 files.
In order to separate these by chapter I had to listen to the beginning of each file, and then make note of which file each chapter began. Once I knew how many chapters there were and where they started and ended, I uploaded all the discs to audiobooks builder and began organizing the files by chapter. I made each chapter a folder in audiobooks builder. Once these files were organized into chapters, I created an outline for my metadata possibilities.
Once organized and separated, I began on my cover and chapter art. I took the cover of the Fablehaven book, and using Photoshop made the title smaller so that the book cover could fit into a square. I also found a good image of one of the fictional characters in the book, and decided to use this as my chapter art. I would include the title of each chapter, as well as the chapter number on the chapter art so a reader felt a little more sense of place.
Once I had correctly placed each chapter cover art with it’s corresponding chapter, I proceeded to build my audiobook. In audiobooks builder, there are different “build settings” that you can use to customize your audiobook before the file build. I ended up attempting to use many of these as my audiobook continually downloaded into iTunes in weird ways.
Within the build options, there are 4 different settings, break between files, between chapters, equal length, and per chapter. If I used any other setting besides per chapter, I continually got an audiobook that was not separated by chapters, but was one large file consisting of 9 hours and 17 minutes.
Finally when I used the per chapter setting, my audiobook came through separated by chapters, however the cover art did not pull through, and each of the chapters were labeled as chapter one by their chapter art. I had to go through and manually place all my images. If I attempted to change the cover art of the audiobook however, it changed every single graphic for every chapter into the cover art, and completely got rid of the chapter art that I had just individually placed. I had to entirely restart placing my chapter art.
After placing all of my images correctly, I decided to try and duplicate the audiobook to see if my images would transfer to the new version. All my metadata pulled through correctly, except the images, which only came through as the cover art. I, once again, had to go through and individually replace all of my chapter art.
So ultimately, by the end of this, I realized I have significantly wasted my time thinking I needed to see each image with each chapter. However, if I select the chapters tab at the top of my screen, whether the audiobook is one large file, or is separated by chapters, the chapter artwork is shown for each chapter. If I make it one large file, then I can skip ahead to head chapter if I click that chapter artwork. Although I’m stoked to have figured out my problem, I am truly and deeply pissed that the program isn’t advanced enough to separate it into visually, and have the chapter artwork be shown per chapter without having to select the chapters tab at the top of iTunes.
After finally figuring out how I wanted this file to work, I tested my metadata and cover and chapter art on my iPhone by uploading my file to iCloud and pulling it up on my phone. My phone, very successfully pulled up the cover art, and progressed throughout the book successfully showing each chapters cover art.
Testing:
I tested the metadata on my boyfriends Asus laptop, and the cover of the audio book was gone, but all the other metadata remained the same. The chapter art continued to change with each chapter. I decided to test it with two applications (the only applications this particular laptop would support my m4b file). I used both VLC media player, and Windows Media Player. Both had the same problem that occurred. Not only did the cover art disappear, there seemed to be no way to access the metadata at all.
I tested the audiobook on my dell laptop as well, but all the metadata and art came through perfectly and I was very excited. The cover art, chapter art, and all the appropriate metadata turned out exactly as I had planned it.
My last test I performed on my iPhone. All the metadata came through exactly how I wanted it and the cover art and chapter art did as well. I even loved the way iBooks organized my audiobook. Each chapter is organized separately with the chapter art and it was amazing.
I’m not sure why the cover art was gone during the first test on the Asus laptop, but I’m wondering if it had to do with the outdated application that I used to view the audiobook. The laptop is very old with outdated applications, and none that were specified to listen or view audio files and their accompanying data. All in all, I was very excited about my testing results, and hopefully, when you pull up my audiobook, it reveals just as excellent of results.
In short, the beginning of this assignment was hell and I never want to deal with iTunes nor Audiobooks Builder again. Once I understood how it truly worked, and accepted that it worked even though it may not look exactly how I liked, I enjoyed the way my work turned out.
