I threw away Audible’s app, and now I self-host my audiobooks

In addition to self-hosting, I'll throw out a few other alternatives:

Free:

hoopla or OverDrive/Libby via local library membership
LibroVox public domain books read by users

Paid:

For a user experience closer to Audible, I went with libro.fm. You can pick a local, independent bookstore that gets a portion of the sales. Their catalog is pretty extensive as well, have been able to find most books I'm interested in. Books are DRM-free and you can pause your membership.
Downpour - DRM-free as well

DRM-free is important IMO because otherwise you're at the mercy of the platform and if the company ever changes its Terms of Use or wipes your account, you lose your purchases. Amazon/Kobo have remotely deleted books from users' libraries in the past or replaced them with modified copies (e.g. Roald Dahl books). Kindle announced last month they won't let you download your eBooks via USB so it's possible Audible could see changes for the worse in the future as well.

I always mention whenever I see libro.fm brought up: if you don't have a local store you want to support for whatever reasons, Firestorm in Asheville, North Carolina is a fantastic refuge for the local queer community, it's a worker cooperative, and they're struggling to survive. Please consider them if there isn't another local place in your own community. With the big book stores and then Amazon, a lot of communities don't have a physical local shop anymore, so if someone has a plug for their local, I think it's worth making on these kinds of threads.
Unfortunately my local library only keeps like 3 copies of each book and they're already rented for eternity.
- Time to learn how to sail?

Shoutout to Libation, that allows you to download and deDRM your Audible library.

https://github.com/rmcrackan/Libation

Oooooo, but there be dragons.

Documentation? Yer lookin' at it This is a single-developer personal passion project. Support, response, updates, enhancements, bug fixes etc are as my free time allows I have a full-time job, a life, and a finite attention span. Therefore a lot of time can potentially go by with no improvements of any kind
- It's good they put it up front though. There can be a lot of entitlement with oss users sometimes and setting expectations can help alleviate that.
- Actually good for the developer. He is doing it out of his passion and faith in OSS. What more should we want of him? The dude is already a hero.
- It works now, even if later he gets tired of it and walks away it still works now.
Thank you for this

I love Audiobookshelf, my main complaint is the Android app crashes when killed by Android (so when I try to open it I get a message about it crashing and then have to reopen it). That might just be a me thing.

I used the tool Libation to download my Audible books. There was a Firefox extension to download audiobooks from Libby but it's no longer working because Libby changed something and the dev didn't have time to fight the battle, anyone have a good solution to that?

I love Audiobookshelf, my main complaint is the Android app crashes when killed by Android (so when I try to open it I get a message about it crashing and then have to reopen it). That might just be a me thing.

Hmm, I've been using Audiobookshelf on my Android phone(s) for at least the last year without issues like that. Are you using the F-droid or Play Store version? I'm using F-droid if that matters.
- F-Droid. Might be relevant that I'm on GrapheneOS.
Also consider the Lissen app for audiobookshelf on F-Droid. I've been using it and find it to be a much more enjoyable experience
- Ooh thanks for the reminder. It's installed on my phone but I've never actually used it. I think I forget to use it when it comes to actually listening.
If you already have a Plex instance running, Prologue is an app that turns it into an audiobook host as well. Plex doesn’t natively support audiobook metadata like chapters, but Prologue simply uses Plex’s remote access to reach the files.

All you do is throw the .m4b audiobook files into a music library on Plex, sign into your Plex account on Prologue, and Prologue handles all of the metadata for the audiobooks instead of using Plex’s built-in music player.

I mention this because I had massive issues trying to get ABS to work on my setup. It simply refused to read or write any data from my NAS. After a day or two of throwing myself at it to no avail, I found Prologue and haven’t looked back. I already had Plex running for some friends and family, so setting up the music library was as easy as dropping the audiobooks into a folder.
- Thanks for the tip, unfortunately I don't use Plex I'm on the Jellyfin side but someone pointed out there's another app connected to Audiobookshelf so I will use that next time.

Yes, I am aware of where this is posted and am prepared for my inevitable crucifixion as a result. But, like, is this really a problem that requires a self hosting solution? That seems like quite the overcomplication to me unless you absolutely require access to your entire selection on multiple devices that will have 24/7 network connections.

MP3's take up negligible amounts of storage space on modern devices and can be played on anything, and can be easily taken with you anywhere including out of network range.

I guess teaching people how to drag-and-drop audio files onto their phone and open them with VLC would be a much shorter article.

Yeeeah, gonna have to disagree with that. Having dead simple access to your library on any device is amazing. ABS syncs your listening position between devices, has offline downloading, supports rich metadata, collections, customized sleep timers, and quite a bit more.
Mostly agree. Audiobooks are not my thing, but of it were - I'd look for a way to resume where I left off, maybe some recommendation on what to listen to next.

In general - once you're into hosting stuff and past the initial barrier of setting everything up - adding another service is dead simple.
MP3s do not show artwork or keep your place, and they don't sync across devices.
- Artwork
  
  Yes they can, via images embedded in their ID3 tags. This is supported by a huge array of players in terms of both physical hardware and software.
  
  Keep your place
  
  Yes they can, via many players (including both VLC which is what I use, and also my car stereo).
  
  Sync across devices
  
  This much is true, at least in the players I use. There's probably a solution with some specific player somewhere.
  
  But specifically for audiobooks, I don't... need... to play across multiple devices. I listen via only two methods: My headphones (which are driven by my phone) and in my car (which works with my phone). I only actually use one player. It goes with me everywhere. Ours go with most of us everywhere; we're naked without 'em.
  
  If your use case requires a networked solution, you do you. I'm just saying, don't automatically get blinded by how the Streaming Era has kind of fucked up everyone's brain.
  
  Edit: Downvoting me doesn't change the fact that what you said was false.
Yup. Audio books aren't very big once converted to a reasonable format and with the amount of space these days, I can comfortably keep a dozen on me at all times.
I'm with you, but it'd still be nice to have an audiobook centered interface to drag those audiobooks from.
I'd much rather choose the book I want to listen to by clicking on the book's cover than look for it on one of my many harddrives

For those on iOS looking for a companion app, check out plappa for a great app to access your Audiobookshelf/jellyfin instance. It works flawlessly for me, no data collection, and it allows downloading books in advance for on the go if you choose not to have external access to your server.

https://plappa.me/

What I really want is a a similar project for epub files. I’ve not been able to find a web based library that allows easy download and auth based management.

I use Calibre to manage my librairy on my NAS, and COPS (https://github.com/seblucas/cops) to access it from anywhere. COPS just read the Calibre database saved on the NAS, and displays it as a self-hosted web site with all categories (authors, ratings, languages,...) and download links.
- Oooo thank you for this. I already use Calibre but their web offering is imho kinda bad. This looks like it’s pretty much a drop in solution to my problem. If I throw it behind a zero trust page I can even open it up to the open internet.
  
  Thank you for this!
Audiobookshelf supports EPUB files and other ebook formats. You can put them alongside audiobooks (offering a UI option to either read or listen) or use purely ebooks although obviously a little overkill if you aren't using the audio features at all
Have you tried Calibre?

For any other Audiobookshelf users looking at that article and thinking, "Wait, how did they get that nice wooden shelf look in the UI?"

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Nice article! I've been using Audiobookshelf (win) for a year and a bit. Works great with one exception, I can't upgrade it past 2.17.16 on my Win11 box (non-docker). Any attempt to take it past that gives a non-responsive server. Not a big deal because that version is pretty stable.

I use the Voice app on Fdriod but it doesnt do syncing that I know about. I fully recommend instead of using Audible.

If you dont own the files, then you dont really own the media.

@mesamunefire @cm0002 Voice + Syncthing-fork is what I use. It syncs between an audiobook directory on my laptop and my phone.
AudioAnchor + Syncthing for Android via F-Droid has been my mobile audiobook app stack. Takes some setting up and concatenating audiobook mp3s into mkv's for convenience, but I haven't had to touch it since... 2020?

My wife likes murders and romance, any suggestions for eBook?

Like where to find them?

Has anybody any experience with storyteller?

I threw away Audible’s app, and now I self-host my audiobooks - Ars Technica