Q: I have several books on CD that are not showing up in my audiobook playlist on the iPod. How do I take a book on CD and get it into this playlist?
– Jesse
A: The audiobook playlist on the iPod, unfortunately, does not look for the genre of your audio files, but looks for the file type. Files must be what is called “bookmarkable” in order to show up in that playlist.
(Audiobooks purchased from the iTunes Music Store or Audible.com are automatically in this format.) Only AAC files can be bookmarkable; you can find out how to make the change in our recent article The Complete Guide to iPod Audiobooks.
If your audiobooks are in MP3 format, you can convert them all to AAC, then make them bookmarkable, though this may be a lot of work. (However, bookmarkable files are much better, since they hold your place when you stop listening to them.)
Another solution is to create your own Audiobook playlist to which you manually add all your audiobook files.
Or, if your audiobooks are tagged by genre as Audiobook, then you can access them by selecting Music > Genres > Audiobooks; it’s one level below the built-in Audiobook playlist, but it will save you from converting your files.
