IPod Audiobook Sorting is HORRIBLE

I have to say I am really disappointed in the way audiobooks behave on the ipod. I have a bunch of audiobooks I got from CDs, as well as a few spoken word albums (comedy mostly), that I would love to reclassify as audiobooks to keep them separate from my music.
Reclassifying them in iTunes is easy and organic, but once I pull out my iPod, everything is a mess. All the audiobook chapters are separated as if they were individual books and thrown together in one alphabetical mess. iTunes knows better, but apparently my iPod never got the memo.
I've done a lot of online research, and I apparently have a few terrible options:
- Classify the audiobooks as music (which means they will clutter up song lists, and show up in shuffles)
- Rename every audiobook track so they group properly
- Create playlists for every book
- Purchase third party software that will join all of the tracks into one file!!!
Really??? My iPod can't just organize things the same way as iTunes??? Why is this so hard?

Here's what I do that works well... I see you use a Mac so you are in luck. Sorry to the Windows crowd I don't think this is available there.
I'm assuming you've brought over an audiobook from a set of CD's like I did. After it's in iTunes you highlight all the tracks (I do 1 disk at a time) and launch Join Together. You have to fill out the disk name (I abbreviate a lot) and and then hit a couple of OK type boxes. It takes a little while but it creates a new single track. Then you "Get Info" on that and change the type to Audiobook. Trash the original in iTunes.
Now you have a single track for the whole disk and there are chapter jump points ... not sure what you call these. It sync's right over into the Audiobook section nice and separately. I think this is donation-ware and there's an upgrade price. I was very happy when I found this, I think the donation was ~$5-$10... worth every penny!
I agree Apple should fix this!

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Why does my new iPod touch sort music by album artist, instead of song artist?

I recently go an iPod touch 4th Gen. My old iPod sorted music by song artist, but the new one sorts it by album artist. My problem is this: There is an album called Re:generation. It was a project in which 5 DJs each made 2 songs for the album. So I enter the info for each song, but my iPod sorts it by album artist, which is listed as "Re:generation". I wanted the songs to be sorted by the 5 artists that actually made the songs, so there would be 2 songs under 5 different artists. If I wanted to listen to the whole album, I could press the album tab, scroll down to "Re:generation" and play the whole album. This all worked fine on my old iPod, but now it doesn't.
My first solution was to change the album artist on each song to the artist that created that song. But then by iPod list 5 different albums, so I can't listen to the album as a whole if I wanted to. My next solution was to erase the album artist info for each song, but now none of the ten songs can be found under the artist tab. I have to go over to the album and pick which song I want to hear.
If you don't understand, here's an example. 2 of the songs on the Re:generation album are by Pretty Lights. I want to be able to select Pretty Lights under the artist tab, choose all songs, shuffle, and have those 2 songs play at some point. But I would also like to be able to got to the album tag, select Re:generation, and play all 10 songs in order. However, the new setup won't allow me to do this.
So I'm wondering if I can fix the problem by somehow editing the iPod's sort settings (if possible), or reverting back to the old system (if possible), and why Apple even changed the system in the first place. It seems pretty stupid to me, and I honestly see no reason to change what I thought was a perfect system.

wow, i really don't have time to read all that, but i'll give you an hint when you're in music library click "More" and then "Composers" i think that's what you're lookin for otherwise just ignore it

Audiobooks Sorting

Hi,
I have a number of audiobooks, with the extension .m4b. In iTunes these are sorted into Audiobooks, which is great.
On my iPod 5G, these are listed under Audiobooks, but I can also search for them through genre, artist etc. which is very handy.
However, on my iPod nano 3G, audiobooks can only be found under Audiobooks and not through any other sorting.
The problem I have is that the audiobooks listing is very messy, especially when some books are broken into parts (such as 10hr books from iTunes or Audible).
Is it possible to list audiobooks under genres/artists/etc on the iPod nano?
I know I could retag the the books as just ordinary songs, but then I'd lose chapters etc. and it defeats the purpose of the audiobook category.
Any ideas? Am I the only one who considers this a problem?
Thanks,
David

David,
I agree 100% with your issue. With the new iTunes 8, it's easy to tag tracks as audiobooks. This has finally resolved one of my issues. However, it's created the problem that you described. I can tell you that I have 3 ipods and they all handle this problem differently.
My ipod touch does exactly what I want. Select audiobook and you can choose artist and such, just like music. Brilliant!
The second gen nano that I use most frequently shows all the audiobooks in jumbled up order and is completely unusable. However, it still allows me to choose by artist and album just like it was a music file. This is a workable situation.
The third gen nano that I bought for my wife only shows the audiobooks in the audiobooks category, not in the general music section. Yes, the tracks are all messed up and there's nothing that can be done. The only workaround was to create playlists for each book and choose from those. HORRIBLE!
I am really confused at how each model handles these differently. Yes, all ipods are running the most current software. Make them all work like the touch!
I hope somebody notics this thread,
Joe

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How do I group the audiobooks on a iPod nono G5. The same audiobook works perfectly on my iPhone, but when i add them to my iPod the books don't group and all the tracks are sorted by track names, so all the books are mixed in one long list.

This is a very annoying bug which Apple do not seem to be addressing. If you look at the previous thread "Major Audio book problem ipod 5th gen" then you will find some workaround.
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IPod Audiobook Chapters

I used to know the trick for displaying audiobooks in an organized fashion on my iPod. You removed "Audiobooks" from the main menu, then navigated through Genre > Audiobook instead. There you would see your books grouped nicely by author \ title.
Now I have a new iPod. The same books that appear organized on my old iPod do not appear that way on my new iPod. They are both Classics, the newer is 160 GB (PC, not Mac). On this device, under "Genre", I don't see my Audiobook Genre at all!
I'm pretty sure the files themselves are fine (Media Kind: "Audiobooks", Genre "Audiobook", etc...) because I can still view them correctly on the older iPod.
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Many thanks!
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Thanks, Dud.
Shuffle is off, but the tracks are still being played in random order. Since the cd is already imported - and I've returned the cd's to a library in a different state - I unfortunately can't use Aldo's helpful advice (although I certainly will in the future!) I tried renaming the tracks in order (1,2,3, etc) but that didn't work. Argh!
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hi Jeff. Since you know all very well, one last question since i just started using i-tunes and i-pod.
In i-tunes i sorted a lot of stuff like DJ-Sets, or music from other sources than CD by album artist. That works well.
My I-Pod Classic syncs an is saying me "Unknown Artist" or "Various Artists" for that albums and puts some to Compilations, some to different places. I want the DJ Sets at the same position as the published CDs for example.
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I have an iPod Classic that is listing TV episodes by release date insread of episode number.
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IPod Audiobook Sorting is HORRIBLE

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