Audiobookshelf Two Hundred and Fourteen Days Later

Reading Time: 2 minutes
Two or three days ago I noticed that I have spent at least sixteen thousand three hundred and fifty seven minutes listening to 320 items over 214 days via Audiobookshelf and I can honestly say that of my self hosted experiments this is my favourite.

What I Like

What I like about Audiobookshelf is that it gives me the opportunity to find podcasts I like, add them, download every episode and then slowly make my way through them.

The other advantage is that when I get books from Audible I can download them, convert them and add them to Audiobookshelf and eventually get around to reading them. I don't rely on an app and it slides between all operating systems because it's a web app.

No Longer On the Open Web

For a while I had Audiobookshelf on the open web via the DMZ option of the router but when I saw that no one from my family was using it I put it behind a firewall again. Now I use Tailscale to access the service. The advantage of using Tailscale is that it's quick and simple to setup and use.

Personal Backup

I think I was spending 230 USD per year on Audible before I realised that I don't listen to 24 books a year so I halved the membership to USD 150. That's still hundreds if not thousands of francs worth of books. It's for this reason that I back up my "investment" locally.

Temporarily I gave family members access to Audiobookshelf but when I saw that they did not use it I made it unavailable to the open web again. I really like being able to listen to audiobooks with ease and convenience.

Podcast App Replacement

I liked to use podcast apps for a long time but eventually either they die, as Google Podcasts did, or they paywall their key functionality as PocketCasts did, or they're platform specific as with Apple Podcasts.

For context, Pocket Casts Plus is 38.01 CHF per year for Plus, and 95.03 CHF per year for patron status. The key thing is "per year". Audiobookshelf gives me the functionality I need, for the price of a Raspberry Pi 5, external hard drive, internal SD card and an appropriate case for cooling.

If I didn't have the knowledge to self host such projects then spending 38 CHF per year, or a hundred per year, might be worthwhile, but since I do I can spend it more rationally.

Listen Synching

Although some people don't care, I often find it frustrating to listen to a podcast and then change app and have to mark what I listened to. By having Audiobookshelf I no longer need to worry about this.

No Apple Car Play App

One of the biggest let downs is that there is no Apple Car Play App and that's a problem because when you're parked underground with no signal, setting up your next listen is complicated. I use the firefox app, and the app, via Tailscale to play Audiobooks or podcasts. An app would be more practical in that context.

And Finally

I use Audiobookshelf because it is a good way of backing up my audiobook library. It is also a convenient podcast app. I use it daily and so far, after over two hundred days I am still happy with it.