Anybody who has listened to audiobooks on the iPod Touch or iPhone knows that they are awesome. (They might be just as awesome on older iPods. Not sure because the only other iPod I own is a first gen shuffle.) The iPod remembers exactly where you left off, and as soon as you sync it up with iTunes, iTunes will also remember the position you are at (so if you listen to part of it at home, part of it on the road, you'll never break the continuity.)

This only works, though, if you got the audiobooks through iTunes or Audible.com (actually I think iTunes gets its audiobooks from Audible anyhow.) That's because these files are specially formatted and named. In order to turn an MP3 file you download into an Audiobook, you have to first: Convert it to AAC format (the default format of iTunes and the iPod).

You do this by converting the file in iTunes. First make sure you set your import preferences. Choose custom, set it to 64 kbps, Stereo, and check optimize for voice. You don't need more than 64 kbps for voice. If you use iTunes to import music, make sure you take note of your import settings BEFORE you change them, and then set them back to the way they were after you import and convert the audiobooks, otherwise, you'll have crappy quality songs when you import them. Add the book you want to convert to iTunes (using Add in the File menu). Find the book you want to convert in your iTunes library, right click on it and choose "Convert to AAC"

Now, once the book is imported, remove it from the iTunes library (right click and choose delete. Make sure you don't delete it from disk/send it to trash. Instead, just remove it from the library.)

Now you have to find the file. On the PC, it's probably in My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music (unless you set this to something else in your preferences, and if you did that, you probably know where that is anyhow.) On a Mac it's under your user folder, in Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music/

Every file has an extension (it's usually three letters after a period, so for example joe.jpg would be a jpeg image.) The extension your file now has is either AAC, or m4a (usually the latter.) Just change it to m4b. Now add the file to iTunes (using add rather than import this time.) Right click on the file and choose "Get Info." Make sure Artist and Album is empty. This will make sure they don't show up in your library except under the audiobooks tab. Also, you can change the genre to "Audiobook"

That's it. Enjoy your books. I'll be posting a list of free audiobook sites soon.