🎉 Introducing: Chapters
... and how to use them in your Read-To-Me audiobooks.
Read-To-Me turns your documents, articles, and even entire books into audio, so you can "read" while doing, well, anything else – commuting, working out, doing chores, you name it!
This works perfectly fine for shorter pieces, like articles or short stories. You upload, we convert, and you listen. Simple.
But, if you're like me, you've probably hit a wall with longer documents. Listening to one giant audio file can be a total pain. Without a way to easily navigate, it's hard to keep track of where you are, find specific sections, or even just pick up where you left off.
That's why I'm super excited to introduce a new feature: chapter support for your Read-To-Me audiobooks!
Chapters solve the following painpoints:
- Targeted Playback: Chapters let you instantly jump to specific sections – no more manual searching or listening through the entire file.
- Skip sections: Not every section of a long document is always relevant. Chapters allow you to quickly bypass parts you don't need and focus on the information that matters most.
- Navigation: Chapters give the audio file a structure. This makes it easy to navigate through the audio file and know where you are. I always felt overwhelmed with a flat 5-hour audio file.
The good thing is: nothing changes for you! You can still use your favorite audio player to listen. However, to fully experience the "magic" of chapters, you'll need a player that supports this feature.
For that, I highly recommend VLC Player. It's free, widely available, and handles chapters beautifully. As a fantastic bonus, VLC also offers resume playback – meaning it'll automatically remember where you stopped listening and pick up right where you left off, even if you close the app. (I'm not affiliated with VLC Player; I simply use it regularly and think it's a fantastic product.)
I’ve put together a small guide that walks you through everything you need to know to get started with chapters in your Read-To-Me audiobooks using VLC Player.
You can find the guide here.
Honestly, this chapter feature is something I've been wanting for Read-To-Me for a long time. It's a game-changer for me personally, and I'm so excited to finally share it with you. Head over to the guide, get set up with VLC Player, and start enjoying your audiobooks even more :)
Best, Lucas