📚 My Audiobook Manager: The Complete System I Had to Build Myself

🎧 Why I Built My Own Audiobook Tracking System (When Audible & Goodreads Failed Me)

For years, all my audiobooks lived inside the Audible app.
No local MP3 chaos. No scattered files.
Just one huge library locked behind Audible’s interface.

But even with everything in one place, I still felt completely lost.

Audible simply couldn’t keep track of my listening history.
Some books were marked as finished, others stayed “in progress” forever, and some lost their progress entirely. With 400+ audiobooks, the app became impossible to navigate. I tried hiding finished books, but I still never got the clear visual overview I desperately needed.

Goodreads wasn’t any better.

It mixes every edition together, treats audiobooks, ebooks, and physical books the same, and dumps everything into one endless list. And if I ever rated a book without writing a full review, Goodreads marked it as “reviewed”—which destroyed any chance of knowing what I had actually written about.

Between the two platforms, I was stuck with:

No proper series overview
No way to see which books I had finished
No way to see which series I owned completely
No reliable progress tracking
No organized list of my own reviews
No system that fits how I think and process information

And when you have hundreds of audiobooks across dozens of long fantasy series, your mind simply can’t keep track by itself.
Mine couldn’t.
I need visual structure, order, and clarity.

But nobody out there offered that.

So eventually I told myself:

“If Audible and Goodreads can’t keep my library organized… then I’ll build my own system.”

And that’s exactly what I did a fully custom, automated Audiobook Metadata & Tracking System designed around my workflow, my brain, and my library.
A system that finally gives me the clean overview no existing app could provide.

Absolutely here is a deeper, more personal, longer, and more detailed version that uses your real experiences, your frustrations, your habits, your memory issues, your desire for visual structure, and the way you personally consume and track audiobooks.

This reads like a powerful, honest part of your WordPress post.

The real problem wasn’t messy files it was Audible, Goodreads, and the way my brain works

People assume audiobook chaos means “messy folders.”
But my chaos came from something very different.

I don’t store 400+ local audiobooks on my PC I use Audible.
And even that was becoming impossible for me to manage.

How Audible failed me, personally

I rely heavily on structure because I have trouble remembering visual details and past conversations.
So if an app doesn’t give me a clear overview, I feel completely lost inside it.

Audible became exactly that:
A black hole where all my books disappeared into one giant, unorganized wall of titles.

I had over 400 audiobooks, and scrolling through them was like walking through fog.
Audible only offers “Hide book” and I had to do it one… single… book… at… a… time.
And even then, hiding wasn’t enough — it didn’t give me a visual sense of what I owned, what I had finished, or how far I was in a series.
Some books didn’t sync correctly, showing as unfinished even after dozens of hours listened.
If the app glitched once, my whole status list was wrong.

Audible was never designed for people who treat their audiobook library as something they want full control over.

It was made to be simple.
Too simple.
Too restrictive.

How Goodreads failed me

Goodreads was supposed to “fix” what Audible couldn’t.

Instead:

It treated audiobooks like normal books.
No covers for audiobook editions.
No metadata for narrators, length, or file type.
No series tracking that works properly across editions.
“Reviews” counted even if I only clicked a star.
The “books read this year” view was the only thing that made sense — and even that felt limited.
I couldn’t get a visual, grid-based, organizable overview of everything I own or finished.

I like having structure.
I like being able to see everything clearly in front of me.
Goodreads gave me long lists of text, nothing more.

My brain needs visual order and neither app had it

This is where it gets personal.

Because of everything I’ve lived through depression, anxiety, trauma, the years I spent raising myself, the way I learned to rely only on myself — my brain works differently.

I need my world to be predictable, structured, visually clear.
If it’s not, I lose track.

And with Audible + Goodreads… that happened constantly:

I couldn’t remember what I had listened to.
I couldn’t remember which series I was in.
I couldn’t remember if a book had a PDF extra.
I couldn’t remember my own reviews, because Goodreads doesn’t show them clearly.
Sometimes I finished a book, but Audible didn’t mark it done.
Sometimes Goodreads didn’t register the date.
Sometimes I forgot if I had started something weeks earlier.

Books I had spent 40+ hours listening to felt like they evaporated inside a broken system.

My library wasn’t a mess — the apps were

And that’s when it hit me:

The problem wasn’t me.
The problem was the tools.
Nobody built something that matched how I think.

I needed:

visual order
series tracking
automatic organization
a progress overview
proper metadata
proper covers
ability to attach PDF extras
ability to store review links
ability to mark “read” in a way that actually stays saved
control over everything not a locked-down system
compatibility with Plex, Jellyfin, and Smart Audiobook Player

Audible gave me none of it.

Goodreads gave me none of it.

So I finally said:

“If nobody builds the system I need… I’ll build it myself.”

And that’s how my Audiobook Metadata & Tracking System was born.

A system that finally lets me breathe.
Finally lets me see everything.
Finally gives me the structure that Audible and Goodreads never could.

❌ Why Audible and Goodreads Completely Failed Me

(And Why I Finally Built My Own System)

Let me be honest:
If you only listen to a few audiobooks a year, Audible and Goodreads probably feel “good enough.”

But when you live like I do listening to hundreds, tracking huge series, doing detailed reviews, and actually wanting a real overview — both apps fall apart completely.

Neither of them were built for people like me.

So here’s why they failed me, and why I had no choice but to build my own audiobook tracking system.

🎧 Audible Great for Listening, Completely Useless for Tracking

I’ve used Audible for years. I still use it for most of my listening.
But if we talk about keeping track, organizing, seeing what I’ve finished, and getting an overview…

It’s honestly terrible.

Let me explain.

🔥 1. Audible doesn’t always mark books finished even if you listened 100%

This one drives me insane.

Sometimes you finish a book completely,
but the app doesn’t sync the last minutes…

…and suddenly Audible thinks you never finished it.

Then you can’t:

❌ write a review
❌ see a completed date
❌ keep proper stats
❌ count it in your yearly listening
❌ confirm anything

It’s like the book never existed.

Audible also requires that you listen to a certain percentage before you’re allowed to leave a review so even if you really did finish it, if the sync bug hits, you’re locked out.

Why?

Because the app doesn’t trust you without “proof.”

🔥 2. Yes, you can click “Mark as Finished”…

…but why should I have to?

If the app is designed around listening,
why do I have to manually correct it?

I finished the book.
That should be enough.

I shouldn’t have to babysit the app.

🔥 3. My Finished list and Listening History give me NO overview

When you have 400+ audiobooks on Audible, the overview dies completely.

Everything turns into:

a long, endless scroll
no grouping
no series sorting
no metadata
no categories
no quick search
random played percentages
mixed formats
no clean tracker

My “Finished” tab is just a giant wall of covers.

My “Listening History” is even worse — mixing books I finished with books I listened to for 2 minutes, books I tested, books I skipped, accidental taps, everything.

It’s impossible to get a clear overview of what I’ve actually completed.

🔥 4. Audible only tracks what you bought from Audible

This is a deal-breaker for me.

I have audiobooks from many places:

Patreon
Bandcamp
Authors’ websites
Indie releases
DRM-free versions
My own files
Non-Audible sources

Audible refuses to track ANYTHING unless they sold it to you.

So if you have your own audiobook library?

Audible cannot handle it.
At all.

End of story.

📕 Goodreads — Great Idea, Terrible Execution for Audiobooks

Goodreads is another tool I’ve tried to rely on.
I wrote hundreds of reviews there.
I tracked my reading challenge.
I tried to stay organized.

But the deeper you go into audiobooks, the more Goodreads becomes a disaster.

🔥 1. Goodreads breaks completely when a book has multiple editions

This is one of the stupidest problems.

If a book has:

hardcover
paperback
ebook
audiobook
reprint
re-release
special edition

Goodreads dumps ALL of them into your reading history.

Then you get:

❌ “Date read (3 times)”
❌ Wrong edition listed
❌ Wrong cover
❌ Wrong metadata
❌ Confusing stats

You literally have to ignore multiple duplicate fields just to save your progress.

I shouldn’t have to fight the website to record one audiobook.

🔥 2. Goodreads does NOT understand audiobooks

At all.

It still thinks everything is a page count.

So you get:

wrong numbers
wrong stats
wrong tracking
wrong reading time
no audiobook features
no listening progress
no syncing
no metadata fields

Honestly?
It is stuck in 2007.

🔥 3. My Goodreads library is massive — and Goodreads can’t handle that either

I have:

3,543 books in my Goodreads account.

Those are mostly books I want to read or books I own.

Goodreads displays it as one massive list with:

no grouping
no filtering by format
no separation between ebook/audio
no series overview
no metadata
no proper stats

It’s just… a wall of book covers.

Useful?
Not even close.

🔥 4. Reviews are a mess too

I’ve written 300+ reviews.

And even finding them again is painful.

Some attach to the wrong edition.
Some show up multiple times.
Some don’t show up at all unless you dig.

Nothing is consistent.

🔥 Bottom Line: Both Apps Fail Hardcore Audiobook Users Like Me

If you:

✔ listen to 120+ books a year
✔ write detailed reviews
✔ have long series
✔ read LitRPG with 20+ volumes
✔ mix multiple platforms
✔ keep your own files
✔ use Plex/Jellyfin
✔ track everything manually

Audible and Goodreads simply can’t do the job.

They were never designed for people who consume audiobooks the way I do.

✔ So I Did What I Always Do: I Built My Own System

I got tired of:

❌ missing data
❌ broken progress
❌ messed-up series
❌ wrong editions
❌ no overview
❌ no metadata control
❌ no way to track my own audiobooks

So I built my own Audiobook Metadata & Tracking System:

✔ Full metadata control
✔ Automatic file renaming
✔ Correct covers
✔ Series count tracking
✔ PDF handling
✔ Review link fields
✔ Integration with Plex/Jellyfin
✔ True “read” tracking
✔ Works with ANY audiobook
✔ Full library overview
✔ Clean UI
✔ Zero bullshit

Now, instead of fighting Audible and Goodreads every day…

…I finally have a system that actually works for me.

If nobody builds the tools I need,
then I sit down and build them myself.

Always have. Always will.

If you want, I can now:

✅ Turn this into a polished WordPress post
✅ Add sections, headers, and screenshots
✅ Add humor or a darker emotional tone
✅ Make a shorter or longer version
Just tell me.

✨ What My Audiobook Manager Can Do

(This isn’t a tool — it’s an entire ecosystem I built because nothing else worked)

When people hear “audiobook manager,” they think of some tiny script that renames a few files.

No.

What I built is closer to a full operating system for audiobooks — custom-designed around the way I read, I listen, and I organize.

Every piece solves a problem Audible and Goodreads never could.

Every part exists because I spent years fighting broken systems, missing metadata, sync bugs, and chaos.

This is everything my system does automatically, instantly, and exactly the way I want.

🔧 📁 1. Full Metadata Extraction & Editing (The Way It Should Be)

My tool reads every piece of metadata from an audiobook:

Title
Author
Series
Track number
Genre
Comment field
Year
Cover
Review link
Custom notes

And if something is wrong?

I can edit it in seconds — not 15 clicks like Audible or Goodreads.

Then it writes the metadata directly into the file, ensuring Plex, Jellyfin, and Smart Audiobook Player see everything perfectly.

🖼️ 🎨 2. Automatic Cover Detection (And Replacement)

Cover missing? Wrong edition? Blurry?
Goodreads and Audible don’t care.

My system:

✔ Finds the best cover in the folder
✔ Allows manually uploading a new one
✔ Writes it directly into the MP3
✔ Updates Plex/Jellyfin instantly

No more empty squares.
No more mismatched editions.
Just clean, sharp, correct artwork.

3. 📄 Built-In PDF Support

Some audiobooks come with PDFs (maps, artwork, companion guides).

My system:

Finds attached PDFs
Renames them to match the audiobook
Places them beside the audio files
Shows clickable PDF links inside the UI

One click. Open PDF. Done.

4. 📚 Series Tracking + Expected Number of Books

I can finally see:

How many books the series SHOULD have
How many I ACTUALLY have
Which ones I’m missing
Which albums are incomplete

Changing the expected count instantly updates everything.

5. 🟩 Marking Books as Read (With UI Feedback)

Every track card has a Read / Mark as Read button.

When marked:

The UI updates instantly
A green checkmark appears
The whole album shows as “Complete” when all tracks are read
Plex, Jellyfin, etc. stay in sync because the file metadata is clean

This is something Goodreads and Audible NEVER supported.

6. 💬 Review Link System (Unique Feature!)

Each track has a small field where I can save:

Goodreads link

This is perfect for tracking:

This alone replaces Goodreads for me.

7. 🔄 Scan System With Folder Cleaning

The scanner:

Reads all folders
Detects broken metadata
Detects missing covers
Removes empty folders
Regenerates everything cleanly
Rebuilds the database

No more junk folders.
No more stray empty directories.

8. 🏷 Auto-Renaming That NEVER Breaks

The app automatically renames:

Files
Folders
PDF attachments
Cover images

All based on the metadata YOU set.

This prevents:

Accidental duplicates
Garbage names like “track01.mp3”
Messy audiobook folder structures

Everything becomes clean and consistent.

9. 🖥 Works Perfectly With Plex, Jellyfin & Smart Audiobook Player

The output is designed to work instantly with:

✔ Plex

✔ Jellyfin

✔ Smart Audiobook Player

✔ VLC

✔ Android players

✔ Windows players

No more metadata fixing by hand.

📌 Why This Is Better Than Any Existing Tool

Because it was built by somebody who actually needed it.

Most apps:

Don’t support PDFs
Don’t auto-rename
Don’t track read state
Don’t manage covers
Don’t clean metadata
Don’t handle huge libraries

Mine does ALL of this.
Automatically.
100% consistent.

🐺 This Project Became Personal

Just like my photography scripts and my other automation tools, this system grew out of necessity.