AudioBookWorm Bundle

The AudioBookWorm Bundle is an audiobook setup in one subscription. Audiobookshelf is the player and the library. Around it sit the apps that keep that library tidy and growing: AudioBookRequest so the people you share with can ask for a title instead of messaging you, Chaptarr to follow authors and file books with covers and details, Shelfmark to search the providers you configure, and BookOrbit for anyone who also reads.

Every app in the bundle sees the same storage at the same paths, so a book filed by one app is already where the player looks. That shared storage is the point of the bundle: you are not copying files between containers or mapping one app's folder onto another's.

When does the AudioBookWorm Bundle make sense?

• You listen more than you read, and want one place for the household's audiobooks with progress kept per person.
• Other people use your library, and you would rather keep requests on a page than in your messages.
• You want the collection kept in order (authors, series, narrators, covers) without doing it by hand.
• You want the phone apps to work from anywhere, with no port-forwarding and no machine left on at home.

If you also read ebooks, or want read-along books, look at the StoryBookWorm Bundle. For comics as well, the SuperBookWorm Bundle has every format.

Get a 7-day trial of the AudioBookWorm Bundle!

What's in it?

The apps marked "its own accounts" are the ones you share with other people and connect phone or e-reader apps to, so they are reachable without an ElfHosted login and use their own users instead. Everything else sits behind your ElfHosted login.

How the apps fit together

Every app mounts the same two trees:

• /storage/symlinks/: the bundle's own working space. Its audiobooks folder, /storage/symlinks/audiobooks, is where the bundle files finished audiobooks, and the folder you point Audiobookshelf at.
• /storage/rclone/<mount>/: cloud storage you attach yourself with magic mounting (Google Drive, OneDrive, S3, Backblaze B2 and anything else rclone speaks). Use it for audiobooks you already own and want kept on your own storage.

flowchart LR
  R[AudioBookRequest] --> F["/storage/symlinks/audiobooks"]
  C[Chaptarr] --> F
  S[Shelfmark] --> F
  F --> A[Audiobookshelf]
  O["/storage/rclone/your-mount"] --> A
  A --> P[Phone apps and browser]

So the flow is: a request, a followed author or a search ends with a book filed in /storage/symlinks/audiobooks, Audiobookshelf picks it up, and it appears on everyone's phone.

How do I use it?

1. Claim Audiobookshelf first

Open Audiobookshelf from your dashboard. The first visit asks you to create the root user, and because Audiobookshelf answers phone apps directly it is not behind your ElfHosted login, so do this as soon as your bundle is ready.

Then create a library (type Book) and add these folders:

• /storage/symlinks/audiobooks, where the rest of the bundle files books
• any folder of your own under /storage/rclone/<mount>/, if you already have audiobooks on cloud storage

Add a user for each person in the household under Settings → Users, so everyone keeps their own place in their own books.

2. Connect Chaptarr to Audiobookshelf

Chaptarr arrives with an Audiobooks root folder at /storage/symlinks/audiobooks, and writes Audiobookshelf's own metadata.json and cover files as it imports. Add the Audiobookshelf connection in Chaptarr so each import triggers a scan straight away, following the steps on the Chaptarr page.

3. Point Shelfmark at the same folder

Shelfmark saves to its own folder by default. Change its destination for audiobooks to /storage/symlinks/audiobooks (or to a folder on your rclone mount that Audiobookshelf also watches), as described on the Shelfmark page.

4. Set up requests

Open AudioBookRequest and connect it to your hosted Prowlarr (http://prowlarr:9696, plus the API key from Prowlarr's Settings → General).

AudioBookRequest sits behind your ElfHosted login, so as it arrives the request page is yours. If you want people without an ElfHosted login to make requests, ask in Discord: it can be switched to its own user accounts instead.

Apps that start switched off

Jackett arrives switched off, because most setups never need it. Turn it on (or off again) at store.elfhosted.com/my-account/apps. Nothing is lost by switching it off.

How do I access it?

Everything is on your dashboard at https://your-username.elfhosted.com. Directly:

• Audiobookshelf: https://your-username-audiobookshelf.elfhosted.com (use this address in the Audiobookshelf phone apps)
• AudioBookRequest: https://your-username-audiobookrequest.elfhosted.com
• Chaptarr: https://your-username-chaptarr.elfhosted.com
• Shelfmark: https://your-username-shelfmark.elfhosted.com
• BookOrbit: https://your-username-bookorbit.elfhosted.com
• Prowlarr: https://your-username-prowlarr.elfhosted.com

What it doesn't do

• No audiobooks are included. The bundle is the shelf, not the books. Bring files you own, or connect accounts and providers of your own.
• No storage is included for a big collection. Attach your own with magic mounting if your library is large or already lives in the cloud.
• A debrid account is optional and not included. The bundle works without one.
• Not every app shares one login. Audiobookshelf and BookOrbit use their own accounts so phones, e-readers and family members can reach them.

How do I get support?

1. Each app's own page (linked above) covers it in more detail, along with its upstream project's documentation.
2. For your ElfHosted setup, see the ElfHosted support options.