Kobo added support for audiobooks to their new ereaders, the Kobo Sage and Kobo Libra 2, and they recently updated the larger Kobo Elipsa to add audiobooks as well.
Officially Kobo’s devices only support audiobooks purchased from Kobo, and they’re only available in certain countries. But unofficially, there’s also a way to sideload audiobooks and music files in MP3 format.
It turns out there’s a secondary audio player app on Kobo’s ereader that can play standard MP3 files, as pointed out in this thread at MobileRead.
To sideload audiobooks and music files in MP3 format, all you have to do is put them in a zip file and then change the extension to mp3z. Then load them on your Kobo and each MP3Z file will show up on the book list.
You’ll have to connect Bluetooth headphones or speakers from the settings menu to listen to the audio files, or open an official Kobo audiobook to get the option to connect Bluetooth devices; the setting doesn’t exist in the MP3 player.
Unfortunately the MP3 player is rather rudimentary but it is functional. Each MP3 file in the mp3z folder will show up as nameless chapters. You can skip chapters and adjust the volume in the app, pause and play, and slightly slow and speed up playback.
Playing will stop as soon as you close the MP3 player so it’s not functional for listening to music while reading, or reading along while listening to an audiobook, but at least it’s a start.
Check out the thread at MobileRead for more details.
It’s not very helpful for audiobooks, at this point, because it doesn’t save your location when you navigate away to another book or audio file.
I don’t actually know if the regular player for Kobo audiobooks does that either.
2 quick Kobo questions, although not related to audio books:
1) I side loaded fonts into my new Libra 2 but discovered that the device doesn’t offer font options like font weight and other font adjustments. Is there any way to enable those?
2) Will there be a Koreader update for Libra 2 and Sage devices? I tried installing it in the Libra 2 but, alas, it crashes and does not work.
I think there’s a patch to adjust sideloaded fonts somewhere in the Kobo Developer’s Corner at MobileRead. I don’t keep up with KOreader developments so you’d have to ask the people who work on it.