How to Make Your Own Yoto Cards with Libro.fm in 7 Simple Steps
Whether you’re four or 104, anyone can fall in love with audiobooks! If your kids are avid listeners, you may already own our family’s favorite device, the Yoto Player. But did you know the Yoto offers an option for filling blank cards with your children’s favorite audio? And it’s easier than you’d think!
It’s time to personalize your Yoto experience. In this helpful step-by-step approach, we’ll teach you how to make your own cards from Libro.fm’s impressive catalog. If you like supporting small businesses in your family’s literary endeavors, this is the guide for you!
What is the Yoto Player?
If you’re in Mommy and Me classes or parenting forums or have chatted with us at Novel events, you’ve probably seen references to the Yoto Player—but what is it? The Yoto is a screen-free alternative to audio players that gives kids independence and control over what they listen to and when.
With easy-to-use knobs that adjust the sound and skip chapters, all your little one has to do to hear their chosen story card is insert it at the top and press play. The small but mighty Yoto Player helps kids take their reading experience into their own hands (perfect for when you’re attending a Silent Book Club)!
Who is the Yoto Player Designed For?
Though anyone can enjoy the Yoto Player, the simple audio device was designed for kids ages 3 to 12. Influenced by Montessori teachings, the Yoto is meant to provide a distraction-free, screenless reading experience at a crucial time for children’s learning and development. But no one would blame you if you caught yourself tuning into their audiobooks, too!
What Can You Listen to on the Yoto Player?
The Yoto offers exciting listening options to ensure that there is something available for every child. From The Chronicles of Narnia to calming night-time music to the “Make Your Own Card” option, there are endless audio possibilities:
- Radio stations
- Fairy tales
- Children’s classics
- Daily podcasts
- Meditations
- Make Your Own cards
- Public domain titles
Is Yoto A Subscription Service?
Yes, Yoto is a subscription service. After you purchase the Yoto Player, you’ll be prompted to sign up for an account at a baseline cost of $4.99 a month (or $39.99 annually). With this comes access to over 200 original digital Yoto titles. If you want to buy specific kid-friendly audiobooks, those can be purchased separately from the subscription.
There are also pricier plans, each with benefits such as credits you can use to buy Yoto Cards and general discounts. If you’re trying to figure out if you and your kids enjoy the Yoto Player, starting out on the basic plan is a smart move.
What Are Yoto Make Your Own Cards?
When you buy a new Yoto Player, it automatically comes with one Make Your Own card (also referred to as an MYO). These are blank cards that you can load with any downloadable audio file or recording of your choice. Make Your Own cards can be bought in packs of 5 or 10. These blank Yoto cards help you personalize your kids’ audiobook library with whatever titles they want!
What Can You Put on a Yoto Make Your Own Card?
Make Your Own cards are yours to create! As long as it can be found as downloadable audio, it can be uploaded to your Make Your Own card. Our favorite options include:
- Downloaded audiobooks
- Voice recordings from loved ones
- Soothing sounds
- MP3s (for old-fashioned mixtapes)
- Parent-read stories
How Much Can You Put on a Make Your Own Card?
A Yoto Make Your Own card can hold 100 tracks with a one-hour run time for any single track. This equates to 100MB per track and 500MB for a maximum file size on a card.
What’s the Easiest Way to Put Audiobooks on a Make Your Own Card?
When it comes to creating your Make Your Own cards, there are plenty of options. You could record your own voice directly on the Yoto app or make a music playlist with your own collection of MP3 files. But if you want to add your favorite audiobooks, Libro.fm is the best way to grow your Yoto library.
What is Libro.fm?
If you love listening to the latest books but don’t love supporting big-name brands, we’ve got the perfect solution for you. Libro.fm is an alternative to Audible that splits profits with the indie bookstores selected by the customer. With Libro.fm, every single membership fee and audiobook bought will help support your favorite local bookstore, so you can enjoy tuning into your favorite titles with a clean conscience.
How Does a Libro.fm Membership Work?
The Libro.fm membership works in ways similar to those of their competitor audiobook services. With a monthly membership fee of only $14.99, you receive one title credit that can be used to listen to whatever title you want, as well as a 30% discount for any additional books you buy in that period. They also offer an á la carte option, where you can just buy individual audiobooks without a monthly cost.
Each audiobook purchase includes a downloadable DRM-free file, meaning you can play them anywhere—including your Yoto Player. Once you spend a credit or buy a title without a membership, it will be available in either an mp3 or m4b file, which are both easy to upload to a Yoto Make Your Own card.
Does Libro.fm Have Kids Audiobooks?
Libro.fm has thousands upon thousands of audiobooks that span every book genre and age range. If you’re looking for titles that are appropriate to your kids’ reading level, there are plenty of options waiting to be discovered, including favorites from your own childhood and more modern releases children will know and love. You can even download graphic novels for kiddos to follow along with as they flip through the pictures!
A Few of Our Favorite Children’s Audiobooks on Yoto
Finding and buying kids’ audiobooks doesn’t have to be overwhelming. When you’re browsing Libro.fm’s catalog for books to add to the Yoto Make Your Own cards, keep an eye out for a few of our favorite kid’s titles to listen to:
- Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary
- The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
- Matilda by Roald Dahl
- Ivy & Bean by Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall
Pro tip: We also recommend signing up for Kids Club through the Yoto Player. It’s a free, no-commitment option that offers a monthly selection of titles on sale.
Our 7-Step Guide to Making Your Own Yoto Cards with Libro.fm
If you want to turn audiobooks into Make Your Own cards for your Yoto Player, you’re in luck—it’s as easy as can be! Make a day out of it and stop in for a sandwich and some shopping before following these seven simple steps:
Step 1: Start a Libro.fm Account
To create your account, download the Libro.fm app to your device or open the website on your browser. After a few standard questions, filling in your email, and setting a password, you will have to select a bookstore to support. This can be Novel, your newest Rochester, MI, bookstore, or one from your hometown that’s near and dear to your heart. With over 3,000 indie bookshops to choose from, you can rest easy knowing that your audiobook addiction is supporting local business owners instead of faceless corporations.
Step 2: Make Sure You Have Access to the Browser Version
The Libro.fm app is not necessarily designed for downloading, even though the purchases include a downloadable file. It assumes you want to buy a title and then listen to it through the app. So, if you want to download the audiobook to create a Make Your Own card, you’ll need to use the browser version rather than the app.
Step 3: Purchase Your Desired Audiobook
Once your account is made, you can purchase your children’s audiobook. Similar to other audiobook services, the app works more as a digital library for the titles you’ve bought than the shopping center.
To buy a title, you’ll need to log in to a desktop or phone browser. Once the purchase is complete, the story will appear in your app.
Step 4: Find the Audiobook File Under the Account & Library Tab
Click on the audiobook you’d like to turn into a Make Your Own card and find the top three bars menu in the upper right of the app. Drop the options down from the Account tab and select Account and Library. Scroll down to find the titles you’ve purchased and select files. The zip file will pop up on your screen and give you the option to download it.
If you are an Apple user, the audiobook will be in your Files app under Downloads. You can also tap the blue arrow in the bottom corner of your Safari browser as a shortcut to the app. If you have an Android, you can look in the Files app under Internal Storage and Downloads.
Pro tip: All audiobooks will download as a compressed file, so don’t forget to unzip the file before uploading it to your Yoto Player. Once the file appears in your downloads, tap on it to unzip it.
Why Hasn’t My Libro.fm File Downloaded?
If you can’t find your Libro.fm download, odds are, it’s still in the download process! The speed at which a file downloads can vary from book to book—if you check your download folder and nothing is there yet, wait a few minutes before trying again.
Step 5: Open the “Make Your Own Card” Tab on the Yoto App
Once your file is downloaded to your device, the rest of the process is easy! Head to the Make Your Own tab in the Yoto Player app and create a new playlist. From there, click “add audio” and select from your recent files. When it’s fully uploaded and processed, the “create” button will turn orange.
Bonus Step 5 ½: Add Your Own Art to the Audiobook
A fun but certainly not required step of customizing your own Yoto cards is adding cover art to your audio. If you want to make the app extra colorful to look at, select the card you want to change and either upload an image from your device or choose from pre-set pixel art within the Yoto app.
Step 6: Connect the File to a Make Your Own Card
Once the playlist is created and your audiobook is finally uploaded, place a blank Make Your Own card into the Yoto Player. When prompted, click the three dots to “link to a card.” This will immediately connect the playlist’s audio to your chosen card!
Step 7: Listen on Your Yoto Player and Enjoy!
After finishing the above steps, the rest is easy, breezy listening. Add the MYO card to your kiddo’s collection and watch them reach for the story again and again.
Can You Reuse A Yoto Make Your Own Card?
To keep it short and sweet, the answer is yes! If your child has finished listening to the latest file on the Make Your Own card, just follow the above steps again to overwrite the old content with a new story. Once the upload is complete, pop it back into your Yoto Player and press play for your fresh story.
Use a Make Your Own Card to Replace a Lost Card
MYO cards are also helpful to have on hand when you or your child inevitably misplaces a favorite card. Whether you left it at the park, a playdate, or it simply vanished within your home, you can use a blank MYO card as a replacement.
Every Yoto card purchased is available as a virtual copy on the app. If you lose the matching card, just insert the MYO card into the Yoto Player and link the audio. You’ll see a “record” icon pop up on the display and a green tick to indicate a successful transfer. From there, you can listen like normal.
If you want to introduce a wider and more customized selection of Yoto audiobooks to your young ones, downloading titles from Libro.fm is the way to go! Sign up for both services, get started today, and contact us with any questions you may have about Yoto Players!