I also thought about writing something self hosted in C# to have ONE solution for audiobooks, podcasts and music and started a small private project, but this will take a while until it is ready to release something...
You may ask: Why an LG G5 H850? Well, its relatively small and cheap (about 50 - 80 bucks used) it has an audio Jack, USB-C, you can change the battery, it can hold up to 2TB microSD storage, has an HiFi Plus module for audio enthusiasts and a descent screen. Besides that it can run lineage os...
Note: I'm the author of the first two projects :-)
[1]: https://github.com/sandreas/m4b-tool
[2]: https://github.com/sandreas/tone
[3]: https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf
[5]: https://www.navidrome.org/
[6]: https://www.plex.tv
I also like its listening UI. It remembers where I last stopped and starts playing a configurable number of seconds before, remembers playback speed per book/podcast, remembers audio settings per book/podcast, has a car mode. I like it much better than Audible's UI.
Like I said its organizing UI is also nice, although I use it less, I don't collect audiobooks on my mobile, due to the limited internal capacity.
Maybe it's better if i stay away from DRM.
It's not particularly well optimised for audiobooks, but it is nice having all my media in the same place (it also has my movies and music).