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Backing Up My Kindle Ebooks (2018)

sonyaellenmann.com

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Re: Backing Up My Kindle Ebooks (2018)

#131

Post by wwhitlow »

umvi wrote: post #119
Bakary wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand this perspective but even voluntary censorship seems so contrary to some of the aspects of literature that make it compelling, chief among those its capacity to help expose yourself to different modes of thought. Ironically GRRM specifically mentioned that he doesn't write "comfort fiction".

Think of voluntary censorship in terms of other things like voluntarily abstaining from alcohol, drugs, or even meat. I avoid things that I believe are bad for my body, and I avoid things that I believe are bad for my mind. You might argue that it's impossible to consume something "bad for your mind", but I disagree. I think there are certain forms of entertainment (written, visual, and interactive) that absolutely c…

For what it's worth I have really appreciated this thread. I 100% agree with the comments that you have made and try and do the same. Unfortunately I doubt I will ever make the time to create a project like yours and just ignore certain media instead.

Re: Backing Up My Kindle Ebooks (2018)

#132

Post by ryantgtg »

ben7799 wrote: post #65
aeturnum wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Kobo and haven't had any complaints (though they're often not as cheap as Amazon though). P.s. I wasn't sure if you were saying this, but I don't think Kobo has anything to do with B&N.

I was just mentioning that I haven't really given Kobo a shot... so I could be in the dark and Kobo is better. But I hear enough through the woodwork that I have been under the impression using Kobo would be trading off annoyances with some things better & some worse. Mostly what I hear is Kobo often has some hardware advantages but has some different software annoyances. What format the book uses is a very minor con…

To me, Kobo has a major advantage with the “warm toned” backlight on the Clara HD. I switched from kindle just for that.

On kobo, the dedrm process involves installing the kobo desktop software (windows/Mac only), which syncs the books to your desktop. From there you can snatch the ebook from the file manager and put it in calibre. There’s an “obok” dedrm plug-in.

If you switch from kindle to anything else, you will lose the ability to download your kindle purchases. You need an active kindle account/device to download ebooks from the kindle library (this wasn’t always the case).

Re: Backing Up My Kindle Ebooks (2018)

#133

Post by umvi »

wwhitlow wrote: post #131
umvi wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of voluntary censorship in terms of other things like voluntarily abstaining from alcohol, drugs, or even meat. I avoid things that I believe are bad for my body, and I avoid things that I believe are bad for my mind. You might argue that it's impossible to consume something "bad for your mind", but I disagree. I think there are certain forms of entertainment (written, visual, and interactive) that absolutely c…

For what it's worth I have really appreciated this thread. I 100% agree with the comments that you have made and try and do the same. Unfortunately I doubt I will ever make the time to create a project like yours and just ignore certain media instead.

Thanks! If it makes you feel better, you can already use Calibre to do basic ebook editing (bulk find/replace profanity, etc.) - your ebook just needs to be DRM-free.

All my project allows me to do is export a set of changes on a book to a JSON-based metadata format, so the changes can be shared. I'm afraid to monetize it because I don't think I could deliver a good UX without breaking DRM (which would get me into legal hot water), but perhaps making it into a context-free Calibre plugin might be safe...

Re: Backing Up My Kindle Ebooks (2018)

#134

Post by crispinb »

ben7799 wrote: post #47

I've backed up my eBooks from time to time & cracked some books over the years that I had purchased & wanted to put on another device but a lot of the time I don't worry about it. I got my first kindle in 2010 and bounced over to Barnes & Noble for a while with a Nook but then came back to the Amazon ecosystem. I've bought hundreds of books over the years. But just like paper books there are a lot of books that I rea…

> their ecosystem just works the best in the eBook space

I just want ebooks. I don't want an 'ecosystem in the eBook space'. If I had a similar paper book ecosystem 'in the paper book space' I'd have some giant foreign corporation insist that before I was permitted to read I must buy a bookshelf from them. Then all their books would have to be on that shelf. Then if there's a book they don't sell, or for which I choose another retailer, I'd need to buy a different shelf. Then every time I want to read a damned book I have to first know which corporation's mandated shelf it's on.

The whole DRM-ebook business stinks. I do buy the odd one from Amazon if I can't get it anywhere else, but the DRM goes immediately on download.

Re: Backing Up My Kindle Ebooks (2018)

#135

Post by wwhitlow »

umvi wrote: post #133
wwhitlow wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth I have really appreciated this thread. I 100% agree with the comments that you have made and try and do the same. Unfortunately I doubt I will ever make the time to create a project like yours and just ignore certain media instead.

Thanks! If it makes you feel better, you can already use Calibre to do basic ebook editing (bulk find/replace profanity, etc.) - your ebook just needs to be DRM-free. All my project allows me to do is export a set of changes on a book to a JSON-based metadata format, so the changes can be shared. I'm afraid to monetize it because I don't think I could deliver a good UX without breaking DRM (which would get me into le…

Alright, thanks! One more thing to add to the future tech list.

Re: Backing Up My Kindle Ebooks (2018)

#136

Post by dunnevens »

bduerst wrote: post #105
komali2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair, but just like I've never needed my photo backups, when I do need them (if I ever do), I'll be very, very, very glad I put in the ~3 hours of work or so a month it takes to ensure my photos are all backed up.

Doesn't Amazon let you re-download your books on your kindle? That's a little different than photos in that once the photo is gone, you don't have the opportunity to capture it again.

Some books with Amazon's DRM have a limit on the number of devices it can be used with. Sometimes the limit is very low, such as only 1 or 2 devices. This makes it difficult to re-download some books.

I've run into this, especially with science or reference books. And was impossible to fix on my own because the original download was to an old Kindle that's now sitting in a box somewhere in the garage, or to the Kindle app on an old phone that's no longer in my possession.

I suppose that could be fixed with a call to Amazon's customer service who could probably de-register those old devices in their system. But who wants to deal with that? Every book I've ever bought from Amazon has been cracked and backed up.

I had been willing to put up with the DRM. Didn't want to go to the hassle of re-downloading and processing hundreds of books. But when I ran into the "This book has reached its license limit and cannot be downloaded", that was the last straw.

Re: Backing Up My Kindle Ebooks (2018)

#137

Post by dunnevens »

superkuh wrote: post #110
arkades wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reads mobi, just not ePub. And I use it because it’s got the best hardware experience of the bunch, IMO.

Do some? I was under the impression you couldn't load .mobi files on to it and they had to be converted to amazon's proprietary format.

.mobi predates Kindle, but it was the first format on the original Kindles. Amazon bought the company which made it. Amazon no longer uses the original mobi format, but keeps it for backwards compatibility. Most non-Amazon sources for Kindle books still use mobi.

Re: Backing Up My Kindle Ebooks (2018)

#138

Post by Skunkleton »

umvi wrote: post #78
jedimastert wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly, I don't understand why since at the end of the day everyone gets paid, and indeed get paid more than they normally would have (I guess it's more of a "you are altering my art so people can consume it in ways I didn't intend" attitude). The problem with "you are altering my art so people can consume it in ways I didn't intend" can be a purely economic one, as it's misrepresenting the "brand" that is the au…

The way I see it: it's not me or my company altering the brand, it's the consumers themselves altering the brand so that they can enjoy it more fully. How is a consumer altering a movie experience or book experience any different from a consumer altering a: - music experience (remix, etc.) - food experience (customizing a chef's dish) - video game experience (with game genie, mods, etc.) - picture experience (with ph…

Why not just consume media you don't find offensive in the first place? Would you feel differently if I wanted to _insert_ sex scenes in to movies that didn't have them?

Re: Backing Up My Kindle Ebooks (2018)

#139

Post by chipotle_coyote »

m463 wrote: post #118

I find that a number of Kindle books I've purchased at the beginning say: "The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices"... So I assume either they don't have kindle DRM, or it is ethical (possibly legally allowed) to remove the kindle DRM.

Publishers (including self-publishers) can choose whether to apply DRM to books on Amazon as part of the uploading process, and not all publishers do so. Tor and Baen, for instance, don't use DRM on any of their titles.

Re: Backing Up My Kindle Ebooks (2018)

#140

Post by darkpuma »

Tomte wrote: post #21
maskros wrote: post #9

Calibre is great, if you configure it properly. By default, converting books to another format will change the layout! Destroying the original formatting by default is unacceptable behaviour to be honest, so user beware. For Kindle, I suggest using the KindleUnpack plugin instead; which can extract the EPUB file embedded in the AZW/KF8 format file losslessly for use with EPUB based readers without having to worry abo…

How do I start with Calibre and Kindle? I've tried several times, but I cannot understand the UI. How do I list books on my Kindle? How do I list books in my account? It's all very byzantine.

Instead of using the Calibre GUI, which is nightmare fuel, I recommend Calibre's command line conversion tool `ebook-convert`: https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/generated/en/ebook-convert....

It's kind of like pandoc, except pandoc only supports epubs.

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