I have another question (I seem to have a lot of them! )
One of the reasons I switched to Linux was to try and get away from big tech as much as possible which in the main Ive managed to do. However probably the worst big company for working conditions etc (supposedly) (among other things) is Amazon and they are the one company I'm really tied to as I am a huge reader and use a Kindle (just to put it in perspective I have over 200 physical books and 338 Kindle books)
Ive been looking at perhaps switching to a Kobo and buying books from the Kobo uk store but I have a few questions I was hoping people might be able to help me with -
How easy did you find it to access your Kindle library on Amazon from Calibre? (Im thinking of perhaps downloading my whole library to an external hard drive)
Has anyone transferred Kindle books to a non kindle device using Calibre and did it work ok?
Has anyone used a kobo ereader with Calibre and did that work ok?
Any information, thoughts, first hand experiences would be much appreciated
Hi, I have thousands (yes really) of e-books stored on my laptop and externally too. I use Calibre to read them on my laptop, but it isn't as convenient as an e-book reader. I had a Kindle but gifted it to my husband when we split up, I know he was able to transfer books onto it from his laptop for convenience - he didn't have an Amazon account, he just used the device.
Kobo was horrible, cheap and nasty, neither I nor my dad could get along with one. That was over a decade ago though, so maybe things have improved?
As for reading with Calibre, as long as the file type is supported you can read anything. You just need something that is kind to your eyes. Have you considered just removing your Kindle device from your Amazon account and keep using that? My mum's Kindle Fire is still working and she passed away in 2015, so it's much older than that! Seems a shame to stop using a perfectly good device and buy a new one, if you don't need to.
I would certainly carry on using the Kindle for the books I downloaded from Amazon but I would like to carry on buying ebooks just not from Amazon and as I understand it epub etc wouldnt work with kindle? Maybe Im wrong?
I used Calibre a lot to convert books to the Kindle format. It works well, but you have to deal with a lot of options and the settings don't always work for all conversions. In many cases it ends up being trial and error.
Today, I always try an online converter first, or simply send the file by email to my Amazon account who converts it for me.
In other words, I am not an example of being careful with big techs
@anon88552390 , as Swarf and macfly said - you can use Calibre to convert formats. I don't know about an online converter, but it was easy to find a good one to stitch MP3s together, so I'm sure you'll be successful if you do a search, or maybe @macfly could recommend something.
Thanks for the answers everyone - I will give the video a watch and see where I go from there. At the moment I am in the process of downloading all of my Kindle books to an external hard drive. I cant believe how locked in Amazon makes everything, probably about 70% of the books Ive downloaded so far wont even open in Calibre, it pops up with a DRM message saying the book cant be opened. I can however transfer even these books via Calibre to my Kindle and read them, it just irks me a bit that I dont actually own the book I bought from Amazon.
Well that video certainly makes it seem easy enough! Once I finish downloading and adding my Kindle books I will have to try buying a non kindle ebook and give it a go.
I have had a look at de-drm and also alternative e-book suppliers. The only e-book suppliers I can find (that seem legit) are Amazon (obviously), Rakuten (kobo) and e-books.com. I have searched all three for various books I would read and they are all coming out at around the same prices (maybe a couple of pence difference)
When I then consider I would either have to A) De-Drm and convert books or B) Buy a kobo e-reader (which don't seem to have as good a reviews online as Kindle,arent as easy to come by in the UK and are more expensive i.e the Kindle is £85 the cheapest Kobo available here is £120 to £140 and I already own a kindle to boot) I come to the conclusion it makes more sense to just stick with Kindle and Amazon, an annoying conclusion for sure but the most sensible.
Thank you everyone for your advice and suggestions and hopefully in the future there will be a viable and competitive alternative to Amazon for e-books (not holding my breath though!)
I watched an interesting video I posted elsewhere on here where Stallman named the device a Swindle. Your device has a backdoor which sends info on what you are reading and what is in your library. In 2009 Amazon used this backdoor to delete millions of one book globally without user consent. The book? 1984 by George Orwell!
This story is not as simple as it sounds - yes, Amazon did delete 1984 but because it had no legal right to sell it in the first place.
“This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.”
Surely they could only delete the copies on Kindles connected to wifi and on peoples Amazon accounts?
Being as I am downloading all of my Kindle books to an external hard drive which will allow me to transfer them directly to my Kindle I wont have to have my Kindle connected to Wifi so my books should be safe from any interference from Amazon.
The one small thing Amazon does quite regularly which really annoys me is change the covers of books - I want the cover that was on the book when I purchased it, not an updated one! Again hopefully storing them on a hard drive will protect me from that (and if one or two do slip through Calibre allows you to change the covers of your kindle books)
No, the kindles do have a back door built in. Remember, even if you turn your smartphone off it is still listening. So something similar on Kindle wouldn't surprise me.
I've been very happy with my Kobo Libra Color to date, save for one thing: I haven't been able to shake the DRM on my Amazon library. From what I understand, De-DRM requires the use of an older model Kindle/serial number to do its job, and providing the serial from the Kindle app doesn't cut it. Am I missing something here, those who've tried De-DRM, or would I literally have to buy a Kindle to escape the Kindle for my older e-book purchases? I'm POTENTIALLY willing to rebuy my books elsewhere if they have no DRM there, or the DRM can be removed more easily, but it would be NICE to keep my hundreds of dollars of Kindle books and be able to use them on my device of choice.
Well I've just run into another problem, Calibre is now not working. I went to open it up today and nothing, it wont open. There's no spinning icon to say its trying to open or anything, I uninstalled it including data (which is really annoying as it means I guess all my tags etc will be gone) re-installed and still wont open
@anon88552390 , I am so sorry to read this! Don't you have a back up? I seem to remember you do? I really hope you find a solution - quickly! Good luck with that.
I don't know if it's any use at all but I've downloaded Okular:
Obviously, it's not a replacement for Calibre but might be useful to you.
I haven't tried it recently so not sure if Amazon have fixed this "loophole" yet, but there's a specific rather old version of the Kindle for PC app you can use to download books from your Amazon library in a format compatible with Calibre + DeDRM. I couldn't get it working in WINE about 2 years ago so installed it in a Windows VM. I think there was a step in the setup where you have to give a file from the installed app to DeDRM but I can't remember it now.
I have all of my ebooks stored on an external drive so they should be ok, Im guessing all of my tags etc are gone as I didnt make a back up of the Calibre program (although the tags may be stored with the ebook data?) But Ive tried re-installing calibre and it still wont open. Whether its a problem with calibre or Zorin I dont know
Have you tried installing from an alternate source? I'm not on Zorin right now so can't confirm what options you have available to you, but in Fedora's gnome software store there is a native RPM version and 2 Flatpak versions.
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