Why store your ebook collection on your ereader? - Page 11

Sefiriot · 09-10-2013, 11:08 AM

I buy pbooks when there's a very big sale going, usually 2 times a year here-- then I tend to buy as many as I can afford on my budget, usually around 16-20 books. Were I not still a student, and had independent income, I'd easily buy 50 or more each time. I've just about run out of storage space for them however, so you can imagine I'm absolutely happy to be able to cram nearly everything I want onto my e-reader, with the only limitations being how long I'm willing to wait for calibre to sync with my phone and how much storage space I can give Calibre Companion's database.

DiapDealer · 09-10-2013, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by l_macd

Not sure about DiapDealer's practise of only buying books when ready to read them though - like pidgeon92 I have a wishlist and more often than not buy my ebooks when they are on offer. If I waited until I was going to read them, think of the bargains I might miss out on!

Why would I think about bargains I was never aware I was missing out on?

If it's out of my price range when I'm thinking about reading it, I just move on to something that IS in my price range. Me and that book will hook up some day if it was meant to be. And if not ... well, I bet it's because I've forgotten that I ever wanted to read it in the first place! Can't miss what you never had.

ApK · 09-10-2013, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Can't miss what you never had.

As someone who often finds a really good offer in the deals and freebies section here RIGHT AFTER it's expired, I'm here to tell you: you sure can.

I'm trying to learn to check that section more regularly and get the good stuff for for my TBR library while the getting is good.

Katsunami · 09-10-2013, 11:47 AM

I've tried to store all unread books that I have in Calibre (~150 at this point in time... and I'm not NEARLY done re-acquiring my paper books as eBooks, or adding the classics I want to read, so this would become more and more in the future) on the Kindle Paperwhite, so I don't have to decide beforehand what I'm going to read next.

It's impossible. It doesn't work. The device works against me.

1. I've added a plugboard to add series to the title. It works, but the names are often way too long. Sometimes the title gets cut off before the series name ends... (Up until now, I only always had one series on the device, and the plugboard added only the index.)

2. So, I've got an idea. I'll just store the series name in the Author field like this: Lastname, Firstname (Series_Name Index). Then when sorting by Author, the books will also be sorted by series.

WRONG!

I like my authors to be stored as Lastname, Firstname, same as Author_Sort. Why? Because If find it strange-looking to see "J.R.R. Tolkien" sorted after "Terry Brooks". Seeing "Tolkien, J.R.R." sorted after "Brooks, Terry" is much more logical to me.

Enter the Kindle.

"Hey, a comma! The book must be using Lastname, Firstname. Let's be very helpful and reverse that for the user so it will display properly. That craps out my idea to put the series into the Authors field, because when Calibre sends it, it looks like that:

Brooks, Terry (The Word & The Void 1).

The Kindle very helpfully changes that into:

Terry (The Word & The Void 1) Brooks.

That's useless. If I want to have the seris, I'll have to look deeper into Calibre's template capabilities, and replace the comma with something else (probably an underscore). Even that will not fix the problem that the Kindle apparently cannot do "Intuïtive sorting". Therefore, if there'se a very long series loaded ("The Lengend of Drizzt", up to 23 books right now, into which all previous Drizzt series are sub-series), then TLoD 2 comes AFTER TLoD 19.

3. If you have books on the Kindle, and you're going to put them into collections then you can put them into more than one collection; therefore, they are always displayed if you're selecting them. As far as I can see, there is no way to shut off display of books that are in a collection already.

On a Kindle, they could have just reduced the memory to 128 MB. It's almost impossible to manage more than a few books on the device without jumping through hoops, or hacking and jailbreaking it to add the capability to have calibre control the collections.

DiapDealer · 09-10-2013, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApK

As someone who often finds a really good offer in the deals and freebies section here RIGHT AFTER it's expired, I'm here to tell you: you sure can.

That's because you were looking for those offers. I don't. Let me clarify what I meant: I'm not moping about missing any bargains that I wasn't hunting for, since I never spend more than I'm willing to spend on a book that I'm thinking about reading ... regardless. I have my own limits that I adhere to.

I'm not going to bemoan the fact that there might have been a better deal on the book at some point (even if it IS brought to my attention after I buy it). Especially if I thought the price was fair at the time and I enjoyed the book. If I didn't enjoy the book, no reduction in the price paid was ever going to make me like it more. If the price didn't look fair when I was ready to read it, well, maybe it'll be on sale the next time I remember to read it. And if at some point, I forget I wanted to read it, how could I miss it?

Katsunami · 09-10-2013, 12:55 PM

There, I fixed it. (Lastname_Firstname, series and index in Author field.)

Maybe someone else will get some use out of it.

Maybe, one day, I'll actually jailbreak the Kindle, put the Collection Manager in it and add the modified Kindle Collections plugin to Calibre.

crossi · 09-10-2013, 12:59 PM

Given the limitations of the kindle software I played around with various options for series. I tried adding series names and cryptic abbreviations for series names but it simply made the titles too long. I've settled on having each author have it's own collection and my series titles show as Title [series #] and by editing the publication date so the first book is Jan 1 of some year, the next is Feb 1 of that year, ect. As long as each series for an author has it's own publication year the series show within the author/collection in the correct order and grouped together by series.

It's a bit of a pain making the metadata edits as each book is downloaded to Calibre but as long as the DRM is removed I'll only have to do the editing once for any future devices. Of course that means the cloud is all but useless to me because my edits don't show in the downloaded books.

latepaul · 09-10-2013, 01:24 PM

Am I the only one with the opposite problem regarding deals and TBR books? That is that I buy books right away because they're one of my favourite authors or a series I'm following, only to languish on the TBR pile so long that I could have actually saved quite a lot of money if I'd waited until I was actually ready to read it.

It's like all those unwatched DVDs I own that I bought at full price and which are now in regular rotation on free-to-air TV...

Katsunami · 09-10-2013, 01:34 PM

LOL. I'm too distracted and have too many hobbies to read, listen or see media immediately. Mostly I buy stuff when I can get a good deal, because I like it (or think I might), and then it can take me up to 10 years (or more) to actually "consume" it. Last week I've finished a computer game that I bought in 2001 for the first time... The companies that created and sold it are already long gone; taken over, or went bankrupt.

Now you know why I'm always screaming that I'll never buy anything with DRM that's dependent on the seller (or whomever).

Shortly I'll go to Feedbooks.com to download a lot of free public domain novels. I really like their layout, and their EPUB stuff is almost always flawless, or nearly so (as far as I've seen). They could be gone suddenly... (And yes, they have quite some stuff that MobileRead does not have, and a nicer search facility.)

speakingtohe · 09-10-2013, 01:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katsunami

There, I fixed it. (Lastname_Firstname, series and index in Author field.)

Maybe someone else will get some use out of it.

Maybe, one day, I'll actually jailbreak the Kindle, put the Collection Manager in it and add the modified Kindle Collections plugin to Calibre.

Congratulations

pidgeon92 · 09-10-2013, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by latepaul

It's like all those unwatched DVDs I own that I bought at full price and which are now in regular rotation on free-to-air TV...

I completely quit buying DVDs when I realized I could rent whatever I wanted to watch from Netflix. I probably have a few hundred DVDs, I think they are all going to end up in next year's garage sale.

PurpleStar · 09-10-2013, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

I completely quit buying DVDs when I realized I could rent whatever I wanted to watch from Netflix. I probably have a few hundred DVDs, I think they are all going to end up in next year's garage sale.

I haven't been buying DVDs either. I borrow a lot from the library or just watch when they come on TV. Saves me a lot of money that way.

eschwartz · 09-10-2013, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApK

As someone who often finds a really good offer in the deals and freebies section here RIGHT AFTER it's expired, I'm here to tell you: you sure can.
I'm trying to learn to check that section more regularly and get the good stuff for for my TBR library while the getting is good.

Have you seen BookGorilla?

They email you a daily list of all kinds of deals on Kindle books. I've gotten at least one $10 bestseller for free, and lots of others at major discounts. They let you choose categories which you are interested in.

http://www.bookgorilla.com for anyone who is interested.

P.S. This is only available for Amazon Kindle.

Katsunami · 09-10-2013, 05:08 PM

I've been "shopping" at Feedbooks, MR, Amazon and Gutenberg for classics and (short) stories to read in between current day novels.

After downloading them and sorting by author, I'll pick out the best/most popular ones to start with, but it's going to be completely impossible to load everything onto the Kindle. First, it's just too many books. Two, most of those authors I don't know. I'll pick some at random and look into them. Third, some of them are problably in genres I'll never read.

I just stash them away on my hard drive, and start browsing sometime, and looking into authors I don't know. If I find a book/author I like, I'll transfer it/him/her to Calibre.

vugtitan · 09-10-2013, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zetmolm

I have all my thousands of books on a 32GB MicroSd card that is always in my reader. Two reasons:
1. Backup. If my house burns down with all computers and disks included while I'm away at least i still my books.
2. Optimal choice. Whatever I want to read next, it's there.

One of the reasons why I bought an Onyx reader first and then later a PocketBook is that these readers do not slow down with a large number of books on them.

The nook has folders and does NOT suffer slow down due to 15000 books on the sd card.

in contrast the kindle 3g becomes a brick with 3000.

freezes,reboots,r is just slow,very slow.

i think the nook generates a file table or master file table whereas inferior systems like the kindle actually go through the whole list of books and this explains the slowness.

even a window folder on a desktop has trouble with 3000 items in a folder let alone a lowly processor in a battery operated device.

09-10-2013, 11:47 AM	#154
Katsunami Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,111 Karma: 34000001 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: KPW1, KA1	I've tried to store all unread books that I have in Calibre (~150 at this point in time... and I'm not NEARLY done re-acquiring my paper books as eBooks, or adding the classics I want to read, so this would become more and more in the future) on the Kindle Paperwhite, so I don't have to decide beforehand what I'm going to read next. It's impossible. It doesn't work. The device works against me. 1. I've added a plugboard to add series to the title. It works, but the names are often way too long. Sometimes the title gets cut off before the series name ends... (Up until now, I only always had one series on the device, and the plugboard added only the index.) 2. So, I've got an idea. I'll just store the series name in the Author field like this: Lastname, Firstname (Series_Name Index). Then when sorting by Author, the books will also be sorted by series. WRONG! I like my authors to be stored as Lastname, Firstname, same as Author_Sort. Why? Because If find it strange-looking to see "J.R.R. Tolkien" sorted after "Terry Brooks". Seeing "Tolkien, J.R.R." sorted after "Brooks, Terry" is much more logical to me. Enter the Kindle. "Hey, a comma! The book must be using Lastname, Firstname. Let's be very helpful and reverse that for the user so it will display properly. That craps out my idea to put the series into the Authors field, because when Calibre sends it, it looks like that: Brooks, Terry (The Word & The Void 1). The Kindle very helpfully changes that into: Terry (The Word & The Void 1) Brooks. That's useless. If I want to have the seris, I'll have to look deeper into Calibre's template capabilities, and replace the comma with something else (probably an underscore). Even that will not fix the problem that the Kindle apparently cannot do "Intuïtive sorting". Therefore, if there'se a very long series loaded ("The Lengend of Drizzt", up to 23 books right now, into which all previous Drizzt series are sub-series), then TLoD 2 comes AFTER TLoD 19. 3. If you have books on the Kindle, and you're going to put them into collections then you can put them into more than one collection; therefore, they are always displayed if you're selecting them. As far as I can see, there is no way to shut off display of books that are in a collection already. On a Kindle, they could have just reduced the memory to 128 MB. It's almost impossible to manage more than a few books on the device without jumping through hoops, or hacking and jailbreaking it to add the capability to have calibre control the collections. Last edited by Katsunami; 09-10-2013 at 12:01 PM.

09-10-2013, 12:55 PM	#156
Katsunami Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,111 Karma: 34000001 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: KPW1, KA1	There, I fixed it. (Lastname_Firstname, series and index in Author field.) Maybe someone else will get some use out of it. Maybe, one day, I'll actually jailbreak the Kindle, put the Collection Manager in it and add the modified Kindle Collections plugin to Calibre. Last edited by Katsunami; 09-10-2013 at 01:11 PM.

09-10-2013, 01:34 PM	#159
Katsunami Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,111 Karma: 34000001 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: KPW1, KA1	LOL. I'm too distracted and have too many hobbies to read, listen or see media immediately. Mostly I buy stuff when I can get a good deal, because I like it (or think I might), and then it can take me up to 10 years (or more) to actually "consume" it. Last week I've finished a computer game that I bought in 2001 for the first time... The companies that created and sold it are already long gone; taken over, or went bankrupt. Now you know why I'm always screaming that I'll never buy anything with DRM that's dependent on the seller (or whomever). Shortly I'll go to Feedbooks.com to download a lot of free public domain novels. I really like their layout, and their EPUB stuff is almost always flawless, or nearly so (as far as I've seen). They could be gone suddenly... (And yes, they have quite some stuff that MobileRead does not have, and a nicer search facility.) Last edited by Katsunami; 09-10-2013 at 01:37 PM.

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09-10-2013, 11:08 AM	#151
Sefiriot Bujavid tekikin Posts: 139 Karma: 40366 Join Date: Aug 2013 Location: Malaysia Device: LG G3 D855, Samsung Galaxy Note N7000	I buy pbooks when there's a very big sale going, usually 2 times a year here-- then I tend to buy as many as I can afford on my budget, usually around 16-20 books. Were I not still a student, and had independent income, I'd easily buy 50 or more each time. I've just about run out of storage space for them however, so you can imagine I'm absolutely happy to be able to cram nearly everything I want onto my e-reader, with the only limitations being how long I'm willing to wait for calibre to sync with my phone and how much storage space I can give Calibre Companion's database.

09-10-2013, 12:59 PM	#157
crossi Guru Posts: 992 Karma: 12000001 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Seattle Wahington U.S. Device: kindle	Given the limitations of the kindle software I played around with various options for series. I tried adding series names and cryptic abbreviations for series names but it simply made the titles too long. I've settled on having each author have it's own collection and my series titles show as Title [series #] and by editing the publication date so the first book is Jan 1 of some year, the next is Feb 1 of that year, ect. As long as each series for an author has it's own publication year the series show within the author/collection in the correct order and grouped together by series. It's a bit of a pain making the metadata edits as each book is downloaded to Calibre but as long as the DRM is removed I'll only have to do the editing once for any future devices. Of course that means the cloud is all but useless to me because my edits don't show in the downloaded books.

09-10-2013, 01:24 PM	#158
latepaul Wizard Posts: 1,264 Karma: 10203040 Join Date: Dec 2011 Device: a variety (mostly kindles and kobos)	Am I the only one with the opposite problem regarding deals and TBR books? That is that I buy books right away because they're one of my favourite authors or a series I'm following, only to languish on the TBR pile so long that I could have actually saved quite a lot of money if I'd waited until I was actually ready to read it. It's like all those unwatched DVDs I own that I bought at full price and which are now in regular rotation on free-to-air TV...

09-10-2013, 05:08 PM	#164
Katsunami Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,111 Karma: 34000001 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: KPW1, KA1	I've been "shopping" at Feedbooks, MR, Amazon and Gutenberg for classics and (short) stories to read in between current day novels. After downloading them and sorting by author, I'll pick out the best/most popular ones to start with, but it's going to be completely impossible to load everything onto the Kindle. First, it's just too many books. Two, most of those authors I don't know. I'll pick some at random and look into them. Third, some of them are problably in genres I'll never read. I just stash them away on my hard drive, and start browsing sometime, and looking into authors I don't know. If I find a book/author I like, I'll transfer it/him/her to Calibre.