Converting Amazon ebooks to Epub?
 

Hello

I'd rather get an Epub-based ereader such as those from Kobo or Pocketbook, but before shelling out the money, I'd like to check a couple of things related to the actual books:

1. Are books in Epub as numerous as those for Amazon? I'm especially concerned about non-fiction books, since I don't care for novels, and wouldn't want to being restricted to mostly novels

2. How easy is it to convert Amazon books to Epub, and is the output as good as the original (margins, legibility, etc.)?

Thank you.

Books from the larger publishers are almost invariable also available in ePub. It's books from smaller publishers and especially self-published books that may only be available at Amazon.

Unless/until Amazon change their DRM again, it's easy to convert most Amazon books to ePub, and the results are excellent. (You'll need Apprentice Alf's DRM removal tools.)

Exceptions are those books from Amazon that are in 'Print-replica' (AZW4/PDF) format and Topaz format. But those books in particular are unlikely to be available as ePubs anywhere.

Yeah pdurrant is right i've noticed that too. Mostly smaller publishers are available at amazon while larger publishers are mostly available at ePub.

All the larger publishers are available at Amazon. Why would you say that they aren't?

I think he was trying to say that you can find the larger publishers in epub format, not that they were not available at Amazon.
I do believe most large publishers are in both formats.

If you live outside the USA and use Overdrive then you'll want an ePub capable Reader. Even though in the USA, there is still more ePub available via Overdrive even though you can get Kindle eBooks there.

You can currently convert (all?) Kindle books to epub, but it is possible that will change in the future.

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

I ordered a Pocketboot/Tea Touch Lux 3, and will see how it goes when ordering ebooks from Amazon → Epub → ereader.

One note: in general (always?) you can only buy an ebook from Amazon if you have an Amazon eReader. Their DRM locks the ebook to a specific eReader. This isn't a real problem provided you have a Windows, MacOSX, iOS, or Android device as you can download and install a software eReader from Amazon.

Once you have installed the eReader software and registered it to you Amazon account you can then download the eBook. My preference is to download choosing the "download to computer" option which is there so that you can manually transfer the eBook to the target device. After downloading an eBook this way I can then import into calibre with the help of Apprentice Alf. Once in calibre, it can be converted to the desired format, ePub being my current preference.

Thanks for the tip.

Never mind.

Shari