Quote:
Originally Posted by Atunah
I can't even remember the last time I used my usb cord on my kindles. Now I only own kindles as e-readers and a Nexus tablet. I buy most of my books at Amazon. But I have purchased from other stores before like direct from Kensington (Discoveranewlove), AllRomance and got a few freebies from Smashwords. I sort it all in calibre, but don't use calibre to send anything to my kindles. I use the send to kindle plug-in and so those books are part of my Amazon Cloud.
No clue if that is considered side loading in the spirit of the discussion. Now I used to side load back in 2008 with usb on my very first kindle. I was still a bit confused at the time. 
I don't really keep a lot of books on my devices, I pull them down when I need them and they reside in collections until then. |
It's really a tough one, as there's no single clear definition of sideloading in the web.
Personally, I would consider your process as sideloading.
Personally, I don't focus on the technology (as in "strictly USB"), but on the workflow per se.
By some manual process you transfer your books to your reader.
Whether you then download from some Cloud or from Amazon directly, personally I wouldn't mind.
The important correlation of course is, where you get your books from to begin with.
You already wrote, you purchase from numerous sources. And then you sideload (before that the usual processes in calibre and such). Perfectly makes sense and is a widely common approach. Albeit your last process step with the plug-in probably is advanced way above average. Maybe not for MR standards, but certainly for the general public.