[ZodWallop]

First, I'd follow davidfor's advice: Put some books on the device and use it. See what you like and what you don't.

And ps67's advice regarding kepub vs. ePub. Kepub is a split of ePub that plays very well with your Kobo.

I'm going to quote your original message out of order to try answering your questions.

Originally Posted by droopy

I sometimes am in an environment where I don't want people to know what book I'm reading. I noticed that when the Forma is sleeping, the book's cover appears. How can I hide that info?

Under Settings/Energy saving and privacy you should see Show current read with a checkbox next to it. If you uncheck that it won't show the cover when asleep.

When going from Power-Off to Power-On, is there a way to add a lock so that no one can snoop around on my books when I'm away from my Forma?

Again, under Settings/Energy saving and privacy you should see Ask for PIN on wake up or power on with a checkbox next to it.

On my Samsung phone... I make it habit to tap the power button to immediately save on power... Should I carry on that habit and press the power button when my eyes are not going to be off the page for more than 5 seconds?

eInk only consumes power when something on the screen changes. The reason eInk devices display something on the screen even if the device is powered off is that it is not consuming any energy to do it.

The LEDs use some power, but I don't believe it's much. Nothing like the screen of a phone.

Under Settings/Energy saving and privacy, check out Automatically go to sleep after and Automatically power off after. On my Clara, I have sleep set to 15 minutes (in case I fall asleep while reading) and power off is set to Never.

If you really want to save power, just turn off WiFi. Since you aren't planning on buying books from Kobo, there's no real need for it, except for software updates.

Do I need to use Calibre?

Need? No. But I'd recommend it because using Calibre for sideloading will answer all the rest of your questions. At least, my answers to your questions will point back to it because it does everything you asked about.

I have about 200 ebooks that I want to now read on my new Kobo Forma... I'd say 95% are in ePub file format, 4% is PDF, while 1% or less is in mobi file format.

I'd suggest installing Calibre and its Kobo Touch Extended driver. Using that, you can send your ePub and mobi to your device and the driver will convert them to kepub as it adds them to the Forma. So your Forma will have kepubs and your original copies on your hard drive will remain untouched.

PDFs aren't usually worth converting. Just move them over as PDFs.

What is this shelf management I read about?

On my Kobo Forma, how are books arranged? Alphabetically? By date added? By filesize?
Can I set them in groups of my making? For example:
1. First-Priority-to-read books
2. Productivity books
3. Books about health

First: Don't worry about how the files are stored on the Forma's hard drive. What matters is how accsible they are on the device. You aren't going to be using something like File Explorer on the device.

If you use Calibre, you can create collections based on tags. So in Calibre you could tag a book as 'Priority' and 'Books about health' and then on the Forma in My Books you will have a collection titled 'Priority' and one titled 'Books about health' and your tagged book will show in both.

4. All books by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Kobo should already allow you to display all books by Dostoevsky, under My Books/Authors with or without Calibre.

One other thing: Depending on the sources of your books, the metadata might be a mess. I've had books that showed the author under title and the title under the author. Then there's also things like the same author being listed as Rpbert Heinlein, Robert A. Heinlein and Robert Anson Heinlein.

With Calibre, you can check the metadata and update it if needed, to make sure all book titles/authors/series show up correctly.