Managing books and folders

[JollyRoger]

When I use Calibre to put books onto teh Kindle KB, they of course don't go into any specific folder. Is there a way of creating a folder with the name of an author, then adding ebooks to that folder?

[kiwidude]

Use the Kindle Collections plugin.

[JollyRoger]

I've tried that. I can't figure out how it works. It totally messed up the collections I already had, and I had to manually delete everything on my Kindle as a result

[kiwidude]

It will only do what you ask it to do

A quick google found what appears to be a good article here which talks through how to use it. In your case it sounds like you just want to create an automatic collection based on Author (or Author Sort). Ignore that *recommended* stuff in it, I personally disagree with, you don't need to import collections from the kindle or create a custom category if all you want is collections by author.

The only thing I didn't see on there was the discussion of metadata plugboards which you appear confused about on your other thread. They are just a way of putting series name into the title that appears on your Kindle so if you sort by title on the Kindle you see the books in order. There is an article here which describes how to correctly set that up.

But you should really just ask on the thread above which is dedicated to it if you can't figure something out.

[JollyRoger]

OK I got so far with it and it makes a little sense now. However, when I copy all Clive Cussler books to Kindle, then ask it to sort them, it sorts them by series, as if the series was the author title. Is it possible to sort them by author, and also series?

[kiwidude]

Type an example of what you want to see. You have collections by author, right? And then when you go into a collection for that author, how do you want the books sorted? By publication date? Or by title (which if you have used a metadata plugboard means they get sorted by series name if it has one).

Or are you talking about the main (Home) screen for the Kindle? Make sure that is set to "By Title" and that will put all your author collections sorted first at the top.

[JollyRoger]

Well what it's done, is sort 1 author's books into 5 collections, which are the series. I wanted it in 1 collection, relating to the authors name, but with the series name alongside the book title.
What it cannot do either, is sort all books to one collection where the author may have had a co-author. It tries to make a collection for every book where there was a co-author, irrespective of whether that book was part of a series or not.
Now when I try to change it, it says none of the books have a file?
It's just going from bad to worse so I've deleted the plugboard and reinstalled the plugin. I just can't see how to work it properly.

[kiwidude]

Here are my settings - stick with these and you will have something up and running. I like to see collections by author, with the ability to sort by title within an author collection to see a series in order. Since it sounds like you have deleted your device contents a few times, your best bet is to just start from fresh (all your books you want kept are already in calibre, right?).

• Plug in your Kindle.
• Choose "Customise Kindle Collections".
• Make sure the *only* dropdown that is set to "Create" is for "Author Sort".
• On that row, set the Prefix to ~ and optionally the Suffix to ~ (if you are OCD like me and want to see ~Cussler, Clive~ as the collection name). Set the Minimum to one.
• Make sure all the checkboxes down the bottom are ticked, and click OK.
• Go to Preferences -> Metadata plugboards. Create a plugboard for mobi, device Kindle2 and set the template to:
  {series:|| }{series_index:0>2s|[|] - }{title}
• Set the destination field to title and click Save plugboard.

Now you have everything configured. Select the books you want on your Kindle (just pick a few to begin with), right-click and choose Send to Device to send them to your Kindle. Now you have books on there that will have been internally renamed thanks to the metadata plugboard when the Kindle looks at them.

Now you want to create your collections. Just click on the main Kindle Collections button, or choose "Create collections on the Kindle from Calibre" from the dropdown. It will take a moment or two, and when done produce a report telling you what collections it has.

Choose Eject from the Device menu, and unplug your Kindle. Hit Home, Menu, Settings, Menu, Restart. Wait a minute or two for your Kindle to reboot. Wait a few more seconds for the count of collections to settle.

On your home screen, make sure the sort is set to sort by "Title". Since we prefixed the collections per author with ~ above, that will sort them at the top. You should see a collection for each author (assuming your author column in calibre is propulated correctly).

Click on one of those author collections. Set the sort to by "Title" and you should see a series listed in incremental order, thanks to the metadata plugboard.

All this setup is a one-off thing. The next time you want more books on there (or remove some), just plugin in your Kindle, add/remove the books, click on the Kindle Collections button on your toolbar, wait for the report, and follow the eject and restart steps.

[JollyRoger]

Well, much appreciations for that. For some reason this time it worked, albeit it can't handle author names where it's a collaborative work, such as James Patterson & Richard Dilallo, so you have to edit the collection manually.
However the series names are coming through properly.
I'm going to play with it more as I can't see how it is any better than Kindlean,yet it's much more hard work.
I appreciate all your help though.

[kiwidude]

Glad you are up and running. However it is not a case of it "not handling" a situation like multiple authors - it is simply using the value you put in that field. If you want only one author to show for a collaboration, then edit the Author Sort field in calibre for that book to make it just the specific author you want.

I don't use Edit Collections *ever*, to me it is a screen that rather negates the main value of the plugin which is to create collections automatically. The plugin has a number of different ways to create automatically including some very flexible and powerful ones, I just told you the absolute simplest way since you seemed to be struggling with it.

As to whether to use Kindlean or not, it comes down to whether you want to use calibre or not. If you don't, by all means use Kindlean. If there are no features of calibre or its plugins that interest you, then by all means don't use it. But if you decide to stick with calibre, then Kindle Collections is by far the easiest way to organise collections if you keep things simple and don't overcomplicate things.

[JollyRoger]

I've been using Calibre for some time. I like the program, it does everything I want. But like you with your ~authorname~, I'm OCD about including any collaborating authors, and I have to strip all of those out for Kindle Collection to work.
I'm sure it's an excellent and powerful tool but it's the software that is over complicated, and requires some study to understand what things do.
I'm resigned to editing collections manually each time there is a collection with collaborating authors, at least ticking all those boxes to include the books is way quicker than using the Kindle itself to handle things.
I'm certinaly more content than I was

[kiwidude]

As I said above you don't have to strip them out completely - just edit the author sort field for the book. While it defaults to the same value as your display authors, you are allowed to edit it to what you want. So you can keep displaying on screen (and searching) the multiple authors for a book. From a sorting perspective nothing will change. But because if you followed my instructions above about creating Kindle Collections on the author sort field, then it means the book will appear in that same single author collection for that author.

This is *way* smarter than manually editing collections every time you use the plugin, seriously it would drive me mental to have to do that every time.

The only "downside" is that the book will only appear in the collection for that first author. Personally that doesn't bother me, but if that is the sticking point for you then yes that is unavoidable. You could always make a request to meme on the Kindle Collections thread for an option to split collaborations into a collection per author.

[JollyRoger]

Not sure what you mean about editing Author sort field. In Calibre?
Clive Cussler is renowned for his collaborations. I don't care if the other name doesn't display in Kindle, but as Calibre is a database of the books and also information about those books, I like to keep those names in Calibre. But that seems to be what throws the plugin into a fit and means I have to manually edit.

[kiwidude]

Yes in calibre, on the Edit Metadata screen for a book. The field called "Author sort" that is just underneath "Authors". You leave the Authors field untouched, so you continue to see the collaborations on screen. But you edit the Author sort field.

[JollyRoger]

Ahh yes. I recall trying that. What happens then is, Calibre orders the books utterly randomly. So you havd Roald Dahl books in one place, then 4 Roald Dahl books with collaborating authors spread around randomly throughout the list. Not even the secondary authors are alphabetised. That has me bamboozled when I first tried it!
I think in some ways what Calibre suffers from is that it's too complex. It tries to do too much and suffers. I mentioned Kindlean and what it does do is limited, but it does it superbly. It's simple drag and drop and you can't go wrong. I love the fact you can download covers and metadata in Calibre, and of course convert, but I do think it probably goes wrong as there are a thousand things in it rather than just 1 or 2.