REQ: Advice on Library metadata mgmt & Kindle use

[jecilop]

UPDATE: SOLVED as of post #5.

Problem: When you send files to your Kindle account storing them as personal documents, only the author and title metadata are visible in your Content Mgmt as well as the book lookup. If looking for a book that's part of series, it does not indicate either the series or book number in unless you have that info in the title like Amazon does. So, annoyingly it seems they do not use a series metadata field for anything. If I send a bunch of my books in series, then all I will see is titles. I have to open them to see series info or know the info going in.

The only resolution I can figure so far to work better with this in Kindle is to change my library title metadata to include the series and number. I am strongly averse to this because I like the clean management of just a title in the title field.

Ex: I prefer Author, Title, Series # in managing books in Calibre

In Kindle docs I only get Author, Title - never Series

To send copies to easily pull up on Kindle, I would have to change Calibre to:
Ex: Author, Title (Series #) OR Author, (Series #) Title

Unfortunately, I know of no way to make Kindle use a different metadata field as the title or I'd create a combined column for it.

Am I missing something obvious on how to get what I want? I use other ebook apps, but I really like the Kindle "ecosystem" and potential (I'm working on the Annotations plug-in) to download my annotations into Calibre. I want to migrate more to Kindle but also see this info in my management in Kindle.

Additionally, do I understand the Personal Docs conversion and cover issue correctly from my research? What I have seen tells me the only way for Kindle (at least when managed through personal docs) to use the cover is to check the box for conversion in MOBI output that says "Enable sharing of book content via Facebook, etc. WARNING: Disables last read syncing." However, I understand this to also mean that it disables the Whispersync ability of Kindle which defeats a large part of my purpose. Is this correct? Just to get the cover to show? I feel like I have to be completely misunderstanding this?
I'm still trying to understand the info Kovid has provided about "old/New" mobi and using azw instead. I see it but don't fully get the impact. I need to experiment a bit to do so.

[eschwartz]

Preferences ==> Import/Export ==> Metadata plugboards

You can embed the series info in the exported copies ONLY. Allowing metadata to stay properly managed within calibre.



Setting the cover and stuff is applicable only when NOT emailing the book to your Kindle.
MOBI personal documents will automatically show the covers, along with the ugly "Personal" banner.

[jecilop]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Preferences ==> Import/Export ==> Metadata plugboards

You can embed the series info in the exported copies ONLY. Allowing metadata to stay properly managed within calibre.


Setting the cover and stuff is applicable only when NOT emailing the book to your Kindle.
MOBI personal documents will automatically show the covers, along with the ugly "Personal" banner.

Thank you. This option makes complete sense.

Now I have to figure out plugboards....

I've read up even more from the manual about the personal docs and displays, but I'm still confused on this bottom line: If I'm converting to mobi (default settings) and sending via email as a personal doc, I see that it is supposed to display my cover, but I cannot figure if Whispersync is supposed to work also. Note: this is with defaults so does not involve checking off the mentioned box.

[eschwartz]

The calibre settings for WhisperSync/covers/etc. have no effect.
Amazon's Personal Documents intake post-processes the ebook to mark it as a PDOC, link it through WhisperSync to the PDOCs section of your Kindle Cloud, and depend on WhisperSync for the cover.


PDOC covers will ONLY download through WhisperSync for a PDOC downloaded as MOBI. That means you must convert to "old" MOBI, not "both" ("both" means newer devices will download the AZW3 portion). At least for the E-Ink devices -- it is possible the Android app works differently, but I have never tried.

[jecilop]

Thank you. I think between my reading and your response that I have figured it out!
I've also figured out plugboards..at least for my needs for now.

, @eschwartz