Putting e-books from my own source rather than through Amazon

[lamont]

I download e-books from my Amazon content page to my pc. I then send each book from Calibre to my Kindle Paperwhite. I keep the Kindle books I buy from Amazon in Calibre and have additional backups of every book as mobi and epub files.

I recently reset my Kindle in an effort to make tabula rasa.

I found out I can create Collections only if the Kindle is connected via wi-fi and registered. So I did that (again).

The problem is that immediately all the books I have purchased are listed on my Kindle are ready for download. I do not want to download them from Amazon. I do not want my Kindle to remember what books are ready to be downloaded.

So I figured if I turn on Airplane Mode, I would be able to somehow get rid of the list of books that are ready to be downloaded. Bu the list of books does not disappear. Is there a way to clear it out? I tried by deleting every folder on the Kindle, and the list remains. So this list is apparently not stored within user-accessible files, but it can't be coming from Amazon, since I am in Airplane Mode and also not connected to Ethernet at this point.

Is there any way to get rid of the list of books that are ready to be downloaded?

[Sirtel]

You cannot really get rid of it, but you can make the purchased books in the Amazon cloud not visible on your homepage. In the first tab, choose "Downloaded" instead of "All". Then you'll see only those books that are actually on your Kindle, i.e. sideloaded.

[lamont]

Thanks, I just gave that a shot. I don't find the "Downloaded" option. Can you please point out to me where it's hiding?



Or are you talking about this?



I have never before even been on this page. When I click "Downloaded" I was prompted to "Enable Offline" and to check "Add" (I presume add the Chrome extension). I added the extension but it's not showing in Chrome when I look under extensions. . I'm not doing it right. :-(

[HarryT]

On the Kindle itself, not Amazon's web site. At the top left of the library page there are two options: "All" and "Downloaded". Make sure that "Downloaded" is selected.

[lamont]

Okay, thanks.

So what did I do by messing around with the Kindle Cloud Reader? It snows says no books have been downloaded. The Cloud Reader Add-on still does not show up in my Chrome extensions.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by lamont

I download e-books from my Amazon content page to my pc. I then send each book from Calibre to my Kindle Paperwhite. I keep the Kindle books I buy from Amazon in Calibre and have additional backups of every book as mobi and epub files.

Why would you convert KF8 eBooks to Mobi? There's no need at all. That's just a waste of disk space and a waste of time and effort. Mobi is a useless obsolete format.

[BookCat]

I always keep my Kindle Paperwhite in airplane mode because I have no wifi. My Kindle is unregistered, I had to register the Kindle account on the phone. I always transfer books via usb.

It might help if you are consistent in the way you use your Kindle; either always use it in airplane mode and sideload books, or always transfer books via wifi.

It might be worth contacting Amazon via their chat facility. (This can be hard to find: go to 'help' and eventually you'll find a 'contact us' option, choose 'chat' which opens a chat box with an Amazon assistant. If you're lucky, you'll get a techie type who knows what you need.) I've found their service to be excellent, just not easy to find.

[lamont]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why would you convert KF8 eBooks to Mobi? There's no need at all. That's just a waste of disk space and a waste of time and effort. Mobi is a useless obsolete format.

I don't convert KF8 files. I haven't even come across one. E-books downloaded from Amazon to Kindle used to be AZW or AZW3 files. Now they give me kfx files.

I always download books from Amazon to the pc because that way I get AZW3 files, which I convert into mobi and epub. I cannot convert kfx files. I keep every book in these three formats:

1. The AZW3 because it is the original file
2. The mobi because the Kindle can read it
3. The epub, because it's open source

Many of my books are not from Amazon and come either as mobi or epub files.

[lamont]

Originally Posted by BookCat

I always keep my Kindle Paperwhite in airplane mode because I have no wifi. My Kindle is unregistered, I had to register the Kindle account on the phone. I always transfer books via usb.

It might help if you are consistent in the way you use your Kindle; either always use it in airplane mode and sideload books, or always transfer books via wifi.

It might be worth contacting Amazon via their chat facility. (This can be hard to find: go to 'help' and eventually you'll find a 'contact us' option, choose 'chat' which opens a chat box with an Amazon assistant. If you're lucky, you'll get a techie type who knows what you need.) I've found their service to be excellent, just not easy to find.

After setting up my Kindle, I also keep it in Airplane mode. But initially, I had to connect to wifi and register the Kindle to my Amazon account, because otherwise, I could not create collections. And since I have a few thousand books, I really need collections.

If you know of a way to create collections on an unregistered Kindle, please do tell!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by lamont

After setting up my Kindle, I also keep it in Airplane mode. But initially, I had to connect to wifi and register the Kindle to my Amazon account, because otherwise, I could not create collections. And since I have a few thousand books, I really need collections.

Just by way of illustrating that everyone’s needs differ, I currently have 9153 books on my 32GB Oasis, and no collections at all.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by lamont

I don't convert KF8 files. I haven't even come across one. E-books downloaded from Amazon to Kindle used to be AZW or AZW3 files. Now they give me kfx files.

I always download books from Amazon to the pc because that way I get AZW3 files, which I convert into mobi and epub. I cannot convert kfx files. I keep every book in these three formats:

1. The AZW3 because it is the original file
2. The mobi because the Kindle can read it
3. The epub, because it's open source

Many of my books are not from Amazon and come either as mobi or epub files.

You are converting KF8 (AZW3). You don't need to convert KF8 to mobi because your PW will display KF8 no problem. So what you are doing is making a mess of your KF8. You can delete all those converted mobi. You don't need a single one of them. You won't be buying a Kindle that doesn't handle KF8.

[HLS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Just by way of illustrating that everyone’s needs differ, I currently have 9153 books on my 32GB Oasis, and no collections at all.

That is a lot of books. Impressive. I have maybe 155 lol

[HLS]

On library page on the kindle there is "all" and "downloaded". when you click downloaded if its blank it means nothing been downloaded. If you see items there you click on it then it should give you a pop up with option to delete. The books under "all" is your library on amazons cloud it will always show all your amazon books but no necessarily mean its on your device yet

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Just by way of illustrating that everyone’s needs differ, I currently have 9153 books on my 32GB Oasis, and no collections at all.

Question, how fast is search at that size?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Question, how fast is search at that size?

Searching for titles and authors is essentially instant.

Searching inside a book takes perhaps 30s to return results.

A global search for text across the entire library doesn't work at all (or at least doesn't return results in any reasonable length of time).

Another downside of such a large library is that when books are added or deleted, it takes around 15m for the library list to fully update with the changes.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend that anyone put so many books on a Kindle. This was very much an experiment to see if it would handle it, and it took me about two weeks to get all the books loaded and indexed (all sideloaded via Calibre). It does handle it, but there are issues, as I've said. Actually reading on it is absolutely fine - no problems at all.