Future-proofing my ebook collection given the churn in ebook formats

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by sherman

Hi guys,

I never meant to imply that the problem with the unpacked epubs was due to KindleUnpack (I know the epubs are identical to the source), but rather that a lot of the epubs are rather pointless for my purposes, so I may as well not bother.

No problem.

I wasn't worried so much that you were unaware, but rather that someone who might be unaware would read your post and infer incorrectly that monolithic, ugly epubs were KindleUnpack's "fault."

For what it's worth ... the vast majority of my Amazon purchases unpack to rather nice, carefully crafted epubs. But then I don't buy very many books from Amazon anymore, either.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Same. If C-Lit hadn't existed back in the day and later the scripts by I cabbages, followed by Alf and friends, I would never have become as highly invested in digital books as I have.

Same here. In addition, I didn't start buying movies on iTunes or buy a lot of audiobooks from audible until it became possible to bypass the DRM. I see no real reason to invest thousands of dollars in something that might become inaccessible overnight.

I have a follow-up question on recommended practices for those who keep an original liberated source file of each ebook you buy.

Is there a good reason to keep the original and unchanged version of an ebook source file somewhere in a separate backed up source files folder outside of tools like Calibre, so there's no risk of ever deleting or messing up the original source file?

I can see some value in keeping the unchanged original source file. But OTOH, not sure if folks who have done this find that it's worth it having to keep track of the original source files, plus the copies that you manage/edit/convert in Calibre.

Another comment, this on my first try with using the KindleUnpack plugin, which was recommended in this thread and others. I used this as an alternative to converting AZW3 to Epub.

KindleUnpack worked fine within calibre and I could read output epub files just fine. But I noticed the epub files had problems in some ereaders. For example, Google Play Books would not process and accept a number of those "shifted" epubs as uploads. Also saw issues in FBreader. I noticed a strong correlation between the complexity of the book (size, number of links, deeply nested chapters and sections, etc) and the issues with the shifted files. I did flip the target epub version in the plugin (epub2/epub3/auto-detect), but that only made a difference for a couple of the affected books.

In the end, I used Calibre to convert my AZW3 to Epub and got better results. That's because in the more complex books, I would tweak some of the conversion settings and the resulting epub files seemed to work better. Don't know if others have found that, or if I just missed something.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by maximus83

Is there a good reason to keep the original and unchanged version of an ebook source file somewhere in a separate backed up source files folder outside of tools like Calibre, so there's no risk of ever deleting or messing up the original source file?

I can see some value in keeping the unchanged original source file. But OTOH, not sure if folks who have done this find that it's worth it having to keep track of the original source files, plus the copies that you manage/edit/convert in Calibre.

I keep them all within my Calibre Library, I don't stash the originals in another location. But my Calibre Library is backed up on 4 drives on 2 computers I use daily, and there's also a copy of the library on my netbook and my laptop for traveling and in the cloud (although those don't get daily updates like the 2 main PCs do, I sync files nightly between the 2 main PCs). So keeping them in the Calibre Library means there's nothing extra to keep track of. And when you buy books from various sellers, if you ever want to know at a glance which books you own in epub only or azw3 only, sorting in the Calibre Library makes that simple to find out.

I had considered awhile ago deleting all the Kindle format books since I really don't think there will ever be a time when I'll prefer a Kindle reader over an epub reader, but the total space I would gain from deleting them is only around 900 MB. My system drives are 2 TB, it's not really giving much useful space back, so I figured I might as well keep them just in case converting to yet another format down the line might be better coming from the original azw3 than from the converted epub. Although I'll say I've never had any problems with converted epubs through Calibre yet.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by maximus83

I have a follow-up question on recommended practices for those who keep an original liberated source file of each ebook you buy.

Is there a good reason to keep the original and unchanged version of an ebook source file somewhere in a separate backed up source files folder outside of tools like Calibre, so there's no risk of ever deleting or messing up the original source file?

I've read some folks keep a separate original copy just because over the years Calibre has improved how it handled certain things. So they keep the original in case they might want to reconvert from the original later on.

FYI - You could always have two (or more) Calibre libraries. Say "Converted" and "Original"...as an example. Therefore, all the copies are in the same place. I think your only "risk" in the Original library was if you sent one of those copies directly to your reader/tablet/phone, it's possible the metadata would be changed to match what shows in the library records.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by maximus83

I have a follow-up question on recommended practices for those who keep an original liberated source file of each ebook you buy.

Is there a good reason to keep the original and unchanged version of an ebook source file somewhere in a separate backed up source files folder outside of tools like Calibre, so there's no risk of ever deleting or messing up the original source file?

I can see some value in keeping the unchanged original source file. But OTOH, not sure if folks who have done this find that it's worth it having to keep track of the original source files, plus the copies that you manage/edit/convert in Calibre.

Because of the way Calibre stores files, it's difficult to mess them up accidentally. What actually affects me is that Calibre doesn't handle multiple files of the same type for the same entry (two epubs for the same book, for example). Since I do keep the original file if I make a modification, I keep a second Calibre library that I copy the original to if I make a modification. I use "Copy to Library" in the right-click menu quite often.

In the past, I have accidentally deleted my only copy of a book before when I thought I had another copy somewhere else. Keeping them in Calibre has reduced the chance that I'll do that. If you want to keep a "reading copy" and an original, I recommend a second Calibre library that you copy originals into and never modify.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by maximus83

In the end, I used Calibre to convert my AZW3 to Epub and got better results. That's because in the more complex books, I would tweak some of the conversion settings and the resulting epub files seemed to work better. Don't know if others have found that, or if I just missed something.

KindleUnpack only unpacks what's there and re-packs in an ePub framework. If the original Kindle ebook wasn't generated from a compliant ePub, the result will not be a compliant ePub.

KindleUnpack is really useful for getting the PDF out of azw4 and exploring the formatting inside Kindle ebooks.

For converting to compliant ePubs, calibre's conversion is much better, as that's what it's designed for.

[Tarana]

Yes, there are reasons to keep the original, DRMfree ebook. If you want to change formatting later on, it's less of a problem doing it from the original than a changed copy. Ebooks just don't take up that much space. I have to say though, I haven't gone with the bother of redownloading my Amazon library just to get the AZW? format.

Audiobooks are a different matter. They take a lot of space. I have both MP3 and M4b for favorites. Everything else is Mp3.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Nope, you still lose stuff. Although at that point, you're scraping the barrel with metadata I guess...

Also that doesn't help for mobi7.
And I really don't think keeping the originals is too much to ask, regardless.

But good point, nevertheless.

So what do you lose by using KindleUnpack to shift from KF8 (not Mobi7) to ePub?

Anyway, I agree to keep the original regardless of the format of the original.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by maximus83

Another comment, this on my first try with using the KindleUnpack plugin, which was recommended in this thread and others. I used this as an alternative to converting AZW3 to Epub.

KindleUnpack worked fine within calibre and I could read output epub files just fine. But I noticed the epub files had problems in some ereaders. For example, Google Play Books would not process and accept a number of those "shifted" epubs as uploads. Also saw issues in FBreader. I noticed a strong correlation between the complexity of the book (size, number of links, deeply nested chapters and sections, etc) and the issues with the shifted files. I did flip the target epub version in the plugin (epub2/epub3/auto-detect), but that only made a difference for a couple of the affected books.

In the end, I used Calibre to convert my AZW3 to Epub and got better results. That's because in the more complex books, I would tweak some of the conversion settings and the resulting epub files seemed to work better. Don't know if others have found that, or if I just missed something.

Question...Are you loading the shifted ePub into the Calibre eBook editor and checking for errors? You need to do this after you've shifted the KF8 to ePub because there will always be errors. These errors are very simple to fix.

So once these errors are fixed and the ePub validates, any program that fails with them is the fault of the program. Most KF8 starts life as ePub and gets converted to KF8 using Kindlegen. Then you come along, shift the KF8 back to ePub and you have an ePub that's pretty much going to be as the ePub was.