Sideload EBOK through "Send to Kindle via Email"?

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

As jhowell said, the Send-to-Kindle service modifies all books to set the cdetype to PDOC (and set the exth 113 to a Personal Documents Service-format ASIN).

Since this happens after you send it once the book reaches Amazon's servers, there is no workaround unless you want to hack Amazon's servers and "fix" their service for them.

That is my understanding and experience as well — that when you Send-to-Kindle, Amazon assigns it a special Personal Documents ASIN and there's no way to "fix" that because it happens after you Send-to-Kindle.

However, I was startled to find this post on Teleread that basically says using Calibre to input the proper ASIN will fix WhisperSync problems: http://www.teleread.com/glitches-in-...to-the-rescue/

This isn't right, is it?

[shamanNS]

^Those redditors are glitching

[lairdb]

Wow, this thread went a little sideways -- though in interesting directions.

To follow up, I bought a Kindle Paperwhite; here are some findings:

• Send to Kindle by email epubs go to Personal Documents, as expected.
• If they have a large and clean cover embedded as the (first page? cover div?), then that cover is displayed on the Paperwhite and Kindle for iPad when the doc is on the device.
• Calibre metadata plugboards can be used to alter metadata on its way to the email destination, e.g. adding series data to the title. (Mostly. Occasionally this doesn't work, for reasons that I haven't gotten to the bottom of.)
• Sync on both the Paperwhite and iPad will sync the library content, but does not sync the Furthest Page data...
• ...downloading the item to the device also does not sync the Furthest Page automatically...
• ...but subsequently re-opening it, or forcing a Furthest Page request, will. (This achieves my primary objective; being able to seamlessly switch back and forth between devices. Switching to a book that was not previously on the Paperwhite just requires downloading it and then purposely closing and reopening, or forcing a Furthest Page request one time.)
• After emailing an epub to an iOS device address, it appears to be free to download to the Paperwhite over 3G. (This is consistent with earlier reports in the thread, and appears to be a loophole in Amazon's implementation.)
• Syncing Library, Downloading and Syncing Furthest Page work just fine over 3G. (This is inconsistent with Cinisajoy's report that wifi is required for Sync.)

Open items:

• If an EPUB with proper metadata is sideloaded to the iOS device and the kindle (i.e. not via PDOC) will they subsequently sync furthest page properly?
• Why does Calibre metadata plugboard give inconsistent results sending to Kindle email?