Questions about emailing ebooks to Amazon account

[badgoodDeb]

Maybe that's why Amazon insists on calling them "Personal Documents" -- a legal twist to cover themselves.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I've always worried about sending files I'd originally received as ePub, then stripped DRM. Would Amazon be checking for books it knows that should be digitally encrypted? From what people have said here, it doesn't sound like it.

I had a slightly different situation and I was also nervous about it so I checked with Kindle support. I buy nearly all my books from Amazon and strip them and add a table of contents if needed and send them back to Amazon as docs. I was concerned they would be bothered by this. It's probably at least technically a violation of their TOS.

Anyway I called Kindle support and explained what I was doing and the guy didn't know the answer but called me back the next day. He said he asked around and no-one there, including his supervisor, could see any reason to be concerned about this. In fact some of the support guys were already doing it.

That was about 8 or 10 months ago. I had made a similar check 2 or 3 years ago with similar but less confident results. I now feel pretty good about doing this.

In my case the books involved mostly come from Amazon and were never epub but a few did come from other online stores and were epub before I converted. I can't recall if I mentioned that when I called but my guess is that they'd be more concerned about what happens to books they sell than what happens to their competitors books.

I don't keep all that many books uploaded. Usually it's 10 or 15 books I think I might read pretty soon. After I read them I remove them from my library. I never asked about how many books I can upload since that isn't an issue for me.

Barry

[odamizu]

In addition to the Send-to-Kindle app and plain old email, one can also email it directly from Calibre if you set up Prefs > Sharing Books by Email. This is usually what I do.

I also prefer dual-mobi so that I get AZW3 on my eink Kindles (and I give up covers as a result, though since I usually use List View rather than Cover View, it's not an issue for me; I know others feel differently).

If one is thinking of going with dual-mobi to get AZW3 on an eink Kindle, be warned that every so often the AZW3 portion of a Calibre dual-mobi seems to fail and one ends up with the old-mobi version instead. I've been trying to figure out what makes it fail, and it seems to be a Calibre problem, because if I convert the exact same epub using KindleGen, it works fine. If anyone has any insights into this (problem with opf? css? html?), they would be welcome.

Also, if WhisperSync is important to you, sometimes that will fail, too. I've found that simply re-sending the same file sometimes solves the problem. Other times I'll give the book a new title (e.g., Title2). Worse case scenario: KindleGen so far has always solved the problem. Again, any insights into what's causing Calibre-converted mobis to fail would be most welcome.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Thank you! An excellent idea.

I forgot to mention that it also lets you select which devices (if any) you want to send the document to. No email addresses to keep track of, no clutter in your email Sent Items. And you can launch by context menu (open with etc.) on the document.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Between MOBI and dual-MOBI, it depends on whether you value reading in AZW3 on supported devices, versus seeing the cover thumbnail in cover view (MOBI-only due to a bizarre unfixed Amazon bug).

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Mine are all mobi as I need to have the cover

I email dual mobis (created using kindlegen) to my Amazon account and then use ExtractCoverThumbs to fix the missing covers for personal documents delivered as azw3 files on my PW2.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I email dual mobis (created using kindlegen) ...

I'm tempted to switch to using KindleGen instead of Calibre to create my dual-mobis. I've had one too many Calibre dual-mobis fail to open as AZW3 on my Kindles.

Is this why you use KindleGen as well? Or just personal preference as far as software goes?

[Atunah]

I have about a 1000 docs on my account. I have had like 8 years to accumulate. I use only send to kindle though since they offered it. I don't send stuff to my email anymore. I have too many devices with too many emails. Send to kindle is more central.

Some of those are books from other places that came in epub, some are recipes I used the browser send to kindle with.

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

In another thread, the recommendation for gaining easy access to non-Amazon ebooks from a Kindle was to email the ebooks to ones Amazon account, where they'd become available to all Kindles on that account.

I have a few questions

1. Is there an account-level email address to send to, or does any address associated with any Kindle do?
   
   Yes, you can choose an on/off switch that adds any book to your Kindle Library that you email to any of your kindles. Then it is available to all devices linked to your account. I use it often since all family members read science fiction.
   
2. What format is best to send? MOBI, AZW3, Combined or ePub? Or something else?
   No epub. I used to have some troubles with AZW3 and it's worked well for the last 3. Many of the publishers (Baen, Bundles) use mobi, so it's a nonissue.
   
3. How much storage is available for ebooks sent in this way?
   
   There doesn't appear to be a limit.
   
4. Is it possible to update or delete/resend documents sent in this way?
   Yes, you can delete and resend documents. In fact, you want to delete first if you are sending a replacement or you'll have 2 copies of the same book.
   
5. Do the books appear in the same list as books purchased from Amazon on a Kindle? Or is there a separate list?
   Books appear as though they were purchased from Amazon. In some rare cases, however, there will only be a generic cover with the name of the book.

Also note: If you have a 3G Kindle, Amazon will attempt to deliver over wifi. If unsuccessful, it will deliver via the 3G and there is a charge for that. Kindle Personal Documents Service fee via Whispernet is $.15 per megabyte domestic and $.99 international. You can set a maximum charge.

Thanks!

Kindle Personal Documents Service supports the following file types:

Kindle Format (.MOBI, .AZW)
Microsoft Word (.DOC, .DOCX)
HTML (.HTML, .HTM)
RTF (.RTF)
Text (.TXT)
JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG)
GIF (.GIF)
PNG (.PNG)
BMP (.BMP)
PDF (.PDF)

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I email dual mobis (created using kindlegen) to my Amazon account and then use ExtractCoverThumbs to fix the missing covers for personal documents delivered as azw3 files on my PW2.

Thanks for the info but tbh I've never had any issues with mobi files, I don't really understand why people prefer AZW. Mobi is the file type all my books in Calibre are converted too.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Thanks for the info but tbh I've never had any issues with mobi files, I don't really understand why people prefer AZW. Mobi is the file type all my books in Calibre are converted too.

AZW3 (not AZW!) supports richer formatting: things like real drop caps and embedded fonts. These probably don't matter that much in the average novel, but can be very important in some books. To give an example, I have an Egyptian grammar book that just couldn't have been done as Mobi because it uses an embedded font for Egyptian hieroglyphs. A specialist example, to be sure, but it is an example of a book that wouldn't work as Mobi.

[johnnyb]

I have been a heavy user of the service in the past but I got annoyed by the fact that Amazon did not extend all of their more recent additions to the Kindle feature-set to Personal Documents. I found it bearable when it was only X-Ray and Word Wise but when they started adding hyphenation, improved typography, a much improved Page Flip and e-mail delivery of notes and did not extend these features to Personal Documents, it dawned on me that the service is actually a “legacy feature” and not considered an integral part of the Kindle platform anymore (as well it was when they advertised it as “and hey, you can of course also read your own stuff on your Kindle, we'll even convert your PDFs for you, great for reading all sorts of documents in an eye-friendly and portable way”). The persistent and never fixed “cover bug” is just another case in point.
Just a thought, could be that they shut the service down sooner than later...
(another story is why aforementioned “Amazon tech service guys” feel the need to “enhance” store-bought books... Why don’t they just improve the overall quality standards for books?)

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by odamizu

I'm tempted to switch to using KindleGen instead of Calibre to create my dual-mobis. I've had one too many Calibre dual-mobis fail to open as AZW3 on my Kindles.

Is this why you use KindleGen as well? Or just personal preference as far as software goes?

I like calibre for most things, but I trust kindlegen more for doing a straight conversion without making any unexpected changes to the book.

I use the -dont_append_source option to keep the output file size down.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I use the -dont_append_source option to keep the output file size down.

You can also use pdurrant's "kindlestrip" Python script to achieve the same result, but of course using the flag is more efficient.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

I have been a heavy user of the service in the past but I got annoyed by the fact that Amazon did not extend all of their more recent additions to the Kindle feature-set to Personal Documents. I found it bearable when it was only X-Ray and Word Wise but when they started adding hyphenation, improved typography, a much improved Page Flip and e-mail delivery of notes and did not extend these features to Personal Documents, it dawned on me that the service is actually a “legacy feature” and not considered an integral part of the Kindle platform anymore (as well it was when they advertised it as “and hey, you can of course also read your own stuff on your Kindle, we'll even convert your PDFs for you, great for reading all sorts of documents in an eye-friendly and portable way”). The persistent and never fixed “cover bug” is just another case in point.
Just a thought, could be that they shut the service down sooner than later...
(another story is why aforementioned “Amazon tech service guys” feel the need to “enhance” store-bought books... Why don’t they just improve the overall quality standards for books?)

Because except in very specific cases, Amazon is the distributor not the publisher.
If you do not like the quality of the formatting in a book, contact the publisher.
But yes, let's blame Amazon because publishers cannot be trusted and Amazon won't look at every page of every e-book.
Can we start putting the blame where it belongs?
If I can't read an ebook due to formatting or very bad grammar, I do not blame Amazon. I just make sure I never give that author or in the case of self-published that publisher any more money. It is totally on the person that hit the upload button.
I also do the same thing if the author has mis-categorized the book on purpose.

That would be like blaming Walmart because Green Giant labeled their corn peas.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Because except in very specific cases, Amazon is the distributor not the publisher.

But nonetheless Johnny is absolutely correct in saying that things like hyphenation and other enhanced typesetting features are down to Amazon, not the publisher, because they are added during Amazon's processing of the book on their servers, not by the publisher.

Of course it's entirely understandable that Amazon don't "reprocess" documents uploaded to the Cloud by a user. There would probably be complaints if they did.