Amazon removed books from my Kindle

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by shamanNS

@Quoth Calibre adds book's GUID as value for ASIN for each conversion it does.

For all conversions or only to azw3 or mobi?
1. I've no KFX output (Linux).
2. I only create azw3 from epub to test a new format idea. That's the only thing I copy to a Kindle now that D&T is gone.
3. Any Amazon titles bought go direct to a Kindle via Wifi. They are never copied back to a Kindle.

I could of course go and check!

[shamanNS]

Check if you're that curios
Conversions to Kindle formats only obviously, other formats don't have / use that ext header...

As far as I recall Calibre started doing that while I still owned a Kindle 3 and used mobi files. That behavior was introduced while you could still have USB transferred ( = not sent and archived on Amazon's servers) non-retail/converted mobis sync last read position between 2 Kindles or Kindle and Kindle app on Android. For sync to work book file needed to have cdeType EBOK and have ASIN field populated (value didn't matter as long as it was unique per book thus GUID was chosen I guess??).

[CheekyPanda]

Something similar happened to me in 2018. I owned over 4000 books until one day i noticed my book count had dropped to 1,413 books and i had lost access to my amazon account. I remember the number because after YEARS of fighting with amazon to get either my book or my money back I have gotten nothing and told that if i had read the licensing fine print i would know that amazon reserves the right to "recover" their property when suspicious activity is suspected. My suspicious activity... a few months before they took my books i orders 50 fifteen pound bags of dog food without every having bought dog products from them before and had them shipped to a strange address. Yeah it could be seen as weird but it was a donation for a shelter that was having an adopt-a-thon and wanted to give baskets to everyone who adopted a pet filled with essentials. I was one of the people that offered to donate food and i got to pick and i am fortunate enough be able to donate a good amount of dog food, which can be freaking expensive, and had it shipped to the building where the event would be. I would have told Amazon that if they had asked a question in an email or phone call, but they didnt. and i still dont have my book or a refund.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by CheekyPanda

Something similar happened to me in 2018. I owned over 4000 books until one day i noticed my book count had dropped to 1,413 books and i had lost access to my amazon account. I remember the number because after YEARS of fighting with amazon to get either my book or my money back I have gotten nothing and told that if i had read the licensing fine print i would know that amazon reserves the right to "recover" their property when suspicious activity is suspected. My suspicious activity... a few months before they took my books i orders 50 fifteen pound bags of dog food without every having bought dog products from them before and had them shipped to a strange address. Yeah it could be seen as weird but it was a donation for a shelter that was having an adopt-a-thon and wanted to give baskets to everyone who adopted a pet filled with essentials. I was one of the people that offered to donate food and i got to pick and i am fortunate enough be able to donate a good amount of dog food, which can be freaking expensive, and had it shipped to the building where the event would be. I would have told Amazon that if they had asked a question in an email or phone call, but they didnt. and i still dont have my book or a refund.

That's why one should always make personal backups of one's digital purchases. Never, ever rely on the store to keep your purchases for you. Especially as Amazon is pretty well known for closing people's accounts without warning or explanation.

Many of us learned this lesson the hard way.

(Yes, I'm well aware there are folks who don't bother with backups because they don't care. I don't mean them, of course. But people who do care about always retaining access to their digital purchases should take the trouble.)

[JBaby]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

(Yes, I'm well aware there are folks who don't bother with backups because they don't care. I don't mean them, of course. But people who do care about always retaining access to their digital purchases should take the trouble.)

A frequent reason for not backing up that I saw come up all the time on r/Kindle was that they don’t reread so backing up doesn’t matter. That has never made sense to me. Like why do all of these people think it’s solely about rereading? Do none of these people ever buy a book and not read it right away? I buy books on sale so it can be months, or even years, before I get to it.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by JBaby

Do none of these people ever buy a book and not read it right away?

Not me. I never buy a book until I'm ready to read it. And then I'm done with it. That's why none of this backing-up and DRM-removal makes any sense to me any more.

Thank you for the exemption @Sirtel.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Not me. I never buy a book until I'm ready to read it. And then I'm done with it. That's why none of this backing-up and DRM-removal makes any sense to me any more.

Thank you for the exemption @Sirtel.

You'd like our local Irish library system. Audio books, ebooks and online newspapers/magazines are free to local residents. Except it doesn't work on a Kindle or Kobo.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I never buy a book until I'm ready to read it.

That's one way to do it. And for you, it doesn't make sense to backup things. Others do things differently, and for them backing up makes sense. There are pluses and minuses to each approach. You don't understand people's reasoning for buying books ahead of time, and the buy-ahead group (which includes me) doesn't understand your last minute J.I.T. purchase reasoning. This is all fine since we should do things for our own benefit, not for the approval of others. Buy ahead or not is a small difference in the grand scheme of things.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by haertig

That's one way to do it. And for you, it doesn't make sense to backup things. Others do things differently, and for them backing up makes sense. There are pluses and minuses to each approach.

Absolutely.

Originally Posted by haertig

You don't understand people's reasoning for buying books ahead of time, and the buy-ahead group (which includes me) doesn't understand your last minute J.I.T. purchase reasoning. This is all fine since we should do things for our own benefit, not for the approval of others. Buy ahead or not is a small difference in the grand scheme of things.

Except for one tiny exception, I agree. I understand people's reasoning for buying ahead of time perfectly well. I used to BE the person that did the same. There are plenty of reasons why buying physical books ahead of time was an absolute necessity for me. It's just that those reasons went away (for me) with the availability of digital books: stores no father away than the tips of my fingers, and stores that never close. When I finished a physical book, there was a very real possibility that I might not have anything new to read until after a trip to the book store (or my next order of books arrived).

So yes. I agree wholeheartedly that we should do things for our own benefit, and not for the approval of others. Which is what I do. I just like to crawl out of the woodwork every now and then, and wave my hand, when conversations turn a bit one-sided about these things. I have no interest in changing minds or garnering approval about my practices. I just like to keep reminding people that there's no default practice here. Many seem to forget that in the bit of an echo-chamber we have around here about DRM and ebook collection curation.

[pdurrant]

I would argue that buying ahead allows me to take advantage of special offers and so save money.

If it wasn't for the fact that I now have a TBR list of just under 700 books....

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If it wasn't for the fact that I now have a TBR list of just under 700 books....

That's very small. Practically microscopical.

[JBaby]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I would argue that buying ahead allows me to take advantage of special offers and so save money.

If it wasn't for the fact that I now have a TBR list of just under 700 books....

This!!! I have to make my money stretch. I can’t afford to pay full price. I read too many books a year to make paying for each book sustainable. I’m a big library reader, but even still I still read a lot of books that aren’t library loans.

[DNSB]

For me, I tend to backup books since I will go back and re-read favourites plus when a new book in a series appears, I will go back and re-read a few books in the series. One book I read this week was Eric Flint's Mother of Demons since I had just finished the last book in the 1632 series that he collaborated on before his death.

I can understand people who do not worry about re-reading. The majority of people who read books read fewer books in a year that I do in a slow month. The average number in one study from 2023 was 12.6 books per year for the number of people in the poll who actually read books for pleasure.

That being said, the average poster on MobileRead are likely to read many more books in a year than that average but since many posters also have fairly massive TBR piles, having the time to go back to re-read might seem an improbability.

[issybird]

There were various factors in my building up an ample ebook library. One is that I carried forward my pbook buying habits. And then there was that stretch when Kobo was practically giving books away and I took full advantage. Now, I have a short wishlist and occasionally buy ahead if something goes on a good sale, but that almost never happens anymore. So I shop my library, so to speak.

But I want to differentiate between buying ahead and backing up, two very different things. I stopped backing up when I was still in full acquisition mode when I had a lightbulb moment. I realized that the volatile ebook market had settled into essentially two purveyors, Kobo and Kindle, and that neither was going anywhere. The books I bought were going to be there to download to a tied device when I got around to them. That was the end of backing up, for me.

And y'know? If something happened and Kobo did disappear overnight, or Amazon said I needed a pricey new doohickey to access my books, that would be ok. I don't have a sense of book insecurity any more; my library would repopulate. In my whole life, I haven't yet run out of books to read and I have a really hard time imagining it's going to happen. As long as my eyes hold out, it'll be fine.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

That being said, the average poster on MobileRead are likely to read many more books in a year than that average but since many posters also have fairly massive TBR piles, having the time to go back to re-read might seem an improbability.

I've made peace with the fact that I'm never going to read all or even most of my ebooks. So I read a new book or reread a book I liked as the mood strikes me, without worrying about the size of my TBR pile (much higher than Mount Everest).