How do you 'manage' your books

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by LucyOne

6-inch devices are easier to carry around than 7.8-inch devices.

You could consider Boox Poke 3.
With Calibre Companion I have access to Dropbox, OneDrive, and other cloud operators, including Calibre libraries that are on USB-OTG flash devices.
I don't know of any better usable 6 inch Android 10 EInk device.

[norweger]

Originally Posted by bookaho!ic

Do you keep all your books on your ereader?

(unsure of how to post a poll) and really want to know whats best
[*]Keep all on Ereader?[*]Keep only TBR on Ereader?[*]Keep TBR and 'keepers/re reads on Ereader?

I dont know what to do for the 'best' as I spend more time 'filing than reading' if i put them all on reader lol help me obewan help me

I use FBReader, which automatically uploads them to the cloud, in a separate Google Disc folder. It has saved me more than once when the phone has crashed. I have a humungous TBR list, so I don't buy before reading. But on the rare occasion I have done it, I've uploaded them through the website fbreader.org, which automatically puts them into my Google Drive folder.

The app doesn't run perfect, though. Sadly I haven't read proper in some years, but - even though I rarely read now - I have noticed my FBReader app doesn't sync my bookmarks any more (bookmarks as in great quotes I came across while reading). It could be due to having a now outdated version of the app, or something else, I haven't really looked into it. Hoping 2021 will be a much better reading year.

[HLS]

I do nothing really. I drop ebooks into collections as i buy them and I have folders for read in 2020...2019... etc so i keep track of books I read every year

[LucyOne]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

You could consider Boox Poke 3.
With Calibre Companion I have access to Dropbox, OneDrive, and other cloud operators, including Calibre libraries that are on USB-OTG flash devices.
I don't know of any better usable 6 inch Android 10 EInk device.

I can use Dropbox with my Pocketbooks and Kobo, too. The Boox Poke 3 is a great device, but currently a bit too pricey for me, considering I would use it mainly with KOReader, like on my other devices.

[CWatkinsNash]

I only get books from Amazon or the library. Library books get read immediately, so no need to worry about those. For the Amazon purchases, I import them into Goodreads. That gives me a reference list. Priority reads go on "to read", others go onto the "also owned" shelf. Then when I want to read something, I just download it from the archive on my Kindle.

I keep about 100 books downloaded onto the Kindle. More than I need to, but they're mostly books that I want to get to fairly soon, so that encourages me to browse through those for my next read before hitting up the archive.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by bookaho!ic

Do you keep all your books on your ereader?

(unsure of how to post a poll) and really want to know whats best
[*]Keep all on Ereader?[*]Keep only TBR on Ereader?[*]Keep TBR and 'keepers/re reads on Ereader?

I dont know what to do for the 'best' as I spend more time 'filing than ' if i put them all on reader lol help me obewan help me

Well it used to be piles of Rubbermaid tubs for printed books in the basement but now on huge flash drives 256 GB or so and portable hard drives. I like to keep my "stuff" together and close and the '"cloud" worries me.

You might question why so much memory. Well I like redundancy to be sure nothing ruined the copy.

[SeaBookGuy]

Just about all of them are at Calibre, grouped by tags (fiction, mystery, etc.); I tend to obtain series books sequentially, rather than all at once.

I accept that some people do this, but the idea of loading massive numbers of books onto a device baffles me. Even if I were going to be away for an extended period of time, I can't see having more than couple dozen books on my e-reader. Moreover, I keep a backup copy of my Calibre library on the storage card on my phone, so I could always just upload a title from that folder to my e-reader while away if necessary.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

Just about all of them are at Calibre, grouped by tags (fiction, mystery, etc.); I tend to obtain series books sequentially, rather than all at once.

I accept that some people do this, but the idea of loading massive numbers of books onto a device baffles me. Even if I were going to be away for an extended period of time, I can't see having more than couple dozen books on my e-reader. Moreover, I keep a backup copy of my Calibre library on the storage card on my phone, so I could always just upload a title from that folder to my e-reader while away if necessary.

When I go on vacation, I usually bring my Surface Pro 2 with me so I have a full Windows 10 computer in tablet form. I do put on some books I've recently gotten in case I decide I want ot read any of those. I'll also have Calibre with me.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When I go on vacation, I usually bring my Surface Pro 2 with me so I have a full Windows 10 computer in tablet form. I do put on some books I've recently gotten in case I decide I want ot read any of those. I'll also have Calibre with me.

I use my Surface Pro as my default reader for all the reasons you just listed.
Apache

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Apache

I use my Surface Pro as my default reader for all the reasons you just listed.
Apache

I use an iPad pro as my default reader. It doesn't have Calibre, but it does have Calibre Companion which provides a lot of the same functionality.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I use an iPad pro as my default reader. It doesn't have Calibre, but it does have Calibre Companion which provides a lot of the same functionality.

How useful is Calibre Companion without an accompanying calibre install to connect to?

[sakura-panda]

Originally Posted by bookaho!ic

Do you keep all your books on your ereader?

(unsure of how to post a poll) and really want to know whats best
[*]Keep all on Ereader?[*]Keep only TBR on Ereader?[*]Keep TBR and 'keepers/re reads on Ereader?

I dont know what to do for the 'best' as I spend more time 'filing than reading' if i put them all on reader lol help me obewan help me

You have to figure out what works for you and do that.

I don't want to spend a lot of time managing my library, so for me it's a pretty simple workflow.

I used to try to use Calibre, because it is so highly recommended here, but I confess that while it is everything that everyone says, I personally don't get any satisfying benefit out of it. (I use Trello to keep track of my books because it suits me better.)

First, I would like to keep all of my unread books on my ebook reader, but it's new, so I download any new books to it automatically and I download my TBR books as needed. Books that I download are in a couple of places, but I keep losing track of which library is the "master" because I update devices and storage often and have multiple libraries generated by multiple versions of Calibre. (When I try to combine them, I end up with multiple copies of the same book and it ends up being worse than just having multiple libraries of various origins. ) I prefer to download from the stores themselves, although that isn't an option for about half my library.

Next, I delete after reading. I like the idea of leaving books on the device for rereading, except that I always seem to change devices before the next time I read and end up redownloading it anyway. LOL

Good luck figuring out what you want to do! Just keep in mind that only you know what works for you and it might be something completely different than what everyone else does. Thanks for posting the question; it is interesting to see how many different ways there are, even among this group!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by sakura-panda

You have to figure out what works for you and do that.

I don't want to spend a lot of time managing my library, so for me it's a pretty simple workflow.

I used to try to use Calibre, because it is so highly recommended here, but I confess that while it is everything that everyone says, I personally don't get any satisfying benefit out of it. (I use Trello to keep track of my books because it suits me better.)

First, I would like to keep all of my unread books on my ebook reader, but it's new, so I download any new books to it automatically and I download my TBR books as needed. Books that I download are in a couple of places, but I keep losing track of which library is the "master" because I update devices and storage often and have multiple libraries generated by multiple versions of Calibre. (When I try to combine them, I end up with multiple copies of the same book and it ends up being worse than just having multiple libraries of various origins. ) I prefer to download from the stores themselves, although that isn't an option for about half my library.

Next, I delete after reading. I like the idea of leaving books on the device for rereading, except that I always seem to change devices before the next time I read and end up redownloading it anyway. LOL

Good luck figuring out what you want to do! Just keep in mind that only you know what works for you and it might be something completely different than what everyone else does. Thanks for posting the question; it is interesting to see how many different ways there are, even among this group!

It sounds like Trello is confusing as you have trouble keeping track of your libraries.

Everything you are doing can be done with Calibre and the Reading List plugin. Once it's setup, it become very easy to use. And as for getting confused, it's less likely that will happen with Calibre.

[sakura-panda]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It sounds like Trello is confusing as you have trouble keeping track of your libraries.

Everything you are doing can be done with Calibre and the Reading List plugin. Once it's setup, it become very easy to use. And as for getting confused, it's less likely that will happen with Calibre.

I'm not having trouble keeping track of my libraries. I'm sorry if I gave that impression. Calibre is the one that was creating extra work for me and causing all sorts of additional work and confusion with duplicated libraries. I apologize for not being clear about that.

Calibre is not for everybody. I understand that Calibre is powerful and customizable, but it requires a lot of up-front work to get to that point. I'm a software engineer by training and I don't want the extra work that comes with setting up Calibre; I just want to read my books.

Using Trello is the first time I've actually been happy with my book tracking and I couldn't resist sharing about it.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by DNSB

How useful is Calibre Companion without an accompanying calibre install to connect to?

I use Calibre Companion to connect to my library stored on my One Drive. When I buy a book, I add it to my local Calibre library, clean up the metadata (if needed) and then copy it to both my One Drive library and my portable library on a USB stick. The One Drive library is strictly a backup, and used for Calibre Companion. If I do happen to buy a book while I'm away from home, I make sure to buy it from the store tied to the device I have with me, and then when I get home I will add it to my Calibre library.

Shari