Sideloading: Own content or "from somewhere else"

[rixte]

Originally Posted by shalym

It sounds to me as if your "friends" aren't book readers, they're book hoarders. I don't understand why anyone would download hundreds of MB of unmanaged data to anywhere, whether e-reader or PC.

Shari

Yes, this!

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by shalym

It sounds to me as if your "friends" aren't book readers, they're book hoarders. I don't understand why anyone would download hundreds of MB of unmanaged data to anywhere, whether e-reader or PC.

Shari

Actually, the friend I've mentioned is one of the more avid readers in that group.
He reads about 100 to 150 books per year, so does his brother.
(They exchange content and recommendations).
But hoarding obviously is an aspect as well.
From what I've seen, his file management is rather basic: Some folders for authors, a few folders for genre. Lots of duplicates, lots of misspelled authors and titles.
But he claims, a few thousand are in perfect order.
And for the rest: "I have them, I may sort them out later. And where's the harm? It took me a few minutes to download only and there's plenty of room left on my SD card anyway".
Personally, I can understand the collecting. And the buying more than necessary (I've only read about 300 of my 1.000 Kindle books so far myself, but I keep buying what I'm interested in). What I don't quite get is the need for pirating. Buying his 20.000 books of course would be insane. But he definitely (easily) could afford buying his actual demand of 100 to 150 books per year, especially if (some) split with his brother.
But obviously, the psychology is a different one. Probably something like "wow, I own a library worth € 200k!"...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Compared to HarryT with his 6.000+ books, I'm a tiny fish in a huge pond with my roughly 3.000 legally obtained books (all purchased, no freebies).

6000+ may seem like a lot, but do bear in mind that I've been reading - and downloading - ebooks since the mid 1980s. A significant proportion of that number started life as PG books of that era, and have gone through multiple format changes in the 30-odd years since then.

[rixte]

Well, and that's the thing - he might be a relatively avid reader, but simple math would show that at 150 books a year, it'd take him over 133 years to read everything he's downloaded!

I absolutely get the 'never be without a book' obsessively over-collecting. I do that myself. Ever since I've had a paycheck, I've always gone on book splurges where I buy 10 books, read 5, buy another 10 ... so the backlog of unread gets greater. BUT each of the books has been evaluated as something I theoretically want to read. Bulk downloads don't do that, that's just having for the sake of hoarding.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by rixte

...But in terms of your friend, and this is a bit off topic, but it's what struck me about the 20,000 remark. There has to be sorting and choosing done at SOME stage, unless there's absolutely no interest in actually reading, only possessing...

I couldn't live with that kind of chaos myself.
That's why I stopped using calibre.
Once I started touching a book, I couldn't stop.
First I brought structure into all author's names (I hate the inconsistencies you find even within a series: John Katzenbach / Katzenbach, John / JOHN KATZENBACH).
Then I modified metadata.
Then I added standardized covers.
Then I corrected errors.
Eventually, I decided: Either I change it all and spend significant time. Or I don't change anything at all, don't focus on it and start reading right ahead.
On my Kindle Voyage I have about 800 eBooks (originals from Amazon, downloaded directly on the reader without modification).
I find what I'm looking for easy enough.
On the other readers I have even fewer books, about 300 each on Kobo Aura H2O and Nook Glowlight.
No need to set tags or any other calibre features. But granted: It can be annoying and a bit disturbing, to see the flaws in those libraries. But when I strictly focus on reading, I can live with it.

Having the kind of chaos of my friend would be too ghastly, though, for me.
I've had a simple folder structure on my (back then beloved) iRex iLiad.
But only a few dozen titles per folder. And each file carefully processed and correctly labelled.

Anyway...
He states, the library would be processable without much problems.
Quality of the content would be good, sometimes he even gets re-worked files someone has processed and corrected in calibre.

My arguments against their approach are simple enough:
I've been working in hard- and software myself.
Pirating would have cut into my income back then, so I can't support it.
I'm not talking about ethics or morale there, but simple economics as a whole.

But of course they use the well known argument:
I never would buy it. So I'm not harming any potential sales...

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by rixte

Well, and that's the thing - he might be a relatively avid reader, but simple math would show that at 150 books a year, it'd take him over 133 years to read everything he's downloaded!

I absolutely get the 'never be without a book' obsessively over-collecting. I do that myself. Ever since I've had a paycheck, I've always gone on book splurges where I buy 10 books, read 5, buy another 10 ... so the backlog of unread gets greater. BUT each of the books has been evaluated as something I theoretically want to read. Bulk downloads don't do that, that's just having for the sake of hoarding.

I partially can agree to your logic.
Myself, my over-collecting is about factor 10: I buy about 200 to 300 books per year, read about 120 and already have a backlog of maybe 1.000+ books.
His over-collecting with factor 100+ definitely is over-kill.

But then again his argument: There's no harm for him.
The download is done in minutes.
Strorage is not an issue.
Who knows if he still could download them that easily in a few years...

Anyway:
I've said it already. This group is way too small to generate any kind of valid statistics out of it. But in this tiny group, which basically represents most of the owners of readers I know, it's a pretty consistent picture: Mass downloads, because it's easy enough and doesn't consume much space and isn't considered harmful "as I wouldn't buy the book and so can't hurt any purchase"...

[eschwartz]

Question: Didn't the poll used to show who voted for what?

What changed, and why?

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

I couldn't live with that kind of chaos myself.
That's why I stopped using calibre.
Once I started touching a book, I couldn't stop.
First I brought structure into all author's names (I hate the inconsistencies you find even within a series: John Katzenbach / Katzenbach, John / JOHN KATZENBACH).
Then I modified metadata.
Then I added standardized covers.
Then I corrected errors....

I agree it's a huge task initially if you're just starting out with Calibre. I only had maybe 700 books at that time if I remember, but I made it a point to do xx number of books/day to get through them. And whenever I purchase a new book and add it into Calibre, I clean up the metadata, author's name, series name, etc. for consistency immediately. Different variations as mgmueller said drive me nuts as well. I like things neat and orderly, and Calibre helps me maintain that.

Edit: And btw, you can download an .iso file from Project Gutenberg that has something like 30,000 public domain books on it, there's probably a more recent one with even more than that. So having an unusually high number of ebooks doesn't necessarily mean they pirated them. And I've been digging through pay sites as well to take advantage of freebies they offer on certain days. Even those add up to a substantial number of books.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I agree it's a huge task initially if you're just starting out with Calibre. I only had maybe 700 books at that time if I remember, but I made it a point to do xx number of books/day to get through them. And whenever I purchase a new book and add it into Calibre, I clean up the metadata, author's name, series name, etc. for consistency immediately. Different variations as mgmueller said drive me nuts as well. I like things neat and orderly, and Calibre helps me maintain that.

Very true. The key to metadata management is to do it as part of the original adding routine. A few extra seconds every time you add a book is easy. Going through a 700-book backlog is a pain.

It gets a whole lot better when you finally get to maintenance mode.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by rixte

I guess I'm not understanding what you're trying to find out with your poll?

I only know about 15 people with readers, the rest having tablets and the likes.
Of those 15, about 10 are close enough to get somewhat regular input about their habits and behavior.
Of those 10, only 1 is buying his content.
The rest is downloading most (all?) of their material from various sources, most of them illegal.
Of course such a small group, spread over only a handful of countries, can't be base for any valid statistics.
Still, within this test group, it's a pretty consistent picture.

I could have phrased the poll "do you purchase your content or are you into illegal downloads?".
But:
a.) I wanted to phrase it as neutral as possible, given the MR regulations and "big brother". Still one of my wordings has been modified by a moderator already.
b.) I don't want to emphasize on the source of the content, but on the link to sideloading. Again, in the small test group, all "pirates" did choose their readers with regards to pirating. They didn't care about the bookstore (which they wouldn't use anyway). They didn't care much about UI and such. They did care about file system, storage expansion, to some extent the OS and so on.
c.) Instead of "sideloading" I could have asked "do you choose your reader with regards to pirating books?" but I wanted to build the link to another poll where a majority stated, sideloading is of enormous importance for them when choosing a reader.

Easiest would be, having polls with only a set of 2 answers and then directly comparing:
- Buying content or downloading illegally?
- Sideloading to use your legally purchased books or to use pirated stuff?
....
But then I'd have 20 sets of isolated polls and no correlation at all.

The long and short of it:
My tiny control group of about 10 people mainly is obtaining their content from illegal sources.
They use sideloading and choose their reader with that regard.
They mostly use ePUB, to remain as open as possible.

Obviously MR mainly consists of avid readers and enthusiasts and their opinion will differ significantly from many other groups.
But whom should I ask? Is there a poll in "hackers united"?

Anyway...
By adding "free", a moderator further intensified the confusion, I already seem to have raised by avoiding the term "pirated"...

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

...And whenever I purchase a new book and add it into Calibre, I clean up the metadata, author's name, series name, etc. for consistency immediately...

True.
But imho, it very much depends on where and how you buy your books.
A few years ago, I've bought my books while at the PC.
Back then, I even had ADE installed. I downloaded my books directly when purchasing. I put them in a separate folder per purchase date and source.
I immediately, back then manually, stripped them from DRM and converted them to my 3 or 4 most common target formats.
Since I didn't modify them, it was a matter of minutes.
But then I bought my books directly on the reader. Most of them when on a trip, usually for about 3 days.
When coming back from said trip, I never take the time for private stuff.
And after a few days, already dozens of others tasks have popped up.

Admittedly, I'm almost as back with tax refunds or travel expenses and other tasks like that...
I've lost more money in travel expenses (not claiming tax refunds and such) over the years, than I'll ever spend for eBooks in a lifetime...

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

...And btw, you can download an .iso file from Project Gutenberg that has something like 30,000 public domain books on it...

I still have a few such data sets somewhere.
When having my Pocket PCs, I bought a few CDs with PD books.
But in the case of my friends, it's the big and recent authors, such as James Patterson, Stephen King, Umberto Eco and so on - definitely (mostly) no PD.

20.000 or 30.000 may seem a lot.
But what some say about managing their library on a book-by-book basis is true for downloads as well.
If you know where to look (I've checked those sources, but I don't bother since I wouldn't touch them and later sideload them anyway), you easily can download a few hundred titles in a single instance almost every day. After a month, you easily can have 20.000+ books...

[Dark Raven]

I sideload all my contents. I've been doing it since my first e-reader (which didn't have any wi-fi connection and sideloading was the only way to go) and I keep doing it on my Kobo. Even if I had a Kindle or any other e-reader I would keep doing it.
My ebooks come from various legit sources (various e-books store, whichever has got the better deal on the books I'm searching for, websites offering public domains books, fanfictions archives, libraries). Library books are the only ones I don't take away DRM and that get uploaded through ADE, all the others go through the cleaning process and Calibre.
My main reasons are basically two:
- to switch to whatever format I need,
- to use metadata to catalogue my ebooks. I'm a big fan of shelves/collections and having an organized library, sorted out according my needs.

Also, on my pc Calibre is MY library, I put there my comments, my ratings, I sync it with goodreads, I keep track of my reading progress, I back-up my database from time to time, etc, etc. I can't image using an e-reader that isn't Calibre friendly, or having ebooks that I can't organize/check/update metadata with it.

[murg]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

b.) I'd hope for some kind of quality, whereas content from the darknet can be "hit and miss".

How I wish this was true. In the sense that purchased eBooks, especially if older than a few years, are riddled with scan errors, typos, missing punctuation, etc. Even 'mature' eBooks, that are being published again in omnibuses.

For example, I'm currently reading 'Dune', purchased as part of Gateway's omnibus (so presumably it was available separately before). I'm on chapter 3 or 4 and so far I have over 10 instances of the opening quote of a dialogue being not present. There is no excuse for this.

'Pirated' eBooks have, in many cases, been crowd-proofed.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

I still have a few such data sets somewhere.
When having my Pocket PCs, I bought a few CDs with PD books.
But in the case of my friends, it's the big and recent authors, such as James Patterson, Stephen King, Umberto Eco and so on - definitely (mostly) no PD.

20.000 or 30.000 may seem a lot.
But what some say about managing their library on a book-by-book basis is true for downloads as well.
If you know where to look (I've checked those sources, but I don't bother since I wouldn't touch them and later sideload them anyway), you easily can download a few hundred titles in a single instance almost every day. After a month, you easily can have 20.000+ books...

A few hundred a day is not exactly what I would call "book-by-book"...