Issue with Sideloaded books and Series grouping

[sharf]

I just got a new Paperwhite and have been trying to decide what route I'm going to go with ebooks; do I just use Amazon, do I buy from other sources and convert as necessary, etc. To that end, I've been experimenting to figure out what library organization I like. The new series grouping is really nice and I like the way that works. However, I'm having trouble figuring out how to utilize it.

Books I sideload (from other sources) do not group into series for some reason. I've been trying to figure out what criteria Amazon uses. The Series and number fields in the metadata do not seem to factor in. But also setting up the ASIN (which allows the kindle to link the item to the store, downloads the Amazon book cover, etc), also does not group by series. However, getting the same books from Amazon directly does group them by series. If I take those same books from Amazon, download them, convert to a different format/update meta data in Calibre do group correctly into series. It doesn't seem to be purely based on Amazon cloud data, or by meta data.

I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to get side loaded books I purchase from places besides Amazon to group into series. If anyone has any ideas on this it would be appreciated

[shamanNS]

Works as intended You can't get series grouping for books that are not bought (by the same Amazon account Kindle is registered to) from Kindle Store.
Amazon keeps a catalog of things you bought from them end only for those is populates the necessary information needed for grouping feature to work. Just faking book's ASIN id will not help you there since your account doesn't have a record of owning a book with that ASIN.

cc.db has a table with series info. Where even the series have their own ASIN identifiers.

So in short, without a jailbreaked Kindle you certainly can't have that series grouping for "sideloaded" and "converted" books.
And even if you had jailbreaked someone would still need to write a plugin / addon / script that would use SQL queries to fill the necessary information in expected format and places in order to achieve that end goal.
And since nobody done that no one knows if Kindle firmware would or wouldn't periodically overwrite or remove that information from the cc.db database.

[Sirtel]

If you want series grouping for sideloaded books, you'd better get a Kobo or a Pocketbook, as it's possible with those. Not with a Kindle.

[sharf]

Thanks for the information. Not the best outcome, but now I can make my decision without wasting more time!

[rekter]

No way josé !! I juste googled and find this post for the same issue.
Damn I only read sideloaded ebook, but I bought a kindle paperwhite because i like the flush and 7" screen. And kobo BW feel really cheaaap and plastic.

What are the alternative of bad construction kobo and bad software kindle ? Must be something with the best of both world no ?

[Sirtel]

No, unicorns don't exist.

Personally I've never found anything wrong with the Kobo hardware.

Edit: Maybe you'd like one of Pocketbook ereaders. Their software is not as customizable as that of Kobo, but their hardware is supposed to be pretty good.

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by rekter

No way josé !! I juste googled and find this post for the same issue.

I currently have a scribe. To add to collections, I'd go into the collection and hit the '+' sign at the top to add books to the collection. I usually sort that list by 'recent' to show the new, side-loaded stuff. Then just click the checkbox and then [Save] at the bottom to add books to the collection.

I can even create collections on the scribe, and add them to that.

IIRC, you can even go to each book individually and tell it what collection to add it to.

I'm pretty sure I could do it on my paperwhite when I still had one. But YMMV.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DuskyRose

I currently have a scribe. To add to collections, I'd go into the collection and hit the '+' sign at the top to add books to the collection. I usually sort that list by 'recent' to show the new, side-loaded stuff. Then just click the checkbox and then [Save] at the bottom to add books to the collection.

I can even create collections on the scribe, and add them to that.

IIRC, you can even go to each book individually and tell it what collection to add it to.

I'm pretty sure I could do it on my paperwhite when I still had one. But YMMV.

The thread is about series grouping, not collections. AFAIK you can't group sideloaded books by series on a Kindle. Yes, you could create series-based collections manually, but that's a very clumsy and time-consuming method, considering that both Kobos and Pocketbooks do this natively (Kobos via Calibre; not sure about Pocketbooks).

[tomsem]

PocketBook does do series grouping via calibre as well. They are very customizable but in different ways than Kobo.