ways to buy/read ebooks from non-Amazon stores

[bcbob]

I am looking for software tools and methods to ease buying and reading ebooks from non-Amazon companies. I would like to continue reading them on my Kindle Paperwhite although I am open to buying another ebook reader with similar performance.

I do not want to get into de-DRMing for now so I am thinking of buying books from companies like Baen who do not use DRM.

The way I would have to do it now is to buy the ebook, download it to my desktop computer, connect my Paperwhite to the USB port, and then use Calibre to transfer the ebook. As an alternative, I could email the ebook to my Amazon account from my desktop, then download it from there to the Paperwhite using the Amazon network.

Compare that to tapping the 'store' icon on my Paperwhite, searching for the book, tapping on the buy icon and automatically download it to the Paperwhite.

I would appreciate ideas and comments to make the non-Amazon purchases and reading easier.

Bob

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by bcbob

I am looking for software tools and methods to ease buying and reading ebooks from non-Amazon companies. I would like to continue reading them on my Kindle Paperwhite although I am open to buying another ebook reader with similar performance.

I do not want to get into de-DRMing for now so I am thinking of buying books from companies like Baen who do not use DRM.

The way I would have to do it now is to buy the ebook, download it to my desktop computer, connect my Paperwhite to the USB port, and then use Calibre to transfer the ebook. As an alternative, I could email the ebook to my Amazon account from my desktop, then download it from there to the Paperwhite using the Amazon network.

Compare that to tapping the 'store' icon on my Paperwhite, searching for the book, tapping on the buy icon and automatically download it to the Paperwhite.

I would appreciate ideas and comments to make the non-Amazon purchases and reading easier.

Bob

If you are buying from Baen, they already supply mobi format ebooks.

The easiest route for non-Amazon formats would be to download the ebook, import it into calibre, convert it to a Amazon format either mobi or azw3 and then use a USB connection to send it to your Paperwhite.

[bcbob]

>The easiest route for non-Amazon formats would be to download the ebook, import it into calibre, convert it to a Amazon format either mobi or azw3 and then use a USB connection to send it to your Paperwhite.

Thanks. That would be my current method. Could some of these steps be automated with a shell/batch script? I did a search and found that Calibre has a good commandline interface:
Calibre commandline

Has anyone used those?

[JSWolf]

If you are running Windows, download and install Adobe Digital Editions 2.0.1. Install it and register with Adobe. Then you can register ADE with your Adobe account UN/PW and you can purchase ePub eBooks (not from Apple or B&N). https://www.adobe.com/support/digita...downloads.html

The ePub that comes with DRM will need the DRM removed. You do that using DeDRM Plugin 7.0.3 (current version) and the current version of Calibre 5.x. You can get the DeDRM plugin from https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com.

If you need help with getting the DeDRM plugin to work, you'll have to ask where you downloaded the plugin.

Once you have the ePub without DRM in Calibre, you can use Calibre to convert the ePub to KF8 (AZW3) to read on your Kindle. You can side load the converted KF8 eBook to your Kindle using Calibre.

[bcbob]

I am looking for simple, automated methods and for now I would like to exclude de_DRM by assuming I am buying from a vendor that does not use it..

How about not using Calibre at all with a batch script that emails the ebook file to Amazon. I did a search and found that Windows Powershell has the Send-MailMessage commandlet. Powershell is installed on every Windows system starting with Windows 7.

So sending would involve opening a Powershell command window, navigating to the directory with the ebook file, then typing a command like
email2amazon ebookfile

More advanced would be to enable the Powershell script so you could drag and drop the ebook file onto the script.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by bcbob

>The easiest route for non-Amazon formats would be to download the ebook, import it into calibre, convert it to a Amazon format either mobi or azw3 and then use a USB connection to send it to your Paperwhite.

Thanks. That would be my current method. Could some of these steps be automated with a shell/batch script? I did a search and found that Calibre has a good commandline interface:
Calibre commandline

Has anyone used those?

I have used several of the calibre CLI utilities and they work well, but calibre is not needed to copy ebooks to a kindle. Any copy method should work if the kindle is mounted as a drive on the computer.

[bcbob]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I have used several of the calibre CLI utilities and they work well, but calibre is not needed to copy ebooks to a kindle. Any copy method should work if the kindle is mounted as a drive on the computer.

Can you de-DRM with the command line utilities?

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by bcbob

Can you de-DRM with the command line utilities?

Not that I know of.

I misunderstood your original post.

[Quoth]

Smashwords doeesn't use DRM.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by bcbob

Can you de-DRM with the command line utilities?

You would need to import the book to calibre to have the DRM removed. You can use calibredb from the command line with something like:

calibredb --library-path=<path to library> add <file>

See the calibredb entry in calibre's documentation for more.