I stopped using Amazon a while back, but it was where I got all my books for a long time. I do thriftbooks mostly now, and try to buy directly from publishers when it’s a newer book, but I’m always interested in finding new spots to cop some sweet books.
I mostly just pirate from library genesis and sideload onto my Kindle. Had I known how easy it was to get books as a poor, I'd have opted for a Kobo instead since it's easier to move the .epubs over. You need to use Amazon's janky uploader thing to sideload and it's kind of butts.
I use Calibre to load pirated books onto my Kindle, but I’ve been debating a Kobo for a while now.
Honestly, I couldn't figure out how to do it with Calibre. I still use that for keeping my stuff organized tho. Calibre is legit, especially if you get into data hording territory.
Calibre is god tier software for sharing online try out Bookwyrm
What’s a kobo? I haven’t heard of that ereader. Do they have an e-ink version? I still prefer paper to digital, but e-ink is pretty nice, it’s the only way I’ve been able to do digital books in the past.
I buy mostly revolutionary stuff, so i like to support the authors as much as i can, though, so I’d still probably buy the ebooks since I have the privilege of having a bit of money each month to spend of frivolities.
Kobo is basically a direct competitor to Kindle. Like each form factor that Kindle has, Kobo has a pretty close version of their own. Their OS is open source iirc. And I think they only do e-ink.
That sounds pretty awesome. I might have to snag one, honestly. I could use a way to be able to read stuff at work without being quite so blatant as having a physical copy of something like Blackshirts and Reds on my desk 😂 thanks for the info!
What kinda stuff you like to read? I used to be a big sci-fi head, still am a bit of one but I’ve got limited reading time these days so I mostly read political works and non-fiction.
Being able to read in public without feeling like I have a target on me because of the book cover has been nice. I was reading Reform or Revolution and church and someone asked what I was reading and I just said "you know, economic theory stuff" lol.
Also being able to carry 400+ books with you in such a small format is nice.
For what I read, I spent like 14 months reading all the most obvious leftist stuff. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao, Stalin, and Parenti. I then spent some time reading up on autism after my diagnosis. I also have a weird fondness for trashy splatter punk horror stuff. Idk why but I chew through that stuff. Currently I think I'm starting a deep dive into nihilism, absurdism, existentialism, and stoicism to finally figure out what to call what I believe in. I started with Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray but idk about it yet. I am taking it with a grain of salt since he punches down on literally everyone in it. It's weird reading someone tear apart the mythology behind Christianity, then call Lenin's form of Communism basically a rebranding of the apocalypse myth from the Bible. Down the road I want to read more stuff in the same vein as Trans Liberation by Leslie Feinberg and also read through some black liberation stuff. Some day I do need to get back to Killing Hope though, but that thing is depressing af.
FYI Kobo is the North American brand name for Rakuten made eReaders. In Europe they're sold as Tolino, with a slightly different OS/GUI as well.
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I just looked into it again and drag and dropping just the file didn't work but I used Calibre's "send to device" feature and it actually worked. Do you know if doing it this way just adds it to the kindle or to my kindle library for like my phone?
Send to device should be sending it to the memory of your Kindle. I have a Kobo and that's how it is for me at least and I don't think it'd be that different for Kindles from what I understand.
I think it works the same. I can probably test it by seeing if it shows up on my phone when pushing to my reader.
You can send attachments from your email account to your Kindle email address. You have to add your personal email address to your Kindle safe list, which can take a few tries.
Well that worked. I tried that in the past too and it wouldn't work for me for some reason.
It can take a few goes to set up for some reason.
On Android, if you download a PDF and 'share' it with your Kindle app, it will open a 'Send to Kindle' page.
Click 'PDF Options' then 'Make layout adjustable'.
Toggle 'Add to your library' 'On'.
Then 'send'.
Voila, PDF -> ePub/mobi.
It's not perfect but its better than squinting at tiny PDF text on a smart phone screen.
Apparently you can do this from the web, too: https://ebookfriendly.com/new-features-added-to-send-to-kindle-2023/
Hold up, you can send and convert at the same time? Can you do this from a desktop or is this one of the few things that Android and Kindle can agree on?
Yes, I did it by accident last week lol.
I think that link above has some instructions for doing it on desktop through your browser.
I didn't see anything about converting from desktop directly but it's fine. I have all 3 of the other options working now. I did convert a .pdf to a .epub and send it but it messed up the formatting a ton, like put lines of bullets points below their respective bullets and such. I'd like to figure that out since I sometimes find books only as pdfs and they don't work very well on my 6" screen lol.
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