https://github.com/Jedi425/BulkKindleUSBDownloader
Quick script to download all your Kindle ebooks.
If you know any other tools, please reply.
Reposting as a top level comment for visibility. Thanks gitamar.
Good news is that there are alternative ways to download these books from Amazon for backup purposes. It’s not as straightforward but it’s doable.
That said I will be refusing to buy from any storefront that doesn’t offer a way to download my books. Even adobe digital editions is a viable alternative.
Just pirate them at this point instead of giving your money to predatory companies lol
Its possible to buy DRM free ebooks from itch.io and it is where I get everything that I can.
Adding on to this that Barnes and Noble sells DRMed ePUB files that are relatively easy to strip DRM from using Calibre.
So if you can’t find a book anywhere else, at least they don’t use a proprietary format and still allow you to download your books using their PC software.
I was a semi-early adopter in the ebook space and I have refused to get onboard with the kindle ecosystem from the start. There’s no reason for their proprietary format other than complete control over things they pretend to sell you. Amazon is also the Walmart of books and uses their position to browbeat publishers and authors into taking smaller cuts of sales.
One of my friends got a book published and I waited and waited for it to be available anywhere else. Eventually just bought what was probably a print on demand copy from Amazon because that’s the only place his publisher sold books. I never buy physical books anymore but I’d rather do that than buy a kindle book.
Do the non-kindle e-readers link to Libby? I may eventually try to get my wife and I off our kindles and she uses that when she can.
100% yes on Nook, and as far as I know Kobo hasn’t dropped compatibility.
If only there were some way to get books to read in a format where a billionaire’s trillion dollar company can’t gatekeep them.
Some sort of physical product, perhaps one made out of trees?
I recommend actually listening to some authors.
The “gatekeeping” back in the days before ebooks was infinitely worse than it is now. These days? Basically anyone who can fill out a webform can publish a kindle book. And other stores aren’t much harder. And those ebooks can be sold indefinitely.
Contrast that with needing to find a publisher who is willing to allocate some of their limited production time to you. And then hope that Borders et al are willing to put you on the shelf. And then realize that you are never getting another penny for that book because the first MMPB run ran out and you aren’t getting a second because you didn’t sell enough to justify it.
That’s why I avoided Kindle and picked a Kobo. Sure you can remove DRMs from the books you’ve bought. But at some point they could block you from doing that. They can change anything at anytime and there’s nothing you can do about it.
That is no different than Kobo. Thus far, Rakuten have been pretty good about not caring more than the bare minimum. But there is nothing stopping them from doing the same bullshit with firmware updates to the kobos and drm updates to the store and apps.
I am finally migrating from kindle to kobo (tried kindle to boox last year and it was bad…) but I am under no illusions that I am just hoping one company is better than another. I mean, the other is Amazon so it is a pretty safe bet. But still.
Well there’s a key difference, Kobo allows epub. I don’t think they could legally remove it from devices already on the market?
And Kindle supports mobi files? It is just that those tend to get preprocessed into azw or the other one files. Much like Kobo tends to work best if you preprocess those epubs into kepubs.
The issue is that Amazon has repeatedly changed their mobi variants to fight against de-drm tools as well as increasingly locking down their apps and even devices to make it harder to get data off (and now on) to them.
There is absolutely nothing stopping Rakuten from doing the exact same with Kobo. And people should be aware of that rather than just stanning their favorite company.
there is nothing stopping them from doing the same bullshit with firmware updates to the kobos and drm updates to the store and apps.
I never connect the Libra to any network, how can they do anything? I did actually install some updates since there were a few annoying bugs, but I just downloaded the firmware on the pc from https://pgaskin.net/KoboStuff/kobofirmware.html and updated it offline. Now all those bugs seem fixed and poor Kobo still hasn’t seen the interwebs
Ah, my deepest apologies. I was not aware there was absolutely no issue or threat to anyone because you didn’t connect a kindle to the network either.
The only surprising thing about this is that the functionality existed in the first place.
It’s the old bait and switch, they had to have this feature to build initial trust in ebooks.
… a 17 year bait and switch (or however long Kindles have been around for)?
Amazon spent 20 years being unprofitable on purpose. You think they don’t have long term strategies?
Profitability as reported by companies, especially tech companies, is complex. Also understand that most of that 20 years (assuming that is an accurate statement) was the era of venture capitalism and infinite funding.
But yes. Amazon did spend decades inventing and taking over e-commerce.
But that is not what you described. You described a “bait and switch” which implies that they designed the old keyboard kindles with built in wikipedia support as some long con to get around the eventual invention of a de-drm plugin for the eventually invented Calibre library manager.
The reality is that this is just a case of locking down walled gardens to take advantage of market share. Everyone is doing it. It isn’t some deep conspiracy and is more just the logical end result of a walled garden with large market share.
The optimist in me says they’re doing this to avoid piracy.
The pessimist in me says they’re doing this so they can purge books because of the Trump administration.
Either way, I can’t say I’m a fan.
The optimist in me says they’re doing this to avoid piracy.
Won’t pirates just buy their source copies on a different platform, so now Amazon loses the original sale as well?
The “original sale” in that case is not even pennies. So… not sure why amazon would care?
Also: Many smaller authors basically depend on kindle because of the ease of use of the web portal and incentives to do larger discounts for their audiences. One of my favorite guilty pleasures has talked about exactly this (although he IS investigating alternatives).
And, much like with video games: The Sandersons of the world will be pirated. MAYBE a Dalglish will be too. But nobody cares enough to go after a Samphire or Shel.
Can I root my 10 year old Kindle Paperwhite?
https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/WinterBreak/
Jailbreak now available for all kindles
