Working on extricating myself from amazon's evil book empire: - Got a kobo on the way to replace my kindle - Downloading, deDRMing, and converting ~400 ebooks - Shopping at betterworldbooks instead of abebooks or amazon itself - Switching from goodreads to storygraph (I'm theendofcinema) - ThreadSky

theendofcinema.bsky.social • 6 days ago

Working on extricating myself from amazon's evil book empire:

- Got a kobo on the way to replace my kindle
- Downloading, deDRMing, and converting ~400 ebooks
- Shopping at betterworldbooks instead of abebooks or amazon itself
- Switching from goodreads to storygraph (I'm theendofcinema)

Comments

grumpy0ldman84.bsky.social•5 days ago

💪

brokenarmsgordon.bsky.social•5 days ago

I can try to Google it for myself later, but do you have a good de-DRM guide that's been working for you? There's more than a few ebooks I'd like preserve before never, ever buying another Amazon ebook ever again.

brokenarmsgordon.bsky.social•5 days ago

Nevermind, spotted your other reply. Thanks!

jewls86.bsky.social•6 days ago

I literally just asked about all of this. Great information and advice!

jerryplaysguitar.bsky.social•6 days ago

https://Bookshop.org is good too.

theendofcinema.bsky.social•6 days ago

Definitely use that for new books too

ericdanville.bsky.social•6 days ago

What is the problem w abebooks?

theendofcinema.bsky.social•6 days ago

It's owned by amazon

ericdanville.bsky.social•6 days ago

I didnt know that. Theyre out. Thx! 👍🏻

koberulz.bsky.social•6 days ago

Any suggestions on where to buy eBooks?

theendofcinema.bsky.social•6 days ago

kobo has their own store

koberulz.bsky.social•5 days ago

The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures is $350 on Kobo, and only about $100 on Amazon. Oof.

koberulz.bsky.social•5 days ago

Anything Routledge seems to be 4x the already-high price, too. And I've already found a number of books on my wishlist that Kobo flat out doesn't have.

Not about to turn around and buy them from Amazon now, though.

koberulz.bsky.social•5 days ago

Liberating Hollywood: Women Directors and the Feminist Reform of 1970s American Cinema is CHEAPER ON KOBO! A win! As is No Slam Dunk: Gender, Sport and the Unevenness of Social Change.

So basically philosophy bad, feminism good.

koberulz.bsky.social•6 days ago

Can those be deDRMed too?

Biggest issue is going to be transferring my many categorised wishlists, to be honest...

jennadanyew.bsky.social•6 days ago

https://Bookshop.org 🥳🥳🥳 they profit shares with Indies and not only can you order print books, but they just launched ebooks!

koberulz.bsky.social•6 days ago

US-only though AFAIK.

nosayni.bsky.social•6 days ago

What's a kobo? I also want to replace my Kindle.

theendofcinema.bsky.social•6 days ago

An alternative e-reader. From all accounts I’ve seen, it’s as good as if not better than the kindle.

jmmelica.bsky.social•6 days ago

I've used a Kobo for years. I really like them.

pearlpurple.bsky.social•6 days ago

What is a good alternative to audible?

lirblirb.bsky.social•6 days ago

https://Libro.fm is a great alternative! Support your local bookstore and own your files.

theendofcinema.bsky.social•6 days ago

I don't know. Audiobooks have never worked for me--I get too distracted.

patrickjolley.bsky.social•6 days ago

I was just looking at Kobo’s website, and they do have audiobooks on there. I don’t know how they are, but it seems worth checking out!

madwoman75.bsky.social•6 days ago

Just get a vpn and pirate them all- so much faster and you own them anyway.

chetleigh.bsky.social•5 days ago

smash the oligarchy.
#shutdown315

https://open.substack.com/pub/nolkaphanem/p/what-is-the-shutdown315-movement

blackthornobsidian.bsky.social•6 days ago

Super helpful, thanks for sharing!

greatfausto.bsky.social•5 days ago

Buy a real book because soon they’ll be deleting parts of e-books they deem offensive

theendofcinema.bsky.social•5 days ago

1. That's why I'm downloading and deDRMing them, so they can't edit them remotely or simply delete them from my device.

2. I own somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 physical books.

sweetiesamsam.bsky.social•6 days ago

Project Gutenberg for free books online. No piracy involved. These are public domain books. You won't find current bestsellers here, but if you want to preserve classics and non-abridged history/philosophy/whatever, this is the place.

https://www.gutenberg.org/

podlurv1.bsky.social•6 days ago

Don’t forget about https://thriftbooks.com

k-rayne.bsky.social•6 days ago

Someone said they were owned by Amazon. I haven’t been able to verify this though

theendofcinema.bsky.social•6 days ago

Not according to their wikipedia page. Abebooks is owned by amazon though.

k-rayne.bsky.social•5 days ago

Great! I wasn’t sure how up to date the Wiki page is. There’s quite a few people online that said they had an Amazon affiliation but I guess that’s not true!

podlurv1.bsky.social•5 days ago

You can read their status directly on their site as well.

k-rayne.bsky.social•5 days ago

There are a lot of “small” businesses that say they are independent and end up being owned by larger corporations or their founders/CEOs have affiliations with larger companies. Not saying that’s the case for Thriftbooks but I don’t always take company websites at face value.

podlurv1.bsky.social•5 days ago

To my knowledge they are independently owned. They do sell through Amazon if that is objectionable to you.

firenymph.bsky.social•6 days ago

I had no idea goodreads was related. X0

theendofcinema.bsky.social•6 days ago

Yeah, like abebooks it's owned by amazon

humbuckermudgeon.bsky.social•6 days ago

I saw a book I wanted to buy but hesitated just clicking Amazon, so I made an account on Barnes & Noble online. Same book is 50% less at Amazon. This boycotting thing isn’t easy.

browneyedfrog.bsky.social•5 days ago

Same - except I’ve got over 1000 books to download deDRM and convert.

conceptcrow.bsky.social•6 days ago

oo love this!!

northbayteky.bsky.social•6 days ago

Check with your local library for ebook and eaudio books "for free"

If your library doesn't offer digital options, try mine
https://Solanolibrary.com

mx-replicant.bsky.social•6 days ago

https://Libre.fm for audiobooks. You can choose which local bookstore your credits/purchases go to! Even rural Alberta has a few stores to choose from.

scrobblerad.io•6 days ago

https://Libro.fm is what you meant. https://Libre.fm is for logging music listening habits.

mx-replicant.bsky.social•6 days ago

You can also deDRM your audiobooks too if you have them. 70% of mine worked but it appeared only 'Audible Exclusives' were the ones that didn't move. None of my big name author series didn't work so I'm happy with that.

begonia2.bsky.social•6 days ago

Can you download library books?

theendofcinema.bsky.social•6 days ago

Not sure, but i believe kobo has a system where you can check out books from the library.

jmmelica.bsky.social•6 days ago

Yes. It's very easy to check out books from the library. Very seemless either directly on the Kobo or through the Libby app.

ce93.bsky.social•6 days ago

I’d never heard of betterworldbooks and since I have a super tight budget I’m happy to see things I can more likely afford. Thank you.

balanced1231.bsky.social•6 days ago

I tried the kobo but it felt too restrictive.
I've since moved to the Onyx Boox Go Color 7

The color is nice, battery on standby lasts for weeks.
I also can use Libby + manga apps.

theglassspider.bsky.social•6 days ago

You don't need an alternative ereader - you can put the kobo app on your phone. Just for those who don't want to buy a new piece of equipment

asofel.bsky.social•6 days ago

I’ve been trying to find good ways to do this… do you have any good links, sites or suggestions?

theendofcinema.bsky.social•6 days ago

Other than the ones I listed in this post?

asofel.bsky.social•6 days ago

Sorry if I’m being dense… I was specifically looking for help with the “Downloading, deDRMing, and converting” part of the operation and didn’t see any links to help me figure out that process. I may just not be looking in the right place. Thanks.

theendofcinema.bsky.social•6 days ago

Ah, gotcha.

Try this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1c2ryfz/2024_guide_to_dedrm_kindle_books/?share_id=51kaKXSNC6PkSu3J2CmCM&utm_name=androidcss

asofel.bsky.social•6 days ago

Perfect! Thank you!

koberulz.bsky.social•6 days ago

Important to note that Amazon is removing the ability to do this in a week.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply