7 ms·

For books only available through Amazon my workflow used to be buying it, downloading it with their desktop app, importing into Calibre, converting to epub and

• pmarreck 1y ago
  Followed the same path. At least Steve Jobs understood how DRM should work.
• leshenka 1y ago
  that's so weird. First I decide to buy my wife an ebook reader for the new years and then Louis Rossman makes a video on Kindle DRM bait and switch. Now this and people praising Kobo. Guess I'm buying a kobo
  • benregenspan 1y ago
    Bookshop.org is supposed to implement Kobo support sometime this year, getting a Kobo if that happens.
    • askvictor 1y ago
      What does 'Kobo support' mean? Anyone can publish an epub, which a Kobo can read. Are you talking integration into the Kobo store?
      • ldavison 1y ago
        The DRM free books they sell work just fine. Ones with DRM must currently be read using their mobile or web apps. Their FAQ mentions their plans to support Kobo in the future. https://bookshop.org/info/ebooks#EBOOKFAQ https://bookshop.org/info/ebooks#EBOOKFAQ
    • fletchowns 1y ago
      I liked the idea of Bookshop.org but I was surprised when I ordered something from it, it shipped from somewhere 2,000 miles away from me. I had the misunderstanding it was going to ship from a local bookshop that was actually local to me.
      • limagnolia 1y ago
        Its possible that the local bookshop didn't have the book, so they had their supplier drop ship it to you, but they still got the margin from the sale? I don't really know anything about how Bookshop.org really works.
      • benregenspan 1y ago
        At the end of the day it's an affiliate marketing setup, I think all fulfillment is through Ingram, not local bookstores. But it's a B Corp mandated to give 80% or more of profits to independent booksellers.
  • themadturk 1y ago
    Kobo's pretty good. Anything to avoid Kindle books.
    • DennisP 1y ago
      I bought one, but it didn't have any of the books I wanted. It seems to be nowhere near as comprehensive as the Kindle library.
      • brokenmachine 1y ago
        Just put epubs on it.
      • josteink 1y ago
        I bought one to replace my aging Amazon Kindle Oasis, after the DRM move. I've loaded it up with the epubs I have in my Calibre library (which ironically contains mostly books I've bought from Amazon before they made stripping DRM unreasonably hard). Now I won't buy anything from Amazon because I can't strip the DRM, and hence can't read the books on my e-reader of choice. Their loss, not mine.
  • ajsnigrutin 1y ago
    Calibre handles kindle too (if you already have that). You "obtain" the books one way or another, and calibre converts them to a proper format and copies them directly to your kindle (via the usb cable). Pirated books have no DRM, usually come in an open .epub format, which can be converted to whatever your reader requires, and you end up actually owning them, even if amazon decides to abandon the kindle ecosystem.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  • themerone 1y ago
    Most Kobo books have DRM. There are a few publishers (TOR) and authors that are DRM free, but most of books I've wanted have it. This is why I have a Boox Android eInk tablet, although I only use it with burner accounts. They run Ancient versions of Android.
    • askvictor 1y ago
      True, but that DRM is relatively easy to handle, and is sort-of a standard (OK, I know Adobe handles it, but it's not a complete walled garden like Kindle). I can borrow an ebook from my library using my browser, download the DRM'ed file, fulfil it (using Adobe Digital Editions), copy to my ereader. I can buy books from Google and do the same. It's relatively straight forward to strip the DRM if you want to. Because it is reliant on a third-party service (Adobe) that has other clients/interests, it's not as likely to change as quickly or as onerously as Kindle's DRM.
    • hollow-moe 1y ago
      This, my first eink reader was a Meebook M6, Boox didn't release their 6" model yet. My main selection criteria was "it runs android". It was a really good reader, Kobo, Kindle and co can just be ewaste as they're designed to be.
    • piperswe 1y ago
      Yes, most books you buy from Kobo do have DRM, but a Kobo handles DRM-free files you may acquire elsewhere (e.g. an author or publisher's site) better than Kindles do. Kobos support epub natively, while Kindle requires some sort of conversion that doesn't always work great.
    • MSFT_Edging 1y ago
      Kobo fully supports pointing your library at a Calibre server instance to pull books from. You can also access a bash shell by changing a setting. They're very open devices and IMO quite nice.
  • tcoff91 1y ago
    It's a little less user friendly but I really like my Boox tablet because it's a full android device. I run Storyteller app on it and have my ebooks & audiobooks synced up perfectly like whispersync but better.
    • Meleagris 1y ago
      +1 for Storyteller. It is beyond fantastic to have my progress seamlessly synced between my ebooks and audiobooks. I’m paying for BookFusion, to have synced cross-platform reading. It’s expensive, but seems to be one of the few cross-platform synced readers that supports the EPUB Media Overlays from Storyteller. Have you experienced ghosting with your Boox tablet? I’d like to get one, but I know that ghosting would bother me.
      • tcoff91 1y ago
        Storyteller can sync your progress between devices, although there’s occasionally a bit of a bug with it (will be fixed soon). I sync between my iPhone and boox. Once you get all the e-ink settings dialed in to make black text more readable on the color e-ink screen, it’s pretty damned good. I never notice ghosting. It’s not very easy to get the settings dialed in though. If you are purely reading on it get a black and white screen if it’s in stock so you aren’t fiddling with it to get text to really be boldly black instead of grey.
• mothballed 1y ago
  Eventually those physical book scanning cameras are going to be used to read/scan DRM locked ebooks.
  • Cockbrand 1y ago
    There has been a 50% proof of concept, 50% art project by an Austrian university professor to a similar extent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIY_Kindle_Scanner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIY_Kindle_Scanner https://vimeo.com/73675285 https://vimeo.com/73675285
• babblingfish 1y ago
  Books have got to be the least expensive form of entertainment out there. The value to cost ratio is incredible. Consider buying books to support authors and publishers. If you can't afford it, then libraries are nice too. I personally know people who pirate books, but pay hundreds of dollars a year for streaming services or battle pass type video games. It blows my mind. Books are so cheap people! I recently bought the complete Storm Archives series by Brandon Sanderson on ebook for $10. That's over 100 hours of entertainment. It's literally a ratio of 10 CENTS per hour of entertainment.
  • bee_rider 1y ago
    Videogames could give them a run for their money, I guess, but only certain genres.
    • babblingfish 1y ago
      Vampire Survivors ^^^
      • bee_rider 1y ago
        Well that’s just not fair; cheap and endlessly replayable. And multiplayer now, which is giving it a second wind for me.
    • nolok 1y ago
      Most genres really. Even a 60 euros for a 6 hour experience comes at 10 euro per hour, cheaper than music and on par with movies. Add replayability, multiplayer, longer games, cheaper games, ... and many many games are under 1 euro per hour, sometimes far under. Even someone playing fifa or call of duty has a price to hour ratio thats absurdly good. And the range available is insane, used to be if you liked some genre you had maybe a game once every two years, now there are so many that not only you can't play all your games, even a seasonned gigantic fan of gaming cannot know all good games released anymore.
      • 1y ago
• Aurornis 1y ago
  > so now I just pirate those books. I know someone who wrote a (technical) book and how hard it is to get sales in the age of easy internet piracy. I understand the desire to use the books as you please, but please remember that buying the book and downloading a pirated copy for your own use are not mutually exclusive choices. You can still purchase the book to support the author even if you're not using the exact same file to read it. As the other commenter said, books are extremely cheap relative to the value and/or entertainment time they provide.
  • chmod775 1y ago
    I'd rather donate money directly to the author. I will not under any circumstance still reward Amazon for what they're doing.
    • babblingfish 1y ago
      You could support your local bookstore. Bookstores are closing down all over the world. Most authors do not support a way to pay them directly. For example, traditionally published authors have all of their royalties handled via their agents. For a non-trivial amount of sales, direct donation would be an accounting headache for individual writers.
      • monch1962 1y ago
        > Most authors do not support a way to pay them directly. I think this is the problem that should be addressed. Musicians went through a similar process in reverse order: first Napster ("piracy") then streaming services (analogous to Kindle/Amazon, where a huge 3rd party inserts themselves between content creator & consumer). Eventually some musicians twigged that they were getting screwed every way, so they set up ways for fans to pay them directly or via a less money-hungry intermediary (e.g. Bandcamp). Not a perfect solution by any means, but if book authors feel their situation is bad enough, they could look into how musicians are dealing with it. I'm probably not alone in thinking I'd far rather pay an author directly than Amazon or book publishers. "Bookcamp", anyone?
• cassianoleal 1y ago
  You could still use an older version of the app to force getting a book with the older DRM. I haven't done that in a while though, so I'm not sure if they closed that loophole.
  • Ruthalas 1y ago
    Unfortunately they did close that loophole recently. :(
    • cassianoleal 1y ago
      Ah that’s a shame. Amazon is unfortunately one of the most comprehensive ebook catalogues I have found.
• professorseth 1y ago
  While Amazon does some shady stuff, at least _some_ of the blame here belongs on the big publishing companies. One of the big publishers put heavy pressure on Amazon to patch this exploit or else they would pull all their content from the platform (or so I was told). (I worked at Kindle 2017-2019, and was on the team that wrote the code that OP reversed engineered)
  • limagnolia 1y ago
    Amazon has exercised substantial market power to get publishers to do what they want. If they really wanted to, they could have pushed back just like they have in other areas.
    • awesome_dude 1y ago
      No. For one thing, DRM also works in Amazon's favour (reselling multiple copies) For another, DRM is a pretty big sticking point for copyright holders, music, text, whatever. It's the one big thing that publishers all think that their business model depends on
      • limagnolia 1y ago
        Most music is sold without digital restrictions, and many video games are also sold without digital restrictions.
        • vikarti 1y ago
          > Most music is sold without digital restrictions Thanks to Apple >many video games are also sold without digital restrictions Thanks to GoG and (to a lesser extent) Steam
      • justfix17 1y ago
        Arguably not so much with music anymore given the prolific nature of lossless DRM free downloads available for purchase. Personally, I buy more music now than any other time in my life: high quality sources playable on all my devices.
• boznz 1y ago
  I feel your pain, As an author even I detest DRM and the lack of ability to move between ecosystems, best way is to start out on the right foot and ensure you get all your books, DRM free, and download them locally. There are also plenty of good free books from indie authors like me (www.rodyne.com) that don't make it to Amazon. I also normally check out smashwords (www.smashwords.com) for their free books or sales, and download about 30 books - about 5 are usually worth keeping, which is about in line with Kindle books I pay for. Also worth signing up for your local library for the best-sellers, they often have partnerships to allow you to loan ebooks.
• zaptheimpaler 1y ago
  Some books are available to buy DRM-free if you search a little - sometimes from the publisher or the Kobo store. It's also just possible to buy a book and also download a pirated copy. You're not just hurting Amazon, you're hurting the author and I don't think we want to encourage a world where no one writes books because its impossible to get paid for them.
• cubefox 1y ago
  You may not like a product or service, or think it's too expensive, but that doesn't ethically justify just getting it for free illegally. It does justify abstinence: simply not buying the product or service, while also not illegally obtaining it otherwise.
• asveikau 1y ago
  How recently did they break that? Did they break it only for new titles? Because I did that on two books maybe 1-2 weeks ago without issue. I might be on an old version of the desktop app. Edit: apparently it's for titles April 2025 or later