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Tips for buying + reading ebooks that are synced without using kindle/play books?
Hey! I’ve been trying lately to get rid of big platforms from my life. One part of it is that I usually buy ebooks/audiobooks from apple, Amazon or google, however I’m then also forced to use their reading app, which is a vendor lock-in I’m not comfortable with.
I know there are plenty of ebook readers out there, but I’m trying to find
- A store where I can buy ebooks that can be opened in a ebook reader of my choice.
- A way to then sync my progress between phone and laptop. I have nextcloud setup, so if I can make use of that then it’s perfect.
Anyone here got any tips?
Calibre is the go-to recommendation for syncing ebook devices, but apparently readarr does this too. I know Calibre has a button for buying ebooks, I don't know how useful the menu is though. I haven't used readarr at all, but for all I know it has a buying feature too.
Agreed Calibre is the go-to and what I would recommend as the simplest approach. If you like doing power user stuff and tinkering, you could maybe set up Calibre-Web. I also ran into an example of someone hooking up NextCloud, Calibre-Web, and their e-reader app.
Stripping Kindle or Adobe Digital Editions DRM from ebooks is very straightforward with Calibre and the right plugin. Between that and Calibre's very good format-conversion tools, you can easily decouple where you buy your ebooks from how you read them.
The only caveat here is that I'm pretty sure you need a physical Kindle device or you won't be able to download the ebooks to your laptop as a file or get a key for the encryption.
No, I've imported books downloaded from both Google books and Amazon to calibre using the de-drm plugin without issue. You can download a compatible format from the websites which will work. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I haven't encountered them yet.
You need Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) installed on the computer and then download the book as an epub. When ADE opens and downloads the file, you can import the downloaded epub to calibre and the plugin automatically grabs the ADE key stored on the computer to decrypt the book and remove the DRM. From there you can convert it to your favorite format and you're off and running! That's what's worked for me to get my Google Books into my Kindle.
Oh, that's good to know. I've never tried with Google books but glad there is a workaround. Personally, I've not had luck with new Kindle books unless I use the physical Kindle method, which is why I keep an old one around. I'll look more into what you suggested.
Are you referring to transferring the purchased books from the Kindle to Calibre? I have heard that method is harder with the newer Kindles and haven't tried it. I looked into the Google books issue since I had play store credit and was more interested in buying a book than an app but wasn't interested in being locked to their app to read it.
Have you tried going from a browser download from Amazon of the epub version of the book to calibre though?
I can confirm the harder on newer (2023+ Published Dates). I haven't really tried that hard yet on the one book I have. Older ones were a breeze.
That's disappointing to hear but good to know. I must not have tried anything new enough yet. Thanks for the warning!
I've written a blog post on where I get DRM-free ebooks (but Smashwords, mentioned in another comment here, is new to me; I'll have to check it out).
I use Calibre running on a server to manage my library, but I use KOReader's features for synchronizing read positions. It uses a KOReader server to synchronize the data, but it's at least designed to limit the personal data shared. It only uses a one-way hash of the file name, so the server doesn't even know the names of the books you're reading. (This also means that the file names have to match exactly across devices; I accomplish that by always downloading from my Calibre server to keep things consistent.)
Can you please share your thought on 'remarkable'? Have you found any better alternative?
edit: The article is very informative. I think it deserves it's own post. Thank you for sharing.
I really like my ReMarkable tablet. The epaper display is great, and battery life is fantastic. I can go a week of regular, moderate use without charging and still have 20–30% battery left at the end.
I haven't used any other epaper tablet myself, so I don't have any direct comparisons. But as far as I can tell, the ReMarkable is the only fully-functional tablet that also lets you SSH in to the underlying system and mess around with it. (The PineNote isn't production-ready yet, and most other epaper tablets have closed OSes.) Based on what I've read, most other epaper tablets are thicker and/or have more lag when writing. I really appreciate the portability and responsiveness of my ReMarkable. It's easy to use and feels pretty much just like writing on paper, except that I can copy, paste, and move my notes around the page at will.
I use it primarily for note-taking. It's incredibly convenient to be able to carry all of my different notebooks around with me and easily flip between them as needed. Ebook reading is secondary to that, but I still read on it regularly. Use of additional programs like KOReader isn't officially supported by the developers, but it's permitted. It's in the realm of, “You can do it, but if it breaks we can't help you fix it.” I'm used to that with open source software, so it doesn't bother me, for the most part. It is kind of annoying to have to match my system version to ones that have active support from the community, especially since the developer community is small and people don't always have time to figure out support for new releases right away.
If I wanted just an ereader, I'd probably get something smaller, and I'd probably have to put up with something with a more-closed system. But the ReMarkable hits the sweet spot for me of being both a fantastic note-taking device and a pretty great ereader, too.
Since we are in the topic of Remarkable, do you mind if I ask you a question?
I was looking at it but what rubbed me the wrong way was that your buying into their ecosystem because you would at some point need to change the pen nibs and you can only buy them from their store?
I guess it depends on where you want to draw the line. You will always be "locked in" to any product on some level just by the nature of using someone else's invention; so unless you plan on recreating every consumer item by yourself for yourself, I find it absurd to draw the line at a $1.50 accessory (and 30 seconds of searching uncovered discussions of several third party options).
I would be much more concerned about the overall device, software, and ecosystem, which appears to be the best option on the market to minimize vendor lock-in until Pine releases a consumer-ready edition of their reader.
For the record, the ReMarkable 1 is less locked-in than the ReMarkable 2 - it's impossible to update the RM2's screen without the proprietary Xochitl binary, which can break on any update.
The nib situation bugs the hell out of me, but AFAICT it's pretty universal across e-notes so it's not a mark specifically against the RM. It is complete bullshit though; a nib is, AFAICT, just a piece of compressed felt. They weigh less than 1 gram each, they have no right to be sold for over a dollar each; we ought to be able to buy a 50-pack of them for $10 or less.
I suppose we have different use-cases then because I eventually settled for Rocketbooks for writing and a Kobo for reading.
While Rocketbooks do lock you into using a certain kind of pen, you are not stuck with the Pilot Frixion brand and most bookstores / pen stores around the world would carry them.
On the other hand, if for some reason you’d have to move to a different country or if the Remarkable company goes under then you’ve essentially lost that feature.
I guess that we’re prioritizing different things and that’s alright but I hope I’ve made it sound more reasonable (or at least less strange) to take getting locked-in into account when buying stuff.
The nibs are a little complicated. I've seen reports of people using non-ReMarkable nibs without problems, but there's almost always a caveat that they don't feel as good as the ReMarkable nibs. I have not seen a lot of reports of third-party nibs scratching the screen, but worries about that are why I've stuck with official nibs (even with third-party styluses).
However, based on my experience with the developer community, I expect that if ReMarkable the company went under and there were no more official nibs, there would a lot more community resources about replacements as people tried out alternatives and figured out which were best.
There are a number of tradeoffs for the ReMarkable. Among them are uncertainty about third-party pen nibs, limited stock functionality, limited third-party software, and no official support for third-party software. But the benefits for me outweigh the drawbacks. Other people are going to have different balance points.
You have to check the fine print on the book pages to figure out which ones don't have DRM but I like to use eBooks.com and Smashwords.
I use the ReadEra app on my various touch devices (all Android), even installed it on a kindle fire. It syncs my books across all my devices, and backs them all up to a Google drive as well. It even syncs reading progress, collections, and annotations.
People kept telling me to check out KOReader, and it just is not the app for me. I have a strong negative reaction to its hideous interface, and it lacks the sorting and organization features that I really like in ReadEra. It has a long long long way to go in the realm of user friendliness.
On my PC I use Calibre as my main repo. It's ridiculously easy to export my books to Google, and then ReadEra imports them directly into my synced library across my devices. The amount of additional configuration and maintenance that KOReader required for similar function was a non starter for me, as I needed less complicated tech processes in my life, not more.
As for a good store? I'm still looking for that myself. Most of my collection is rather ancient, from when DRM free books were more easily available, or else from book bundles. I'd love to find a good ebook shop today with a decent DRM free catalog.
I use the Kobo Libra 2 reader with KOreader. The Kobo bookstore is very easy to strip DRM with tools like kobo-dl, but I mostly use it just so I can avoid paying money to Amazon.
Sometimes I would buy a book there and just download a pirated epub on LibGen or Anna's Archive at the same time.
I'd love to find a way to sync ebooks plus audiobooks, it's basically the only way I can read, and it's such a a hassle to keep synced