Submitted by tnstaec in Tech

Hi all,

I've been getting into e-books recently. I've got a Kindle but it's "off the grid" ie: never registered, and I'd like to keep it that way. There are a few book titles I'd like to get, which I haven't found available on LibGen. I suppose I'll buy them from Amazon (as much as I'd rather not give them money), but I'm not really sure how I would transfer the files.

First, my Linux distro doesn't have the Kindle application. I might be able to borrow a friend's Mac or Windows machine to buy and download the books. I suppose the next step would be stripping the DRM. I've seen a few how-to webpages describing this process, but they're a few years old, so may be out of date.

Any tips would be appreciated.

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nijntje wrote

So a few things: there's some posts on the books forum about where to get books; I made a comment just recently in that thread about using IRC which takes a bit to set up but has most books I have looked for, and that's quite a few.

Secondly, stripping DRM will probably be the same as in all those old blog posts you've read, it's based on the software Calibre and a plugin for that.

Besides that I'm using linux and a kindle too, you can just plug it in via USB and there should be a 'documents' folder where you can put the books and they'll show up on the kindle.

Afaik if you do decide to buy from amazon you can still download directly, or at least you used to be able to.

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tnstaec OP wrote

Afaik if you do decide to buy from amazon you can still download directly, or at least you used to be able to.

Great! That's what I was hoping for.

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naveen wrote

When you buy an e-book on Amazon, it should show up on your Kindle directory (books or documents, not sure) as a .mobi file. Use a software called Calibre to convert mobi to epub

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nijntje wrote

he's got a kindle though so he should probably keep it as a mobi ;)

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leftous wrote

Btw if you want, I can check on MAM to see if they have the .mobis you're looking for.

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tnstaec OP wrote

Is that MyAnonaMouse? It looks like it might be a bit of a hassle to sign up for that site.

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leftous wrote

Yeah it is a bit, you pretty much just have to show up at the interview hours and let them vet you. Took me a while to actually catch the time and even then I had to wait an hour. :/ The actual process itself is easy, though.

They might reopen invites at some point, then hopefully I can invite some comrades. I don't mind downloading a few things for anyone who wants.

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BabyCroc wrote (edited )

Kindles require a proprietary app? You can't use Calibre? If you can still return it, a Kobo is a much better purchase.

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nijntje wrote (edited )

They don't, you can use calibre or you can copy it using a file manager (at least i can using an older paperwhite)

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tnstaec OP wrote

I do use Calibre. I don't know how downloading books from Amazon works.

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Slick wrote

Why would you want that overpriced DRM blob?

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tnstaec OP wrote

Because there's no other option. Shipping physical books to my country is costly and time consuming, and the specific books haven't been uploaded to LibGen.

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