I want to get back into reading, so I’m thinking of getting a Paperwhite. But I have no idea if it’s possible to transfer files to it from a computer, and I have no experience with pirating books.
Do I go to the same places I torrent movies and games or are there special places dedicated to E-Books?
EDIT: So many awesome answers on here! You guys have been very helpful. Thanks a lot!
Underrated answer
I recently found out about this and at random searched for a Brazilian author, obviously expecting in Portuguese. I was not disappointed.
Most answers and places are heavily biased to English books, it seems to not be the case here.
Though I’ll add a couple of my favorites for works that are free of copyright already
Wiki source. For example, Chekhov page has kinks to both English and original Russian texts https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Anton_Pavlovich_Chekhov
And probably the biggest, project Gutemberg. Searching Cervantes gives you only one book, Don Quijote, though in many editions, and both English and Spanish which is a bit limited.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=cervantes&submit_search=Search
Anna’s Archive, Libgen, Mobilism, IRC (I use a self-hosted service called OpenBooks for this). I use Calibre for metadata sorting, plug Kindle in and move books that way and keep it on airplane mode.
Also, new Kindle jailbreak for <= 5.16.2.1.1 if anyone’s interested. Managed to get KoReader on my 10th Gen Basic.
is there any advantage to jailbreak when i already got no ads and i’m 100% of the time on airplane mode? genuine question, not judging :o
I didn’t have ads either but being able to use KoReader is a good enough motivation for me.
- You can customize it a lot to your own liking and they do something clever with page changing that it seems a lot more responsive.
- Another thing is I used to have to convert epubs to KFX to get nice hyphenation and good typography but on KoReader you seem to be able to customize all those typography things with whatever epub you throw at it.
- Also, I have a local Calibre OPDS endpoint, you can add that in KoReader and download books over wirelessly. WiFi needs to be on when doing that but with a few tweaks you have read only root partiton so Kindle shouldn’t update.
Overall there are a lot of steps to it, if you’re comfortable with your current setup it’s not worth the hassle/time.
This is the bit I read that sold me on it.
But if you do jailbreak a Kindle, you’ll be able to install third-party apps like KOReader, which bring support for eBooks in formats that aren’t natively supported by the stock Kindle software, such as EPUB and CBZ files
Weird, I’m like 99% sure epub is supported considering it’s all I download on my stock PW.
Amazon actually deprecated the MOBI standard on there and switched to EPUB.
Ah, so a kindle needs to be jailbroken/rooted for sideloading books.
Also, this is the third mention of turning on airplane mode. Is this to stop Amazon from doing something to the Kindle?
Kindle jailbreaking isn’t strictly required, especially if all you want to do is sideload books. It’s more about if you want homebrew, other customisation options or you just wanna get rid of ads without paying.
The airplane mode is because Amazon has a habit of updating the kindle without your permission.
Right… Yeah, I would like to get rid of the ads. It sounds absurd that I pay for the device but then have to pay again to get rid of ads.
I don’t turn airplane mode on and I haven’t jailbroken it. I download all my books from Anna’s archive on my phone and then send them to my kindle email address. The books appear on my kindle in seconds. No DRM issues. I have the oasis because I’m a big reader and I highly recommend it.
As others have said – nope. You can get a cheap enough Kindle without ads (and yes, it is absurd that there’s an ad-version in the first place), and sideloading is a piece of piss. Either use Calibre or set up a Kindle email address. I mostly do the latter these days. The only downside (and the main upside to using KoReader, I would think) is that you don’t get the full range of typography options sending over EPUBs this way – you would have to do a KFX conversation first (again possible with Calibre, but a bit of faff).
They are making the OS more and more convoluted for loading your own books.
Myanonamouse is a place of friendliness, warmth, and sharing.
The worst part about mam is that I feel useless because I consume way more than I contribute.
As long as you keep seeding torrents indefinitely, you’re contributing by keeping those torrents alive. That’s a huge benefit to the community, and it’s why you can get upload credit even if you aren’t uploading.
And the fact that ebooks take almost no space means you can indefinitely seed thousands of books even if it’s from a small hard drive.
So don’t feel useless. In fact, I want to thank you for helping out.
Edit: disregard this comment
But getting in is not very easy and many torrents are behind a VIP-wall (you can buy VIP for seeding-bonus points). The tracker is focused on audiobooks, but there are also many e-books available.
getting in is not very easy
Dafuq? They run interviews twice a week, and the questions are dead easy.
many torrents are behind a VIP-wall
Which you just have to wait a few weeks to get past the account age restriction and hand over a few bonus points, which are trivial to get. Just bookmark anything you can’t get and have a little patience.
Yeah I second this, it was so fucking easy to get in you just have to look up when the window is each week, jump on their irc, read a minimal amount of rules and then answer some questions on them to prove you read them. It took me about half an hour.
The VIP paywall thing is bullshit too. They do have a points system which was a little confusing at first but if you take the time to read all the introductory posts explaining them then it is an easy system to follow and you can easily amass many freeleech wedges which completely negates the so called VIP wall.
Can’t recommend them enough and so much fucking selection compared to free trackers.
I’ll Third this as well. You’re first week of seeding will net you 10s of thousands of “points” and “wedges” you can trade for VIP status, etc.
Just download a ton of freeleech books, seed em for 72 Hours minimum, done. Longer you seed, the better for everyone.
Also, you’ll find anything and everything you are looking for. In every format…
Anna’s Archive. As a fellow Kindle PW user, don’t buy(that is if you can call paying for DRMed ebooks buying) anything on Amazon. Use airplane mode and never turn it off.
Newish Kindle (basic) user here. Any issue aside from battery life to justify airplane mode always on?
Being able to translate or look stuff up on Wikipedia is amazing for me.
Because fuck Amazon. /s
I’m joking but additional battery life and shutting off telemetry outweighs Wikipedia lookup, that is of course to me. I also bought with-ads version of it so permanent airplane mode keeps it away. (I know I can kinda get them removed by asking Amazon)
I download books from my library with Libby and they don’t expire while airplane mode is on.
Since a lot of books have a wait and Libby lets you delay delivery, I queue up a bunch of books while I’m reading. When I’m done with my current batch, I turn off airplane mode, check out a bunch of books, and then turn on airplane mode just before it’s time to return the first one.
I do this like every 6 months.
I don’t have a PW, but I’m looking at them. Does Airplane Mode stop you from using any tools, or is it smooth sailing?
Wikipedia won’t work. It’ll nag you about how you are not synced to the cloud. Every single time you go back from reading to the library page. Very annoying, but something I think better tolerate than to have yet another telemetry stuff in my life.
It would stop you from using the email sideload option, which is my favourite way to get books on. But you could turn WiFi on just for that and off again. More of an issue would be sync with the Kindle app, say on your phone. So if you don’t take it everywhere but find yourself stuck and wanting to carry on reading, you can get your phone out and pick up where you left off. Honestly, that’s pretty handy. But everyone’s use case is different.
Just because no-one has mentioned it yet.
Your local library. You probably don’t even have to go in, once you’re account is set up you can check out books online.
My biggest issue with ebooks in the library, and what led me into more ebook Piracy. Having to wait to check out a digital book. I know the library has to pay like yearly licensing subscriptions to a lot of these books, and it’s just so annoying to me that it doesn’t cover everybody having access to it. I sit on the library board and one thing we’re talking about doing is a graphic novel service for a lot of the youth. And low key, I’m stoked for the graphic novel service too. But that one’s unlimited access.
Fair enough, maybe it’s just the size of my library/library conglomerate, but I’ve never waited for an ebook.
Going into a library is like choosing a movie from Netflix. If you don’t know what you want it’s fine. But if you’re after a specific book, big chances it’s not there.
Example: I’ve read over 100 star Trek books, none of the libraries around me have any in the series, and I’m on a 3M people city.
That seems very odd to me. I’ve never been to a city library that can’t get something they don’t have. Obviously I’m biased by my own experiences.
I’m in Montréal (2-4M depending on how the library system is set up) and star wars has 1,099 hits. Video games, mangas, movies, tv shows, books illustrations, audiobooks, lego building guide ebooks, comics, etc. There might be some inflation in the figure for how some titles handle multi-lingual copies.
Karen Traviss is my favorite star wars author, followed by Timothy Zhan.
