As a proud OCD-ADD-techno-collecto-fetishist I had no defense against the Kindle’s dark powers when it was released in 2007 (plus, I abhor reading on a computer screen). It has three glaring problems, however.
- There’s no dedicated content manager/organizer (think iTunes for ebooks, audio books).
- It’s not an open platform.
- Getting content outside of Amazon’s site and the built-in store is inconvenient, especially if you don’t know where to look or how to get it in the right format.
Problem 1: The Kindle acts as an external hard drive when connected to a PC via USB. I can’t argue with that from a simplicity/covention standpoint. You drag your content into its respective folder on the Kindle and you’re done. What if the content isn’t in the correct format, though? Or you want to change the metadata of a text file so it appears correctly on your Kindle when you sort by author? Or you want to sort your 300+ documents? These problems aren’t addressed by Amazon and for good reason. They would rather you buy their pay content through the Kindle Store. This is a business decision, not a usability one.
Solution: Unfortunately, there still isn’t support for folders or tags on the Kindle itself. This is inexcusable, but there’s nothing to be done for now except hope that Amazon remedies this with a firmware update (remember, it’s not an open platform so we can’t add extra functionality ourselves).
Is it too much to hope for a content manager? Actually, as luck would have it, an altruistic Cal Tech grad student named Kovid Goyal wrote a wonderful ebook manager called Calibre and released it for free. It not only organizes your ebooks on Windows, OSX, and Linux, it’s also the most full-featured ebook converter out there. Converting from PDF or just about any other relevant format is simple. Check it out:
Calibre “Grand Tour” Video (via YouTube)
Problem 2: The Kindle is a closed platform and as such does not allow for user-built improvements.
Solution: You can search for DRM-removal software and other hacks but don’t say you heard about it from me. Eventually, I’ve got to hope that Amazon will open up to developers as this article about Kindle hacking from The Seattle Times suggests.
Problem 3: Where do I go to fill up my Kindle with tons of high-quality free content? It’s not so easy to find public domain books if you don’t know where to look. For that matter, what the hell is the public domain anyway?
Solution: This time I really have your back. Anything in the public domain has fallen out of copyright, which usually happens after a set time-period of around 70 years after the author’s death (until Congress re-ups it, see Lawrence Lessig’s The Future of Ideas). There are several good resources for public domain and freely licensed/creative commons books. In order of usefulness:
- Project Gutenberg – The original and most comprehensive collection of free ebooks
- Feedbooks – Similar to Gutenberg, search and download free ebooks
- ManyBooks.net – Similar to Feedbooks and Project Gutenburg
- Amazon.com’s Free On Kindle page – Good deals updated regularly, just watch out for all the trashy romance novels…
- Books on The Knob – This blog updates regularly with all the new free deals
- Kindle Feeder – Allows for RSS subscriptions on your without the annoying fees
- Google Books – Google’s going after orphan works and anything that’s not strictly under copyright. Check out this post from Kindle Review to get you started.
- Lastly, I feel like I should at least mention the dark side of finding content online. If you want to learn more you can always visit Swashbuckler Cove…or is the Pirate Cove? Maybe the Swashbuckler Bay? Something like that…
Putting all of your downloaded books into Calibre is an easy way to manage their metadata and easily transfer them to your Kindle or most other electronic book readers. And remember!
