Managing books from different sources

[Ahuka]

I have e-books that I bought on Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Kobo, plus ones that I bought as files I downloaded to my computer. Now that I am trying to organize it all, I may have made a bit of a mess. What I mostly want to know is whether I own a book, and where it resides. Is there a good software program for that kind of management?

Thanks,

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Ahuka

I have e-books that I bought on Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Kobo, plus ones that I bought as files I downloaded to my computer. Now that I am trying to organize it all, I may have made a bit of a mess. What I mostly want to know is whether I own a book, and where it resides. Is there a good software program for that kind of management?

Thanks,

In a word: calibre. https://calibre-ebook.com/

There's an active Calibre forum here on MobileRead.

Also look at https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/, for information about DRM and what to do about it.

[ekbell]

Even if you don't/can't move a book into calibre (say paper books), the add empty book function allows you to keep a record of said book complete with whatever tags or custom columns you care to add.

I use a custom column to keep track of which tablets, kobos, platforms or bookcases contain the book in question.

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Ahuka

I have e-books that I bought on Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Kobo, plus ones that I bought as files I downloaded to my computer. Now that I am trying to organize it all, I may have made a bit of a mess. What I mostly want to know is whether I own a book, and where it resides. Is there a good software program for that kind of management?

Thanks,

I understand that problem. I solely use Calibre. I have separate libraries for Amazon, B&N, Kobo and Baen and Other. In the Other library, I have a column to indicate where I bought the book. I set it up to remove DRM from everything as well. It took about a month to double check everything (something close to 3,000 ebooks), but it works slick now. This made it much easier to check that I have downloaded EVERYTHING that I bought. From there, I just copy it to my general library. Once everything is sorted in those libraries and transferred, then use the Duplicate plug-in to remove any dupes.

Note: I also track audiobooks using Calibre by entering an empty book and getting the metadata for that.

Also, FWIW, I have never been able to remove DRM from multiple book importing. It's always had to be one at a time. No idea what I do wrong on that, but do check your books. The easy way involves converting all of them to another format as DRM books won't convert. Then delete those conversions. Alternative way is to just open each book in View as you can't opoen DRMd books (usually) in Calibre View.