Send to Kindle won't send author name from metadata.

[mkgtu]

As of about 3 months later this issue described below has been fixed. Several people reported the "fix" late in December. I checked myself and can confirm that everything is working as it should for me also. SEE MY POST FOR DECEMBER 25, 2020.
AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This is a very recent issue. Whether using the "Send to Kindle" app or sending by email, the software doesn't retrieve the author name from the metadata as displayed in the filename and so the "author" shown in Kindle will only be your own name or your email address, not the book's real author! You can, of course, manually type in an author name in the "Send to Kindle" app (on computer or mobile device) for just a single book (but not for multiple/batch uploads). So you can effectively only upload one book/doc at a time. But you can't add an author name at all if sending a file to your Kindle via email. So if you want an author name, you cannot presently use email!

I don't know how clear the following is, but I sent
the detailed message below to Amazon via "chat". The chat person said she would file a report to tech on my behalf. Where that ends up, who knows? Perhaps others have noticed this issue?

Message to Amazon:
"Whether using the Send to Kindle app or email, the service does not seem to be reading the author info from the metadata. If you select a book and right click to use Send to Kindle on PC, in the Title line the author shows after the title, separated by a hyphen: "Book ABC - John Doe". You can leave the actual author line blank. The sending service reads the author from the title line. That's the way it's worked for years. BUT in the last few weeks, unless you put the author name in the actual "author" line of the app, the service uses MY OWN name as author, and my name is listed in the author column in the cloud and on all devices. (and though the author name is included after the hyphen in the title line, only the title is transferred to the devices and the cloud - it doesn't show in the title itself, it's just ignored) However. if you put the author in the author line, then it works correctly, and the author name shows up where it belongs on your devices.

"Of course, this means you can NEVER send multiple books anymore via "Send to Kindle" app because it won't pick up all the individual author names from the metadata. You'd need to send things one at a time and add the author name manually. The same is happening with sending personal docs or books via email. The author comes out on the device as the email address you used to send the files. Which means if you want the author to be correct on the Kindles and in the cloud storage, you can't use email at all because there's no way to add an author name other than via the metadata in the file itself, which the Kindle document service is not currently able to read.

"The docs/books I'm sending are all in .mobi format. Some were converted from .epub in Calibre. Some were already in DRM-free mobi format from other sources. So I doubt there is anything wrong with the metadata itself, given the various sources of the files."

[Rellwood]

Go on their support chat. Tell them clearly and precisely what you have a problem with , and what you think are the steps needed to fix it.

I did that in the past and have seen Amazon actually make changes to things that I mentioned. And quick too. It was only a couple of months between complaining about thier Amazon Prime Video on Roku platform when I saw the exact changes I requested were made. Since this problem with the Author being changed is a big deal, and effects a lot of people, people need to tell them, and trust me, they will fix it.

I already told them about that a week ago, and again today.

[wildfire070]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one with this issue. My hard drive failed and I basically had to start from scratch with my Calibre library. Luckily I used the email to kindle feature extensively and was able to recover my books that way.

I updated to Calibre 5.0.1 and noticed that my metadata plug-board was not working to add the series name to book titles when I emailed to kindle from within Calibre. I was searching high and low to figure out what settings I was missing. Until I thought...you know what, I'll revert back to Calibre 4.2.3. And that seemed to fix the plug-board issue.

But the author name will show up as my email address until I download the book onto my Kindle, and then it changes to the correct author name. Have you noticed this as well?

It doesn't help to organize/search when I go into my Amazon account to manage my content since it will still show my email address as the author there.

[Rellwood]

I thought I was the only one to use the plugboard to add the series too!

I HATE that the titles are either not showing the series, or the series is cut off because the titles are too long.
Also, if you look at the list of current topics on this thread you are going to see that
there is one that is above this one, and it is dealing with this topic. "Sideloaded books aren't showing author" or some such thing.

So, no, it's not just you, it's EVERYONE.

Lol!

I had to delete and use the send to kindle app and rename the authors.

Until it's fixed, what I have is what I have.

[mkgtu]

I did report this to Amazon in detail via chat.
Now over a week later I'm seeing it partially fixed.
UPDATE: PARTIALLY FIXED
Tonight Oct 4 I tried uploading five books to my Amazon account. I used the Send to Kindle app on Windows and batch/bulk sent all five at once, leaving the "author" line blank. All five downloaded to my Kindle Oasis with the correct author name - that's an improvement from last week. But the books appeared in the cloud (Manage Your Kindle Content page) incorrectly, still with my own name as the author of each book!
I then sent just a single book via Send to Kindle, with the author line blank: same result: correct on the device, wrong in the cloud.
I also tried emailing a book to that same device. Result: correct author on the device, but the cloud still shows email address as the author.
I think another poster in another thread had also noticed this: correct on device, wrong in cloud. Previously mine had been wrong in both. So I guess this is an improvement. But I guess I'll still have to add the author name manually, and only send one book at a time via Send to Kindle. Otherwise I'd not be bale to search anything by author on the website. And there's still no way to add an author name in the email process, so that's out for me.

[Jamoz23]

I have also been on to Amazon Australia three times about this.
Have also been told it will be passed to technical but to date nothing has changed. When I contact them I get passed around as no one understands what I am trying to explain.
Very frustrating.
Have twigged Calibre to the best I can think off.

[Jamoz23]

UPDATE

Thanks for the tip.
I am now using the SEND TO KINDLE app and it is working beautifully.
A pain to have to manually do authors name but I can do more than one book.
And it is showing in MANAGE CONTENT AND DEVICES too.
At least I am not looking at my own email address anymore.
It seems many of us have reported this to Amazon but on each of the three occasions I have contacted them they have seemed blank about the issue.
Come on Amazon, get this sorted.

[GeniusJ]

I have the same problem. The SEND TO KINDLE app for Windows does work. The Mac app does not work unless you turn off two-factor authentication, which is annoying.

I hope they fix the "send to kindle" via email problem soon. At this point they refused to even acknowledge it as a problem.

[Josieb1]

I’ve had this for years. Support don’t understand the problem.

[Garyeb]

Started for me around beginning of October. Really irritating. Did Amazon do this deliberately?

[GeniusJ]

I don't think so, but they're certainly ignoring it deliberately.

[HogDrvr]

Originally Posted by GeniusJ

I have the same problem. The SEND TO KINDLE app for Windows does work. The Mac app does not work unless you turn off two-factor authentication, which is annoying.

To get SEND TO KINDLE working with 2 factor authentication is to add the one-time code to the end of your password when setting it up

USERNAME
PASSWORD123456, where 123456 is the one time code. Of course, you have to do this while the code is still active

[GeniusJ]

I’ve already tried that. It still doesn’t work. Their Mac app is fundamentally broken.

[HogDrvr]

Originally Posted by GeniusJ

I’ve already tried that. It still doesn’t work. Their Mac app is fundamentally broken.

Weird, I just set it up on my new Mac last week. That's what worked for me.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...deId=201962400

[GeniusJ]

I continue to get "There was a problem, Enter a valid email or mobile number" every time. Works fine on the Windows app, though.