Importing Empty Books

[madelonw]

I have been using the Add Empty Book (Book entry with no formats) to add books I've gotten from Amazon for my Kindle to Calibre. Back in the day, when I had an extensive real world book collection, I developed a pretty sophisticated Access DB to keep track of that library, now I want to use Calibre in the same fashion.

I have numerous Amazon freebies, and it's not always convenient to go back to Amazon to read the blurb about the book to see if I want to read it right now. To this end, I have been adding Amazon books to Calibre as I obtain them. Then I went on vacation for a month. My Calibre library lives on a hard drive attached to my desktop. While I was gone, I was using my laptop. So, I downloaded Calibre and used the Add Empty Book option for all the Amazon books I obtained while I was away. I just tried to add these books to my main Calibre library by using Add books from directory including sub-directories (assuming each is a different book) and none of the books were added.

When I add books with no format, I always download metadata and covers, so there is a folder, metadata.opf and cover.jpg file for every book.

Am I trying to do the impossible? Is there a plugin for this kind of operation? Should I be trying to import the library I created on my laptop?

Thanks,
Mad

[theducks]

Originally Posted by madelonw

I have been using the Add Empty Book (Book entry with no formats) to add books I've gotten from Amazon for my Kindle to Calibre. Back in the day, when I had an extensive real world book collection, I developed a pretty sophisticated Access DB to keep track of that library, now I want to use Calibre in the same fashion.

I have numerous Amazon freebies, and it's not always convenient to go back to Amazon to read the blurb about the book to see if I want to read it right now. To this end, I have been adding Amazon books to Calibre as I obtain them. Then I went on vacation for a month. My Calibre library lives on a hard drive attached to my desktop. While I was gone, I was using my laptop. So, I downloaded Calibre and used the Add Empty Book option for all the Amazon books I obtained while I was away. I just tried to add these books to my main Calibre library by using Add books from directory including sub-directories (assuming each is a different book) and none of the books were added.

When I add books with no format, I always download metadata and covers, so there is a folder, metadata.opf and cover.jpg file for every book.

Am I trying to do the impossible? Is there a plugin for this kind of operation? Should I be trying to import the library I created on my laptop?

Thanks,
Mad

copy the Laptop Library (the entire folder) onto a flash drive (calibre does not officially support network drives...data reliability issues )

Now sneakernet the flash drive to the desktop
Use the Library Icon Right click: Create/switch: use existing: (you guessed it, the flash drive one).

Select those (empty or full) books: right-click: copy to Library: (the main one)

[cybmole]

why do you add empty books and not add the actual book . it is v easy with correct plug in. then you have all your books in one database

I download new freebies to Kindle for PC then open that folder, sort it by date & drag the new books ( recognisable by date) into calibre main window. calibre does it[s best to sort out author & title but if it flips them or screws up I just use edit medadata/ download metadata to patch up.

keep the kindle books directory pretty empty ( i.ew. leave them mostly on amazon server) then it is easy to see what's what in that folder. use date + file type & dow't worry about the silly files names. calibre will find the embedded metadata.

a side benefit is that books are now DRM free so if you change kindle or wish to convert to epub ...

[madelonw]

Originally Posted by theducks

copy the Laptop Library (the entire folder) onto a flash drive (calibre does not officially support network drives...data reliability issues )

Now sneakernet the flash drive to the desktop
Use the Library Icon Right click: Create/switch: use existing: (you guessed it, the flash drive one).

Select those (empty or full) books: right-click: copy to Library: (the main one)

I am guessing that the Library Icon is the one with the row of books labeled Calibre. The reason I ask is that clicking or right clicking produces the same menu:

Switch/Create Library
Quick Switch
Rename Library
Pick a random book
Remove Library
-------------------------
Calibre
Romance (A Library I tried to create)
-------------------------
Library Maintenance

I already have the laptop library on an external drive, and I can select the Calibre Folder but I don't get anything that allows me to "copy to library." In fact, I tried to ask how to copy from one library to another and was asked why I would want to do that anyway.

I'm not trying to be dense, but I just don't see how to do this. I am on a Windows machine (Win7) and I am using Calibre 0.9.38 (64bit).

[theducks]

Originally Posted by madelonw

I am guessing that the Library Icon is the one with the row of books labeled Calibre. The reason I ask is that clicking or right clicking produces the same menu:

Switch/Create Library
Quick Switch
Rename Library
Pick a random book
Remove Library
-------------------------
Calibre
Romance (A Library I tried to create)
-------------------------
Library Maintenance

I already have the laptop library on an external drive, and I can select the Calibre Folder but I don't get anything that allows me to "copy to library." In fact, I tried to ask how to copy from one library to another and was asked why I would want to do that anyway.

I'm not trying to be dense, but I just don't see how to do this. I am on a Windows machine (Win7) and I am using Calibre 0.9.38 (64bit).

With YOU viewing the Source Library in Calibre:
Select Books: Right-click (one of) those books: copy to Library: <destination Library>

[madelonw]

Originally Posted by cybmole

why do you add empty books and not add the actual book . it is v easy with correct plug in. then you have all your books in one database

I download new freebies to Kindle for PC then open that folder, sort it by date & drag the new books ( recognisable by date) into calibre main window. calibre does it[s best to sort out author & title but if it flips them or screws up I just use edit medadata/ download metadata to patch up.

keep the kindle books directory pretty empty ( i.ew. leave them mostly on amazon server) then it is easy to see what's what in that folder. use date + file type & dow't worry about the silly files names. calibre will find the embedded metadata.

a side benefit is that books are now DRM free so if you change kindle or wish to convert to epub ...

I already download all my Kindle books to my PC. When I tried to add books from the Amazon directory to Calibre, I got a message that the books were DRM'd and the operation could not complete (or something to that effect anyway). So what plugin do I need to be using? Getting all my Kindle books into Calibre would be a huge bonus.

If you read the reply above about moving books between libraries, I am still trying to figure out how to do this. My daughter-in-law has a Kindle Fire and is on my Amazon account. I often get romance novels for her. Me? Not a fan of the romance novel. I would really like to create a separate library (actually, I have created the library already) and move all the romance novels from my main library to the romance library... can you tell me how this is done?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by madelonw

I got a message that the books were DRM'd and the operation could not complete (or something to that effect anyway).

Mobileread rules ban discussion on this issue, but I think we're allowed to say Google 'Apprentice Alf'

BR