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Storing on Cloud v Kindle
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Heather
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Dec 29, 2013 09:25AM
My Kindle is finally out of space. I've painstakenly organized it by Collections so it kills me to delete some. So I'm unsure to wipe it clean & just keep the books I'm currently reading to make it faster and just download from the cloud or keep it semi-organized and keep most of my books on the kindle. What does everyone else do? Any organization tips??
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I only have one folder on my Kindle, for things I might want to reread or refer to in the near future. But typically I delete books off the Kindle after I read them.Other than that one collection, I try to keep only a few pages of books on the "home" page, although I currently have 9.
And, of course, everything is in the Cloud.
I just don't see a reason to keep everything on the Kindle, where it's difficult to maintain and keep everything organized.
However, every time I buy a new book, I do try to add it to GoodReads. So my shelves here are my collections. But much easier to add something to a shelf here than to a collection on the Kindle.
I keep hoping Amazon will come up with a better way to access the cloud than their "Manage Your Kindle" interface...
Yeah I have everything organized pretty well on Good reads, I just was hoping it wouldn't be too hard to find everything on the cloud if I do delete it! I hate Kindle won't let you organize much I feel like its geared to people with 20 books or less!
I agree Heather. When my kindle only had a few books on it I kept it meticulously organised in various folders. But as soon as I passed a couple hundred it became a real chore and I basically gave up on the idea. There is no easy way to do this on the device or on Amazon itself. I think this is one of the device's/Amazon's failings. Everything just piles on now. I tend to send all sequels to the cloud and anything I've already read. I'm pretty close to full, not not quite there yet. However, I do keep everything here on GR. Without GR I would have no idea what books I own. NONE!
Heather wrote: "I hate Kindle won't let you organize much I feel like its geared to people with 20 books or less!"I have nearly 7000 books there now. Just yesterday, I needed to grab a few "episodes" for a book-of-the-month read here on GoodReads.
It did take a while for "Manage Your Kindle" to load all my books, but after that it was easy to find the books I wanted and to send them to my PaperWhite.
It really would be handy if we could do that directly from the book's web page. It knows we own the book, so why not give us the options right there? I've suggested it to Amazon several times.
Wow 7,000 books I thought I had a lot at around 1,500. I guess I maybe should wipe the kindle clean and just keep the ones I'm reading or plan to next on there. It's running so darn slow right now with all the books!
Right now organization is a headache on my primary Kindle because I can't use collections. To help me feel better about this I only keep unread books on it. This helps with the space limitation problem too. My old Kindle Touch is now only for one specific genre of books that I read a lot; I haven't filled it to capacity yet.
I figure I will probably add to the Kindle device family as time goes on so I will keep this method in place until I come up with something better or my needs change.
And I know my collections are now stored in the cloud and they now travel device to device that can utilize collections.
Any tips of organizing good reads a little better? I just have it organized based on where I can find the book right now. Not the best method! Haha
Heather wrote: "Any tips of organizing good reads a little better? I just have it organized based on where I can find the book right now. Not the best method! Haha"Well, since you can create as many shelves as you want why not cross reference them? I generally list mine as lendable or not and then by genre. I then have sub-categories. EX: lendable>fantasy>PNR>vampires>assassins. That way it shows up on all the lists, depending on what I want to search for. If I want PNR I can get them all, but if I only want vampire PNR I can get that too. If I want a badass, killer PNR vampire I have those too.
I also keep a list for smashwords books to remind myself I can review the book there (you only can if you've bought the book there). And a number of other small lists, like less than 100 pages or 'sequals'. This keeps them out of my other lists since I won't want a 3rd book before a first. I also only list books I haven't read. Once read it just lists a READ. That way I'm not picking through read books to find stuff.
Once set up it doesn't take that much time to keep track of things. I just make a point to always add a book to the lists when I buy (or download if it's a freebie) a book.
Obsessive tendencies...who me?
ooh good idea, off to organize on Goodreads!
Sadie wrote: "I then have sub-categories. EX: lendable>fantasy>PNR>vampires>assassins. That way it shows up on all the lists, depending on what I want to search for."Could you elaborate on that?
Are you doing that as five separate labels/shelves? Or is there a shortcut way to do one label like that and have it show up on all five shelves?
Randy wrote: "Sadie wrote: "Could you elaborate on that?Are you doing that as five separate labels/shelves? Or is there a shortcut way to do one label like that and have it show up on all five shelves? "
It's five different shelves, but obviously they become progressively smaller as one goes down the line.(I suppose cross referencing wasn't really an accurate description.) But if I wanted to shelf a vampire PNR I would first shelf it as lendable on a shelf that has all lendable books, regardless of genre. I would then shelf it as fantasy, which will have all fantasy books (epic, PNR, urban, etc,). I would then shelf it as PNR and that shelf will have vamps, werewolves, ghosts, whatever. Then as vampire, the shelf where only vampire books go.
Of course you could set that up any way you like. If you wanted to separate your PNR vamps from your horror vamps it just takes another shelf. GR doesn't let you search multiple ways, but if you'r willing to take the time to set up the shelves and label the books as you get them you can essentially create lists of as many ever-narrowing subjects as you want. I think of it as a pull down list.
Here is a link to my shelves: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
GR does let you search multiple ways. If you have a PNR shelf, a horror shelf, and a vampire shelf, you could select all three to find all books that are on all three of those shelves. Three is the max, however.
Betsy wrote: "GR does let you search multiple ways. If you have a PNR shelf, a horror shelf, and a vampire shelf, you could select all three to find all books that are on all three of those shelves. Three is t..."Really? I stand completely corrected and in awe. Is that under...what, in batch edit?
On your My Books page, on the left hand side, click one shelf that you want to select. Then down just below your list of shelves there is a pale link that says "select multiple shelves" or something like that. Click it. Now all the shelves will have a plus to the right of the shelf name. Click the plus sign on the next shelf you want to select, then click the plus sign next to the third shelf to select.
Will you look at that? Amazing! I've totally missed that and I've spent plenty of time with my bookshelves. I imagine it's 'cause the link is in grey, which my brain interprets as not active, but I've never noticed. Thanks Betsy.
You're welcome. Goodreads is frustrating that way. There are a lot of things it doesn't do that users wish it would do, but there are also a lot of things that it does do that people just don't know about. I like being able to expand people's enjoyment of the site.
Wow didn't know you could do that. Is the any way to see things not on a shelf?
No. We've asked for that too, but there's no telling if it will ever happen.
I've found that Calibre is fantastic with library management- it's made everything a lot easier with my e-reader. You just connect your device to your computer through USB, and calibre will recognize it. It's a great way to have a local backup of your ebooks, it easily syncs with goodreads with the goodreads plug-in so that your shelves are identical on calibre, your device, and goodreads, it converts most formats, and you can organize your books however you want them. You can also strip DRM with a plugin (if you want to)- I always do, as I figure that if I buy an ebook, it should be mine, and not at the whim of the publisher (and I like lending books to friends, the same way that I've always lent paper books I own). I also find it a great way to browse my library when I'm trying to figure out what to read next- you can see covers in (almost full size), along with a book description, etc. I also use it to decide which books I want on my reader- I've got about 7000 in calibre, but usually only carry around a few hundred, as I've found my ereaders' performance get a bit clunky after 500 or so.
With most kindles (not the paperwhite yet, but all of the older models), you can get the Collections plug-in, so that you can tag your books in calibre however you want to, and then build collections on your kindle directly from your tags- no manual work on the kindle needed. You can also import your currently existing collections from kindle into calibre, so you don't have to start completely from scratch.
There is a bit of a learning curve- it took me about 20 minutes to really get the hang of it. And a bit of time to get it all organized the first time, although since you can tag books etc. in batches, it still doesn't take that long. There are very good step-by-step tutorials on how to use it, and any plugins you might want to get. The other thing that I really appreciate is that Calibre makes moving to a new device seamless- your books are already organized in calibre, so instead of having to wait for your books to download from the cloud on your new device, you just plug it into calibre and move them over, create your collections, and your new device looks the same as your old device. It even works if you're changing devices- I moved from the paperwhite to a kobo (primarily because the paperwhite wouldn't do calibre collections- I did have to get a kobo collections plugin), and within about 20 minutes my kobo had the same collections and all of the same books that my kindle did.
I know that I sound (very!)enthusiastic, but it's made the ereader experience much better for me. It's a free program (donations suggested), and it's just nice to have all of my ebook collections appear the same way on devices and goodreads.
Jen wrote: "I've found that Calibre is fantastic with library management- it's made everything a lot easier with my e-reader. You just connect your device to your computer through USB, and calibre will recogni..."My husband has been after me for about 2 years to start using Calbre. But he was always on about how easy it is to convert ebooks from one format to another with it (he's a Nook man and I'm a Kindle woman, you see). He somehow managed to completely forget to mention the library cataloguing aspect of it. I checked it out and he saw me looking and just about jumped up and down in his excited "I told you so" dance.
Sadie wrote: "...and just about jumped up and down in his excited "I told you so" dance. "That's funny- those of us who like it, REALLY like
it :-)
Jen wrote: "That's funny- those of us who like it, REALLY like it :-)"
Yea, it looks pretty amazing, but setting it up will take me a year and a half. Not 'cause it's complicated, it's not. But trying to match books with the rest of their series, tag them, etc. But it's probably worth it.
