This is where I come from: I have shifted most parts of my library from paper to ebooks.

Don`t say that you don`t like reading ebooks. That is not relevant. Certain ebooks have their place in your own life, even if you don`t like reading ebooks. And if it is only that you gain a sneak peep into a specific book before you spend the money before buying its paper edition. It is not about the money saved. It is about the space saved and the avoided paper waste. I can tell because I have thrown away at least 3,000 books in my lifetime.

I have written about ebooks before, and where to get them for free, see here:
https://ip-lawyer-tools.com/internet-is-killing-copyright-for-written-works-any-book-available-for-free/

I have now found a way to make my life MUCH easier by transferring ALL my ebooks to my Amazon Kindle account.

And if this works for me it may also work for you.

 

Technical Problems With Ebooks

The three main handling problems with ebooks  are

• how to keep them together in one single library
• how to synchronize this library across several devices, such as smartphone, desktop computer, laptop, etc.
• how to highlight texts and keep comments such that you can re-use them later
• how to keep a reading list of those books that you still need to read

Only if you solve these problems will ebooks really make your life easier.

 

Ebook formats

It has always been difficult to keep ebooks in one single place because of their different formats.

99% of my own downloaded ebooks come in one of these 3 file formats:

• .mobi
• .epub
• .pdf

Plus there are very few ebooks in Microsoft word format (.doc or .docx) and in the Kindle format. I never see the file format of my Amazon Kindle books because I keep these in my Kindle app that became very handy over time.

In short words, all the problems with ebooks go back to these different file formats.

 

How to Handle Ebooks

An easy way to synchronize my downloaded ebooks across my several devices, be it my smartphone, my desktop computer, my laptop, or others, is to keep them in my Dropbox cloud drive. Google Drive works as well. That solves one of the biggest problems with ebooks that are not in the Kindle app.

Those ebooks that are imported into my Kindle account are automatically synchronized over all my devices, that handy feature comes with the Kindle app. There is now even a Kindle app for my Android smartphone available, that was a major breakthrough for my ebook library.

And I have a reading list in my Evernote account (click here for more information). That reading list also has specific information for each book, e.g. why I wanted to read it. I often follow a recommendation that I saw somewhere. That reading list also has the file format for each book, so I know quickly where to look if I want to read a specific book from my reading list.

 

EBook Reading Apps

Now to the reading apps. I have been using the free Acrobat Reader for reading my .pdf ebooks. And I have been using the free Kindle reader app for reading my Amazon Kindle books. These two apps get me very far. Downloaded ebooks in the .mobi format can be easily imported into the Kindle app because this is one of those formats that the Kindle app is supporting. The same applies to my ebooks in the .pdf format but I have been too lazy for importing them into my Kindle account.

The biggest problem have always been those ebooks that come in the .epub format because I never knew how to import these into my Kindle app. I had to use other reading apps. I will not even tell you which .epub reading apps I have used because I found none good. The Kindle app is setting the baseline for all other ebook reading apps, and I find all other ebook reading apps worse.

But the bad years are now iver, I happened to find out how to import .epub books into my Kindle account upon publishing my latest ebook on Amazon Kindle.

 

How to Import .epub Ebooks Into an Amazon Kindle Account

This is best done with a PC – that means a Windows desktop computer or a laptop. These are the steps:

• have the EPUB ebook file on your PC
• install the Kindle Previewer program on your PC (this can be downloaded for free here)
• install the Kindle for PC program (this can be downloaded for free here) and log in to your Kindle account.

For creating a Kindle ebook file:

• open Kindle Previewer on your PC, open that .epub file and export that ebook into a .mobi ebook file format on your PC
• open Kindle for PC and open the saved .mobi ebook file on your computer by clicking on it in the Windows file explorer

This will add that ebook to your Kindle Library, and by doing so, the new ebook will also be available in the Kindle app on any other device.

If that synchronization from Your PC to the Kindle app on one of your hand-held devices does not work properly, you can alternatively send the .mobi file via email to the email address of the Kindle app on one of your hand-held devices (the email address is there found under “App Settings”). Once you have sent it to one device via email, all registered Kindle devices will have that ebook.

For an Apple Mac computer, you would follow the same steps, but you would convert the .epub ebook into a .azk ebook file format

That`s it.

 

How to Import .pdf Ebooks Into an Amazon Kindle Account

Open Kindle for PC and select “import pdf … ” in the file menu. That is a bit iffy but it works.

Once you have more than a few ebooks in your Kindle account, you can use the “Collections” feature for organizing them better. I am not so orderly to do that often because there is a search function in the Kindle app. That suffices for me.

 

Call to Action

Start your ebook collection today by downloading the Kindle app today to your computer (click here).

Then buy your first Kindle book from Amazon, you can start with my latest ebook “The 4×4 Innovation Strategy” (click here).

Then import your first pdf into the Kindle app, followed by a downloaded ebook in the .epub format (see above).

Then start a reading list in Evernote (click here).

Then install the Kindle App and Evernote on all your computer devices.

Don`t wait. Start now.

 

Martin “ebook” Schweiger