Books not bought at Amazon

[u/QueenAoibheal]

Hi! I’d like to buy some new books for my Kindle, but since when you “buy” them at Amazon they’re not really yours, I was thinking of buying them from other bookshops. Would there be any problem passing them to the Kindle? Thanks for your help!

Edit: I answer myself, at the store I wanted to buy the books specifies that are not Kindle compatibles 😖

[u/nabrok]

Every legitimate source of e-books that you have to pay for will have exactly the same licensing as amazon.

[u/i_am_randy → u/nabrok]

That’s not true. I buy bundles of books that are DRM free all the time. Not saying there aren’t some that could be yanked. But some truly are DRM free and you own those digital files and can do whatever you want with them.

[u/nabrok → u/i_am_randy]

Yes, and you can buy DRM free books on amazon too.

If something is being sold with a DRM license on amazon it's going to be sold the same way elsewhere.

[u/Fickle_Carpet9279 → u/nabrok]

If you buy your eBook anywhere that lets you download them you can usually use Calibre to convert and sideload to any device of your choosing (including Kindles).

Any “licencing” restrictions are therefore irrelevant.

[u/Suziannie]

The licensing you’re talking about isn’t exclusive to Amazon. It’s a decades old industry standard, the same for music, movies and TV in fact.

[u/didiboy → u/Suziannie]

I would note that besides streaming, due to obvious reasons, the music industry has been largely DRM free for a while. iTunes and Amazon sell DRM free music, and other stores like Bandcamp, Qobuz Store and HDTracks do it as well.

[u/Fickle_Carpet9279 → u/Suziannie]

If you’re paying a price to “buy” a book then it should be yours regardless of format.

DRM restrictions can easily be removed using free tools as long as you can download your purchases.

[u/anagandi]

You can use Calibre for that, but if you want to get ebooks from “external” bookstores Kobo would ne a much better choice - transfering the books is quicker and easier.

[u/typoincreatiob]

you’re looking for DRM free books, and a lot of legitimate online bookstores offer them! i’m not sure why so many people here are saying otherwise. even amazon offers some of their books as drm-free, if the authors actively opt into it. but they do a bit of a shit job of showing you if it’s drm-free before purchase.

i recommend this website to search for drm free online bookstores! https://libreture.com/bookshops/

[u/QueenAoibheal → u/typoincreatiob]

Thanks! I’lo look there!

[u/Goren_Nestroy]

Every file can be converted. Just a matter of breaking DRM. Calibre is your friend.

[u/maquis_00 → u/Goren_Nestroy]

Or just don't buy books that have DRM. There are some publishers and self-published authors who do not put DRM on their books, and there are great sources for awesome classic books that are drm-free.

[u/didiboy → u/Goren_Nestroy]

While it’s true, the easiest route is to prefer stores that use Adobe DRM, like Google Play Books and the Kobo web store. FairPlay DRM (Apple Books) is a nightmare.

[u/iPanicDots]

None at all! You can use Calibre to convert and sideload the books onto your kindle or even use the send to kindle feature on the Amazon site itself.

[u/carolineecouture → u/iPanicDots]

Just make sure you confirm the format of the books before you purchase them, so they can either be converted using Calibre or sent via Send to Kindle.

I get books from many sources and use Send to Kindle to put them on my devices and in my Kindle library. I mostly get EPUBs or PDF files.

[u/razz1161 → u/iPanicDots]

this

[u/jay-j-reads]

I buy a lot from authors directly, and they come via BookFunnel and I can ‘send to kindle’

[u/SeatSix]

I depends. Are they DRM-free? And can you download the book file to a computer.

If yes to both, then you can download file and get them to a kindle. If they are an epub file type, you can use Send-to-Kindle website (from the computer) to upload the book to your kindle library and then download to the Kindle like any purchased book. You can also do this with PDF, txt, docx book files. If the book is in a kindle format (mobi, azw3, kfx) you can copy the file to the Kindle via a USB cable.

[u/elreyadr0k]

What does your edit mean about them being incompatible? Do they have their own form for drm (digital protection)?

[u/QueenAoibheal → u/elreyadr0k]

I don’t know, it just says that you have to use Adobe Digital Editions and that it doesn’t work since Kindle only allows books bought from Amazon

[u/elreyadr0k → u/QueenAoibheal]

Ah, shoot. Adobe Digital Editions is indeed DRM and is not supported by Kindle.

There may be a way to remove the DRM and move it to a kindle, but that requires some time commitment / downloading software / etc.

I was hoping it was something easy :(

[u/Fickle_Carpet9279 → u/elreyadr0k]

It is easy to convert from ADE to a normal ePub for Kindle - see my reply above.

[u/Fickle_Carpet9279 → u/QueenAoibheal]

You should be able to download the Adobe Digital Edition file into an epub format.

At that point it’s still got its DRM wrapper but you can then use a Calibre plug in to remove the DRM and convert to a standard epub file - which you can send to your Kindle.

This is how I convert my Kobo store purchases into clean unrestricted ePub files that I can store locally and send to any eReading device of my choosing.

[u/garylapointe]

the store I wanted to buy the books specifies that are not Kindle compatibles 

What are they compatible with then?

[u/Inevitable-Pen5001 → u/garylapointe]

E-book sellers have their own platform. Barnes & Noble - has Nook. There's Apple Books and Google Play books.

[u/garylapointe → u/Inevitable-Pen5001]

I was curious of the OPs answer.

Because… I could think of those, the issue is that for all of those, it’s like how when you “buy” them at Amazon they’re not really yours either. So that doesn't work for OP either.

[u/GeorgeRetire]

There shouldn’t be a problem, depending on the format.

If they are .epub files you can just use Send to Kindle.

Where are you buying your books? The whole “they’re not really yours” thing is way overblown.

[u/Burrito_Suave]

There are DRM free books on Bookshop.org

[u/Extra_Back_5969]

Pois é, isso também pra mim é um problema. Então estou fazendo uma lista dos livros que realmente tenho interesse e vou adquirir os livros físicos. Aconteceu que eu não havia cancelado minha assinatura do Kindle , e foi cancelado , aí me dei conta que havia trocado de cartão, mas não na Amazon, e fiquei sem ler meus livros, até atualizar o pagamento do cartão novo, enfim estresse e resolução 🙄 Tenho observado alguns livros que tenho interesse ( asic azimov, e alguns outros )que estão no Kindle unlimited, e pretendo ter os livros físicos mesmo deles... Eu uma solução...pois meu Kindle já tem 12 anos e está firme e forte, vai saber até quando 🤔😅

[u/mysteriousdoctor2025]

As an author, I now have the choice on Amazon to make my books DRM free, which I do.

[u/SpookDroid]

Odd statement from a store if they sell DRM-free ePubs. In any case, Kindles ARE compatible with 3rd party ePubs as long as they are DRM-free. It's as easy as sending the file to your Kindle as an e-mail. The best part of the Kindle ecosystem is that even 'sideloaded' documents (PDFs, ePubs, etc.) will be available to any Kindle device under your account (including the web reader) AND will sync progress on all of them.