So I have been buying my ebooks from Amazon for many years. I used to even have a Kindle Voyage for a few years (it got destroyed like two years ago, never bothered to replace).
A friend introduced me to Calibre recently since she knows I like reading on my phone and I like being able to change the tags, cover, description, etc myself; but what I don’t like is not being able to read my own ebooks with any ereader app that isn’t the Kindle app.
And before anyone goes “just use the drm crack in Calibre” it doesn’t work anymore and hasn’t for months. I checked. I tried. No one seems to have been able to make it work for awhile now.
Ever since I started taking my privacy more seriously, I’ve been giving Amazon the side-eye and have been trying to move away from using it for literally anything. I’ve already replaced all my paid books with epub versions (I don’t think I need to explain how, now do I?) but I still want to actually buy my books to support the authors.
But where the hell do I go that isn’t Amazon? Is Kobo viable? How about B&N? I’ve a soft spot for B&N, but I won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole if I can’t directly download my bought ebooks and use them with any reading app.
I also backed-up all my ebooks to cloud storage for safe keeping, so being able to do that is also a requirement.
I am open to suggestions. I read mostly just fiction; fantasy, scifi, paranormal, LitRPG, Romance, etc.
I’m also considering buying the Boox Palma as my newest physical ereader in years, and I use Moon+ Reader Pro as my main reading app on it.
Quick note: I also use Libby from time to time (yay libraries) but it doesn’t always have what I’m looking for or it’s like a month long wait-time for the more popular, well known books. Plus I like owning my ebooks.
Check out libro.fm. For audiobooks at least, you can download the raw files and use them as you please. I’d expect the same for ebooks
Thank you!
Ebooks.com sells books without drm for publishers that don’t require it! I read a lot of sci-fi and Tor doesn’t publish with drm so I always buy their books there. I think Kobo is owned by Walmart so I try to stick to ebooks.com whenever I can.
Walmart partnered with Kobo for something in their stores, but Kobo is a Canadian company.
Oh good to know, thanks!
Ty ty!
This is really amazing. I have been looking for something like this for some time. Not super hard, but I am not buying an ebook with drm. I am surprised how many books on on there.
It is really great! Also just to be clear some books do come with drm, but it’s explicitly listed for every book. But you can also use a no drm filter in the search to see all the ones without it. A great way to find publishers to support!
I love my Kobo ereader and have been using their store for years. It’s totally a viable alternative. I also use Overdrive so I can borrow and read library ebooks on my ereader as well. I can also read things (even the borrowed books) through any browser or the Kobo app if I want.
I’m not sure about crackability of Kobo’s books but I’d imagine it’s much easier than Amazon. As you already discovered, Amazon updated their encryption recently so any new books can’t be cracked.
I’ll def add Kobo as a top contender then. Do I have to use their app on my phone? If so, I don’t mind using Calibre to solve that issue.
Does Kobo do DRM too or can you get epubs?
Books from Kobo’s store are epubs with DRM. You can crack the DRM with Calibre if you wish. I never do as I just read them on my Kobo ereader.
That’s really good to know, ty ty!
Kobo books are pretty trivial to crack. There’s a calibre plugin for it.
Overdrive is also pretty straightforward, but it doesn’t feel right borrowing ebooks from your library to rip the drm off of them.
If you’re up for reading some classics, check out Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/
Standard Ebooks offers somewhat nicer formatted versions of some of the Project Gutenberg books: https://standardebooks.org
This is fantastic! Thank you for sharing!
Of course! I love Project Gutenberg.
There’s a new fork of DeDRM tools that should be able crack the new Amazon DRM. noDRM’s fork probably will be updated some time later to include the patches from the other fork.
Tried that one a few days ago; no go.
Kobo store is probably the best competitor.
Yea been looking through it and I’m impressed with the selection.
Humble Bundle sells limited-time bundles of DRM-free ebooks and comics pretty cheaply: https://www.humblebundle.com/books
Aw sick, didn’t realize they did book bundles too, ty!
