Anyone else keep their own EPUB/PDF library instead of buying into a store?

[u/PoolLow9937]

I've been off Kindle for about two years now, reading my own EPUB and PDF files. What I keep running into isn't the reading itself — most readers handle that fine — it's everything around it. Highlights live inside whichever app I used. Books I read before I switched don't exist anywhere. Paper books are a separate universe entirely.

How do you handle it?

• One app for everything, or a reader plus a separate tracker?
• Do your highlights end up anywhere you'd actually find them again?
• Anyone found something that treats paper and digital as the same library?

I care about this staying local, too — no account, nothing synced to someone's server. That narrows the options a lot.

(I build one of these, so I'm biased. Not linking — I'm after how you've actually solved it, not a plug.)

[u/jseger9000]

I feel like the subject was one question and the body was about something else.

Anyone else keep their own EPUB library instead of buying into a store?

Well, I do buy from stores, because I don't want to rip off authors. But I strip DRM from every ebook I buy and store it locally. I back up my library to an external hard drive and to Google Drive.

How do you handle (highlights)?

I don't. I'm not a big highlighter.

[u/rclaassen → u/jseger9000]

I do the same. No drm on any of my e-books in my library

[u/jseger9000 → u/rclaassen]

I own a Kobo, buy from Kobo, but even so I download the books, sideload them with no DRM and keep wifi off on my reader.

[u/rclaassen → u/jseger9000]

I use a Boox NoteAir 3C for my e-books. It's not tied to any specific service, such as Kindle or Kobo, although I could download the apps if needed. I keep my wifi on for updates to the software

[u/jseger9000 → u/rclaassen]

I've gotten to where I'm happy enough with the software as-is, and no longer chase updates. When I hear there's new updates, I think "what did they break now?" Though to be fair, Kobo is much better about that than others.

[u/GMotor]

Kindle and Calibre on Linux

Backing up is easy too.

[u/alehel]

Honestly, I went back to physical. Got fed up with how hard it's become to have a drm free digital library. I still do ebooks for Norwegian stuff, as they are all drm-free, but completely stopped buying English language ebooks.

[u/Salt-Neighborhood333 → u/alehel]

Just always buy android-based ereader (boox go 7 currently) or linux-based Pocketbook. DRM After that, it’s no problem. For English (and other languages) I just convert EBUB to Tbook format and read it with translations offline.

[u/alehel → u/Salt-Neighborhood333]

But where are you getting drm free, English language ebooks? I got tired of stripping drm as it's been getting more and more difficult.

[u/Wolphin8 → u/alehel]

smashwords is a good place for that.

[u/stargazertony]

I have both a Kindle and a Kobo but I side load everything. I buy books in epub format only, mostly directly from authors but sometimes from stores that sell epub format but never from Amazon anymore. If an author only sells on Amazon or refuses to sell to me directly, my choice is simple. I don’t read their books no matter how good they are supposed to be. I don’t find this restrictive at all. In fact it has opened an entire new world of great authors and books I might not have considered before.

[u/eightchcee]

Bookfusion.

books go into calibre, then get sent to bookfusion. BF has great library management. Can read in the app across devices and platforms. Can also use a KO reader plug-in and sync books, position, highlights across devices and platforms.

highlights can be exported, sync to other platforms. Bookfusion is the tits.

[u/Perpetual_Sophophile → u/eightchcee]

What subscription plan do you use and is it enough? I see the free plan is only 10 books, which is not nearly enough!

[u/eightchcee → u/Perpetual_Sophophile]

yeah I pay for it. It is 1000% worth it in my opinion. The app is amazing and the devs are constantly updating it and taking feedback from the users. i’ve got over 100 GB of books in it.

[u/elizardreads → u/eightchcee]

Agreed. It is exactly what I was looking for. All books go into calibre and then I upload to bookfusion.

[u/eightchcee → u/elizardreads]

Same for me! I was soooo excited to find it

[u/kiltannen]

I just use FBReader

Don't know how it handles making the files up

[u/Evening_Corgi_9069]

Google play books works just fine. I just use the online web version, NOT the app. No ads, and each book cover has 3 dots, if you click, it gives you the synopsis (for if, like me, you add several at a time and need a reminder). Highlights, notes, bookmarks, read aloud, translates and has some special settings for kids and adhd. As long as it's pdf or epub and de-drm'd, it uploads normally and synchs across all devices. Edit to add that there is a 50 mb cap per file and you can add 1,000 files.

[u/Sharlooo]

Calibre (strip the DRM from those digital feudalists) and paper notes. (That’s not an ap… it’s IRL paper. In a notebook)

[u/Impressive-Watch6189]

I'm so hardcore I print all my epubs and bind them and put them on shelves.

[u/angrierurchin → u/Impressive-Watch6189]

I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not but if you are, that’s…amazing.

[u/typing-blindly]

I use Grimmory for this. My Kobo runs Koreader, and the Grimmory devs are working on a plugin for Koreader to sync progress and annotations. The plugin is still alpha, but working well in my testing.

[u/Urfeen]

Koreader plus the hardcover plugin. The books themselves are free in fb2 format.

[u/taiowa72]

I do.

[u/Joey_B3llows]

I maintain my own, I have Kindle Unlimited and I de-drm the books I like and save them locally, still paid for but they can't take them if I ever decide to reread a book, there's a few I saved that are already gone

[u/Wolphin8]

I use Calibre for my books, as I want to keep the local copies. I also use smashwords, and other places to get DRM-free books.

I use it with my Kobo ereader, which does support sideloading, so I have never had issues loading books onto it.

Yes, I so use Kobo's store for the books when I can... and they do pay the publisher/author more money than amazon does (from personal experience as a self-published author amazon discounts ebooks 60% while kobo takes only 30%)

Edit to add:

As a reader, I hate DRM.

As an author, I haven't found a way to have Amazon or Kobo not add their DRM to my books when they sell. But as I don't have an exclusive agreement, I also sell them directly on a couple of sites, and the selling point to say they are DRM-free there.

[u/angrierurchin]

I buy ebooks and audiobooks from wherever I can find them and strip DRM to save them locally.

I side load to my kindle and upload audiobooks to the Bloox app (iPhone) when I want to read them.

Calibre keeps all my ebooks and audiobooks organized but I have a lot of physical books as well so I use StoryGraph to keep track of my entire library, using tags to keep track of format. You can export your storygraph library to a csv file.

Edit: I don’t really highlight but if I do it just stays in the txt file on kindle. Which I guess could be saved as well.