Barnes & Noble Nook discussion

I agree with the original poster as I use both.

Skinker wrote: "If you don't have Calibre already installed I highly recommend it http://calibre-ebook.com/

It makes a great eBook management program for your Nook. Also you can set it up to generate ePub file..."

I love this forum - thanks for the great info - now on to playing with the calibre!

Thank you! I've been reading about calibre, and you just inspired me to give it a try. Just downloaded it onto my computer. . . . and it's beautiful! I'll integrate it with my nook later.

Angela2932 wrote: "Thank you! I've been reading about calibre, and you just inspired me to give it a try. Just downloaded it onto my computer. . . . and it's beautiful! I'll integrate it with my nook later."

I did play with it for a while and downloaded everything from USA Today to Dilbert comics. Totally cool :)

LOVE LOVE LOVE Calibre!!

Calibre is the best! I use it to change the tags on all of my ebooks so they are sorted by series name and number instead of title. I also convert any ebook to epub that needs it.

Carrie (Care) wrote: "Calibre is the best! I use it to change the tags on all of my ebooks so they are sorted by series name and number instead of title. I also convert any ebook to epub that needs it."

I found that the Nook likes ePub better than PDFs. At least mine does. LOL I tired to sideload a lot of PDFs to my Nook once and they all wouldn't show up or only parts of the books would show up but once I converted them to ePub I had no problem.

I just got Calibre set up and it seems really awesome.

A question - once Calibre has imported your ebooks, and copied them into a file, do you think it's necessary to keep the original files on your computer? Or is that just redundant?

You don't need the original files.

willaful wrote: "I just got Calibre set up and it seems really awesome.

A question - once Calibre has imported your ebooks, and copied them into a file, do you think it's necessary to keep the original files on yo..."


I keep them just in case my Nook breaks or *gasps* gets stolen.

I keep mine too. The files are so tiny, even with 1,000's it hardly takes up any room on my hard drive. Oh, I keep them all on a backup drive too, just in case.

Ok I feel silly asking this but-I have Calibre installed already and my question is.....

where are you getting your books to be converted by calibre to put on your nook?

Does this make any sense? I've only gotten books from B&N and wondered if there was a better place ya'll are getting books.

There are some authors that give out free books here on GR and most are in pdf format. There are also a lot of free books all over the internet, like google books and some smashwords books are free... Also, I swap books with my friends sometimes.

But mostly I use Calibre to change my tags so I can organize my books better.

I still haven't downloaded Calibre on my laptop. I was wondering is it still okay working with a MAC. I keep thinking I have so many books already on the nook do I really need another way to get books.

It's not really another way to get books, it is a way to keep your books organized or to convert a file if you need to.
There is a calibre download for Mac too.

I just got Calibre and I'm still working on figuing out how to use it. It doesn't help my lil 1 yr old likes to push my keyboard buttons. LOL

Question about Calibre and tags:

We all have our books in Goodreads all tagged up into shelves. Do you duplicate that shelf/tag structure in Calibre?

And I guess why would I want to do that? Those Calibre tags don't transfer over to my Nook - I don't think. If the Calibre tags transferred over my Nook I could see the benefit but otherwise it seems like I'm duplicating my Goodreads work.

Glenn, the title and series tags carry over. The way B&Ns books are now, when I buy a book that is in a series it doesn't have the series name or number first. They show uo all over the place. If you sort your book by author it is a bit better, but books in a series are still out of order and that drives me nuts. Calibre allows you to enter the name of the series and the number the book is in the series.

I mentioned having tags for genre because my Nook is rooted and it allows the tags to show up. It is similar to the shelves though, so it's not really necessary anymore for organization. The reason I keep it rooted though is because I can have all of my documents and my B&N books in one place.

I suppose there is no way to transfer Kindle books to Nook using Calibre right? My Kindle broke, so I bought a Nook... and now I have no way to access them on my Nook and I hate reading them on my computer or phone :(

Nope. Unless you strip the DRM or have a Nook Color and root it. There is a chance some of your books do not have DRM, some of them aren't but they are few and far between.

I have no idea what the heck a DRM is... or how to strip it??

Sorry, it is Digital Rights Media and what Amazon (among others) encrypts their ebooks with so they are only readable on their devices. To strip the DRM in the US is illegal, but there is a lot of controversy over it. Because a lot of people believe the ebook should be theirs to read how they want they have come up with many ways to remove the DRM. If you live outside the US it may not be illegal as of yet, I don't know.

If you google strip tzw drm you will find a lot more info on it.

I bought a book on Amazon a while ago, thinking that I could just put it on my nook since the B&N website didn't have it. So, you can imagine my irritation and disappointment when I realized that the book was utterly useless unless I ripped the DRM off.. So, that's what I did. Oh, and since I was hearing that you can only download books five times (I'm not sure exactly how many, but I do know that you can only download the book a certain number of times for some weird reason), I started stripping the DRM from my nook books as well. That way, I have a backup copy.

You can only download Nook books a certain amount of times? OMG, I better go back up the rest of mine. I do have a B&N folder on my computer, but I have only put in a few so far.

Hmmmm, I have stripped the drm off azw ebooks (I can't figure out how to do topaz files yet) so I could read them on my Nook, but I never thought of doing it to my Nook ebooks.

Carrie (Care) wrote: "You can only download Nook books a certain amount of times? OMG, I better go back up the rest of mine. I do have a B&N folder on my computer, but I have only put in a few so far.

Hmmmm, I have str..."

Yea, I was reading whisperings of that right after I got my nook. I'm not sure if it's true, but I have a loooooot of ebooks that I don't want to lose, so I figured better safe than sorry.

I've downloaded copies of my books more than five times and I've never had anyone at bn tell me that. I was having problems with my library loading when the nook first came out b/c I bought a massive number of titles right off the bat, so I've had to sideload the titles mulitiple times and I've never had any type of restriction so far. Next time I speak to the tech person assisgned to me, I'll definately ask.

Just curious, why is it necessary to strip the DRM to have a backup copy? Is just backing it up on your computer not sufficient?

Not if you can only download it a certain number of times. I'm not sure if this is true, I just wanted to take extra precautions. And no, it isn't. Because I don't have my very own computer. I'm still in high school, living with my parents, and I have restrictions on what I can/can't put on our computer since my mom uses it for work. If I strip the DRM, I can keep a backup on a thumbdrive.

do you have to load your books into calibre every time you download updates? I just did an update but my books aren't there...but I haven't restarted my puter yet either.

I'm sort of freaking out because I track my ebooks on here and on nook for pc but my nook for pc wont open anymore, and I've uninstalled and installed it. I freak because i have soo many e books, but since they aren't 'sitting around' I worry I'll 'lose' them by forgetting i have them. I've managed to download all of them on a backup external drive though...it just sucks...about nook for pc cause i like to read my books on my computer every once in awhile..

I downloaded the most recent calibre update and it seemed seamless to me -- everything sill seems to be there. I didn't have to restart my computer.

well, everything is gone in mine..I restarted and everything. I don't know...

really frustrated right now.

Copy and paste them from your nook library into your documents and then transfer them to your Calibre library, maybe? I mean, it's a temporary fix, but better than nothing. =[

Oh that sucks. I would email the creator or go here: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/foru...

There is tons of info there and if you do a search maybe somebody has had the same problem. Or join and start a thread, the creator of Calibre helps people out there regularly.

The fact that you're having problems with both calibre and nook for pc makes me think something else might be going on with your computer. Hope it's not a virus. :-(

thanks for the suggestions...will work on it!

Carrie (Care) wrote: "Glenn, the title and series tags carry over. The way B&Ns books are now, when I buy a book that is in a series it doesn't have the series name or number first. They show uo all over the place. If y..."

Carrie what do u mean by rooted?

^^ Rooting is done when you want to get root access to your Androids OS. Because the Nook is android, it can be rooted to install new software and apps. When you root a Nook you can get all kinds of cool features.

I'm trying to download my books from B&N and Kobo, so that I can import them into Calibre and also back them up on my computer. But when I hit the "download" button and save the file, I don't actually get the book. I can only seem to access the book through Adobe Editions. Can someone explain what I'm doing wrong?

Never mind, I just figured out that I need to import them from my Nook library!

Bekah wrote: "well, everything is gone in mine..I restarted and everything. I don't know...

really frustrated right now."

when you convert books in Calibre it makes a folder on your PC and stores them in there. So you have a backup already. I'm not on my home PC to look but I think the folder is created on your C drive. But it's named Calibre or Calibre Library. Something like that.

willaful wrote: A question - once Calibre has imported your ebooks, and copied them into a file, do you think it's necessary to keep the original files on yo..."
I wondered that too! It seems redundant. I went ahead and deleted the original and kept the copy in the Calibre library.

Haven't been able to get Calibre to work yet. I have an Apple so it's taking me a minute.

Hi everyone, I've been considering using Calibre to put my existing library from my computer to my Nook (I used to have a Sony e-reader) and noticed a few comments/ questions regarding downloading books a number of times. You can download from your NOOK library as many times as you want. It's the number of devices you can download to that is limited, the magic number being 6.
B&N has a wonderful online community that clarifies and answers pretty much any question. I love it.

I found this thread very helpful in clarifying just this issue, there are others that explain sharing with family/ friends, which I found very useful.

Happy Reading =)

Calibre lives on your computer. You can use it to send books to your Nook, but it doesn't go there itself. Basically it stores and organizes the ebooks on your computer. It's useful for correcting information and for adding tags that you can use to organize your ebooks.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with Instapaper.

Booklover wrote: "So. How do I use it to send books to my Nook?"

First you need to import the books into Calibre. (They must be downloaded on your computer.) You use the "Add Books" button (first at the top.) You can then use the "Edit Metadata" (second button) to correct any errors, add your own tags, download a cover, etc.

When you plug your nook into your laptop, Calibre will show you what books you have on it. And I think a "send to device" button appears -- my Nook isn't plugged in and the button isn't currently there. So you just select whatever you want and click "send to device."

I haven't used the news function, but the "fetch news" button is also at the top -- play around a bit and see how it works.

You're welcome. I felt very lost at first too.

Does anyone know how to export a list of your Calibre library into excel? I think I did it before, but can't remember how to do it.
Thanks.

I have to say... once I figured out Calibre (by watching internet videos) it is the best program EVER!!!

Keep seeing others mention this Calibre program, so I'm going to give it a try and see what all the hype's about. Thanks for this post and the link!

Yeah, I recently started using Calibre myself, and it's made everything SO much better. A bit of learning required, but it really enhanced my Nook enjoyment :).