In reply to a post by billford:

I've never used that option, don't Amazon make a charge for using that address? (Me skinflint )

Not if you use your @Free.Kindle.com addy. Docs sent to that addy are only sent over Wi-fi. It's the other @Kindle.com addy that is charged if the docs are sent over 3G (but you can still make it happen to be sent over Wi-Fi for free).

I didn't know about that, thanks.

The .mobi is a general format, whereas the amazon kindle books come as .azw which, AFICT is peculiar to amazon/kindle and has DRM associated with it.

I use, as sources for my reading,amazon, gutenberg,baen and a few others - nobody but amazon supply in azw

Azw isn't really a format, it's more like a container and doesn't necessarily imply DRM:

In reference to wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/AZW:

It is basically the MOBI format using the high compression option. The AZW extension is used on both eBook files that are protected with DRM and files that are not protected.

My bold.

Afaik the DRM-free files from Amazon are also .azw, but I've never looked so could be wrong.


edit- a parallel could probably be drawn with the .m4v and m4a files used by Apple for iTunes- they're just containers for other formats and data which may or may not include DRM.

Edited by billford (Wed 05-Dec-12 08:48:07)

I use Caliber for organising my e-books - it is great and allows conversion of formats, inserting keywords, front pages etc.

The comment about "owning" e-books was about the Amazon fiasco over deleting books that had been purchased when Amazon didn't have the rights to sell them. I believe they have promised not to do it again!

In reply to a post by billford:

.. don't Amazon make a charge for using that address?

No, I bought the Kindle from a high street outlet although I did have an Amazon account already. As part of the set-up process it just gave me an email address. Up to now I've sent pdf and doc files. Once converted to ebook, the functionality of ebook format is available e.g. text to speech (with the Kindle Touch). There hasn't been any additional charge.

p.s. bit late with this reply - didn't read Page2 of replies where it all seems to have been said - sorry.

Edited by longedge (Wed 05-Dec-12 09:26:49)

Got the replacement today and pleased to say this issue does not exist at all on the replacement. I know you can email pdf files to your kindle email addy and get these converted to Amazon format automatically, but someone recommended using pdftoepub software (currently free) which does a better job.

In reply to a post by greenglide:

I use Caliber for organising my e-books - it is great and allows conversion of formats, inserting keywords, front pages etc.

The comment about "owning" e-books was about the Amazon fiasco over deleting books that had been purchased when Amazon didn't have the rights to sell them. I believe they have promised not to do it again!

Indeed - and they've restored said account and purchases. Do you believe they'll never do it again? My purchased books from Amazon are 'backed up' as ePub format.

In reply to a post by dandnsmith:

nobody but amazon supply in azw

http://Manybooks.net/ does! E.g. just d/loaded this: The_Adventures_of_Sherlock_H.azw for free and it has no DRM

A nice bit with Gutenberg (and others) is the RSS feed of new titles, saves a lot of searching.

I wish Amazon would do the same

Edited by billford (Thu 06-Dec-12 08:18:49)