fanfic_ebooks | Questions on d/l'ing and storing fic w/Calibre

Questions on d/l'ing and storing fic w/Calibre

Hi folks!

I'm trying to decide how to organize some of the fic I save from the web. Primarily I use a combination of Calibre w/the fanfic downloader plugin and the Firefox extension Grab My Book these days to save fic. However, I've got a big backlog of stories that I've saved from sites over the past several years, some of which is no longer available online.

So, do you combine all parts of a story into one big file and then import it into Calibre? Do you prefer stories by one author to be collected into one e-book or each story stored seperately? And what about several stories that are part of the same universe of a particular author, would you combine those or just assign them as part of a series?

Mostly, I've been combining several stories into one big collection, but have been re-thinking that approach this past week, and thought I'd get input from the group before I go trying to make any significant changes. For instance, I saved

chilly_flame's Small Favors universe (Devil Wears Prada featuring the Miranda/Andy 'ship) in one e-book, while other stories she's written are in additional e-books. If it makes a difference, I primarily read these either with Calibre or on my Nook Color.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts and advice you care to share. And thanks for the contributors to this group. I've picked up a couple of good ideas from reading older posts.

Cheers!
--sgr

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I always save parts of a series (or stories all set within the same verse) as one book, either by saving them all in the same document and then converting to mobi or saving each part as an epub and combining them in Calibre with the plug-in.

Thanks for your reply! I've been doing that as well for some stories but not others.

My apologies to everyone that it's taken me so long to get back and view everyone's input. The past two days have been incredibly bothersome.

The EpubMerge plugin (by the same guy who did the FFDL plugin!) is your friend in this case. You can get the best of both worlds by downloading/importing the stories to Calibre, then using EpubMerge to collect them into an epub that contains all the stories. That way, you still have the single stories around, but you can also have a separate epub to click to if you just want to do a complete read-through without having to navigate the library after every story. Plus, EpubMerge is so easy to use that you can do a little experimenting to see what grouping methods work best for you. For me, I like merging a series into an epub, but I'm pretty sure that a "universe" epub (multiple merged series and/or one-offs all merged into one giant collector's-edition-box-set-style epub) would get too large too quickly to be useful.

For me, I like merging a series into an epub, but I'm pretty sure that a "universe" epub (multiple merged series and/or one-offs all merged into one giant collector's-edition-box-set-style epub) would get too large too quickly to be useful.

Not necessarily. I have one universe file on my Kindle that runs over 1000 pages and it's perfectly manageable. I'm sure there's a tipping point, though, when the file would be so big that it's not easily loaded / navigable.

Thanks for pointing out the benefits of EpubMerge! Not sure if I'd installed that plugin, but whether I have or haven't, I'll certainly be checking it out now.

I definitely like the idea that you can have the flexibility of putting all of Missy Good's Dar & Kerry or X&G stories in one big book, but also having them as separate books. There's certainly something that appeals in the idea of the giant collector's edition, but I think it is something I'd do selectively. In editing, I've certainly found that if the book is too long, GrabMyBook starts to choke. However, when it comes to reading, I've got books that are 1000+ pages and the reader apps don't seem to bog down too noticeably.

I'm partial to saving each story in a series as separate books, then merely sorting them into a folder for ease of keeping them together. I've also been rethinking this logic if only because authors over on Archive of Our Own post a jillion of parts to a fic but I'm lazy and I sometimes authors post out of order or update a fic that's part 2 in a series of 3, and it's just so complicated.

For all stories from a particular author, I end up sorting into couplings or fandoms instead, just because I like everything fandom organized instead of author organized.

I've also been rethinking this logic if only because authors over on Archive of Our Own post a jillion of parts to a fic

Yep, to be honest I'm not sure how to save chapters into one complete file, so I do the same of d/l each individual chapter from Archive Of Our Own and uploading it to a folder in my kindle. It does get to be a pain though when some stories have like 20 individual chapters, so I should probably stop being lazy and figure out how to make a complete book with the fanfic I read :P

I highly recommend the combination of Calibre w/ the fanfiction downloader plugin for handling the multiple chapter stories, although I know AO3 has a download to epub or mobi function as well.

Single stories with multiple chapters at AO3 download as one file, but I agree that out-of-order parts in a series can be problematic (Story 2 is a WiP while the one-shot future sequel is done). I've had to take apart a few universes because of that, but then I just convert it out of mobi format into its separate parts, insert the new addition, then put it together again for conversion.

EpubMerge on Calibre will now let you create an anthology for these situations. I just tried it on AO3 and it was perfect. I just pasted the series page link and it did the rest!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You're right about how sometimes a series can have one part (story) unfinished and the author has already posted completed stories further along in the series. It is complicated.

I also like the idea of having things grouped by pairings or fandoms, which it sounds like can be managed by the Epubmerge plugin. There're times where I want to just read one fandom, and others where I want to read a particular author. It's all about having some flexibility, I think.

I download everything into Calibre with Fanfiction Downloader and use epubmerge to merge any stories that are part of a series. Or if I want to make an author collection. It's quick and easy. I also use search in Calibre with custom columns to find what I'm looking for as well.

Yup, I definitely use the Calibre search and custom columns. I'm also pretty strict about updating the "series" column when the ffdl plugin doesn't do it for me.

Thanks!

From the replies it sounds like I am an old fashioned girl, I save all the parts of a story (unless I get it in stages, like time stamps etc) in a word doc, convert that to RTF then load the RTF into Calibre,from that I create a mobi or ePub as required. This way i have the story on my PC in word as well as the ebook, it gives me the greatest control.

If I have a load of small stories by one author then I might save the as one document, but generally its one story one word doc. I then use the cover generate plugin in to create ebook covers

Edited 2013-01-28 06:41 (UTC)

I go the doc - html - epub/mobi route too. I'm particular about how my ebooks should look like and this way I have most control over it (especially blank lines and white space; and I always add my own notes to the header). It takes longer but I'm not reading that fast anyway.

What you said :-)

I'm sure there are ways I could do it that would be quicker, but I like to be able to adjust the text's readability. Especially if I'm copying fics from Livejournal... some of my favourite authors only post here, and they often struggle with hinky formatting.

Squee!Book (http://www.squeebook.net/)should take care of some of the formatting issues for you. I often use it to collect multiple part LJ fic, copy to a word document to make more formatting changes, then paste it back into the text box to create an ebook file.

Thanks for pointing out Squee!Book. I'll have to take a look at that.

Thanks! And yes, when I first joined LJ (and before I got the Nook) and started reading fic posted here I did something similar--copy/pasting into rtf and then converting to html after tweaking the formatting a bit. Never wanted to read the editable file since I might inadvertently wipe something out or make changes. Finding Calibre was wonderful for that since I no longer had to keep a 4th browser installed just for reading. (Yeah, that's a whole other story. lol)

Eventually, I'll go back and import those saved doc, rtf and htm pages into Calibre. (Rediscovering old favorites along the way, I'm sure.)

I do that too sometimes especially if it is an lj-only woo or when I find so many misspellings or such that I have to make minor edits in order to enjoy the reread... anyway not the point!

the point is that there's a plugin that lets calibre convert docx files so you can skip the rtf step completely. I recommend it highly!

as for the collections vs individual ebooks debate, I have found that having fewer overall files makes my Sony T1 run that smidgen faster since it doesn't have to index 10000 books. And having a book with 1000 pages is not appreciably slower on page turns than one with only a hundred. I have series collections, author collections, theme collections... the day I discovered epubmerge was a happy one indeed.

Thanks so much for the mention of the docx plug in, that's awesome. I downloaded it and used it tonight, fabulous, thank you

I use Instapaper to grab the stories and bundle them together. It downloads through calibre's "Fetch News" button. The only bummer about Instapaper is that it's not very flexible when it comes to managing links: you have to put your stories into each folder last part first, so it's pretty bad when it comes to WIPs.

Thanks for pointing out instapaper, I'll take a look at that too.

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