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

[shesgottaread.livejournal.com]

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

Comments

[ultra-maniac.livejournal.com]

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.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

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

[shesgottaread.livejournal.com]

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.

[kimberlyfdr.livejournal.com]

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.

[lazorsaurus.livejournal.com]

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!

[shesgottaread.livejournal.com]

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.