I would like to start managing ebooks and manga properly. I don’t have many, but I plan on increasing my collection. My requirements are not so strict, I don’t mind getting the books/manga myself, but I am also curious about setting up LazyLibrarian at one point, is it worth it? (I already have other *arrs installed on my server). I had similar thoughts about Suwayomi.
My confusion starts from the accessories around all this: Calibre, CalibreWeb/Automated, Komga, Kavita, Audiobookshelf, etc. Does having a Kindle as reading device limits my possibilities to use any of these? Is setting up e.g. both CalibreWeb and Kavita redundant?
I guess my question is how is everyone using these services for their own library :)
Thanks! Never heard of both, but I will definitely check them out :)
Mihon is the successor to takiyomi. It’s a manga website scrapper. But it also supports some self hosted solutions for reading across devices.
Make sure to add this special repo: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/keiyoushi/extensions/repo/index.min.json
Mihon guide here: https://everythingmoe.com/post/mihonguide.html
It really sounds like you’re trying to setup a centralized solution for media consumption and I might be confusing you with my recommendations.
I read on only one device so this works for me. Mihon supports self hosted solutions. ReadEra is just a nice reading client. I manage it with a file explorer and netshare (Solid explorer)
No worries! I was pretty much confused myself from the beginning, so I am definitely open to any workflow :) And I do plan to read on one device only as well. My centralized approach was mostly about saving space on the tablet/reader and a possibly easier management and freedom to move to something else in the future, rather than a strict requirement.
I used to have tachyomi on my eink tablet, so this definitely rings a bell, but I thought the only working solution was Suwayomi.
I will look into Mihon and its support of selfhosted solutions then, seems like a nice combination :)
If you want simplicity I recommend skipping all self hosted solutions. You can set mihon to download X chapters ahead for offline reading and delete chapters as you read. On a kindle I’d recommend save as archive and/or cut tall images (webtoons).
Ebooks take no space.
Stick to calibre on your computer and transfer via netshare using a file browser (android: solid explorer) to copy stuff over. That’s what I do.Thanks! I am open to try both selfhosted and local solutions, let’s see how they work out :) Definitely going to check mihon which was recommended by someone else too, seems like a pretty easy solution (and thanks for the tips about the kindle).
I’ve tried komga and kavita both, but didn’t find them very useful. Nowadays i just copy the files downloaded from nyaa to my kobo, where i read them with koreader. Its possible to sideload it on kindles, but its tricky. Koreader even has OPSD support, in case you want to use kavita/komga. But for most random/weekly reading I use Kotatsu on my tablet/phone, as it has a sync feature (you can even selfhost your own sync server!). For ebooks I also just use my ereader. I have no need for a bulky management system. I hope this helped you somehow. Good luck!
Thanks! Definitely helps and I am happy to see how people are approaching the problem. It seems indeed an automated/selfhosted solution is not always the best in this case. I will also check out Kotatsu, didn’t know about that :)
Theres also a cli tool called kotatsu-dl that lets you download from all the websites the app can scrape, in case you want to read on your kindle but there arent any torrents.
Ebooks: I use Calibre locally and Calibre-web on the server (read-only metadata db, I overwrite with the Calibre version as tagging, etc is far easier on desktop).
You can connect Koreader to Calibre-web and until maybe a fortnight ago you could jailbreak a Kindle and use Koreader instead of the default software. Now you’ll need to manually move files over, or use the email-to-Kindle option (probably a bad idea, but I expect Amazon can tell if you’ve side loaded pirated content anyway). Nowadays I buy from not-Amazon sources, strip any DRM and send it over.
Manga/comics/graphic novels: I use Kavita on the server and I use comictagger on desktop to fix the metadata.
I’m happy to use different set ups for the different types as they’re quite different experiences and specialist tools work better.
Where do you get DRM free ebooks for sale?
If you are in germany, thalia lists whether a book has DRM
None of the books I’ve bought from kobo.com have DRM.
Interesting, thanks! I agree with you about using specific tools for different purposes. Tbf my kindle is a 2018 model put on airplane mode since 2021, maybe I can do something about Koreader.
About comics/manga, didn’t know about comictagger, it seems very good. So your process here is get comics -> comictagger -> upload to server and kavita, correct?
The latest Kindle update broke the jailbreak even if it was installed, so you’ll need to stop updates. You could just leave it in airplane mode, but not being able to use the internet to pull down books from your Calibre-web server means you may as well just send books via Calibre.
I’m planning on getting a Kobo Clara BW when my Kindle dies (it’s currently got holes at the corners and a few dodgy-sounding rattles so soon™). Then I can use Koreader+Calibre-web to download books and sync read state like you can do with Amazon.
So your process here is get comics -> comictagger -> upload to server and kavita, correct?
Pretty much, apart from that I often add them and only fix if necessary, e.g. they’re not going into series properly.
You could just leave it in airplane mode, but not being able to use the internet to pull down books from your Calibre-web server means you may as well just send books via Calibre.
That’s sadly true. I am thinking of waiting for the kindle to die too, but I was looking more at the onyx boox go 6, since I already know I can run whatever I want on there.
Pretty much, apart from that I often add them and only fix if necessary, e.g. they’re not going into series properly.
I see, thanks! Do you mind if I ask you where you can find them with some good metadata? My attempts have been not so good until now…
Most of the manga I have is amateur translated stuff, so the metadata quality varies with release groups.
The graphic novels are generally retail releases, but sometimes I still want to edit to get rid of marketing words (e.g. the title might mention how it’s now a Netflix series or something).
