It looks like Amazon are going to prevent Kindle users from downloading purchased books to transfer over USB.
I assume this is to stop people stripping the DRM from the files.
So now I'm looking at Kobo and trying to work out if their price-matching or VIP scheme is worth it.
(No need to reply to me saying how evil Amazon are, thanks.)
Kobo will price match Amazon - refunding the difference + 10% of the competitor's price.
I found a Kobo book which was £4.99. Kindle was £4.31.
So that would get me a credit of £1.11. Nice!
Or, I can join the Kobo VIP scheme for £6/year. That comes with reward points and price discount.
The VIP discount for that book takes it to £4.31. Same as Amazon.
So, I *think* I'm better off getting the £1.11 discount (effective price £3.88).
Anyone else done the maths on this?
Fair play, a few hours after I submitted the price match, Kobo credited my account.
Looks like I'm switching my book buying!
To summarise:
Kobo will undercut Amazon Kindle pricing by 10%.
You can download regular ePubs from them; you don't need to use a Kobo device or app.
DRM is trivial to strip.
Calibre will convert to any other format if you want to read on a Kindle, Palm Pilot, or whatever.
There is a loyalty point / discount scheme. But I'm not entirely sure it is worth it.
So here's my next project.
Take my Amazon book wishlist - https://amzn.to/2SryYWf
Convert it to a Kobo wishlist (automatically, if possible).
Once per day, compare the prices of the Kobo items to the Kindle items.
Kobo's wishlist doesn't have an API, but exposes the ISBN in the book's individual page.
I *think* Amazon UK's API has a search by ISBN function which will show price.
I should be able to see if the Kindle price is cheaper and, thus, get a credit for the difference.
You can back up all your Kindle books using this script - https://federatedfandom.net/@villainousfriend/114009999021828439
A lot easier than manually downloading them all.
After that, install the Calibre eBook Manager https://calibre-ebook.com/
Install the noDRM plugin for Calibre https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools
Give the plugin your Kindle's serial number.
Import your Kindle books into Calibre.
Done.
You now have a DRM-free copy of all your purchased eBooks.
You can copy them to your eReader, convert to ePub, save on a backup disk, etc.
@Edent Thanks for this. I discovered the [BulkKindleUSBDownloader](https://github.com/bellisk/BulkKindleUSBDownloader) script only works if you have a physical Kindle device associated with your account (which I don't have). However, [a comment](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43071284) on Hacker News referenced a (Kindle_download_helper)[https://github.com/yihong0618/Kindle_download_helper] which has a no_kindle.py script which worked for me. Hope this helps someone else.
