# Organizing a large numbers of books



## mpeg2 (Jul 30, 2010)

I'm new to the Kindle (just ordered a K3) - but this will be my 3rd ebook reader. I have a large number of books which I'll convert & place on the Kindle. Apparently there's something called categories (which I figure is similar to folders). Is it possible to have 2 levels of categories?

What I'd ultimately like to do is to have one level for type of book (mystery, scifi, classic...) and within each another level for author. Is this possible?

If not, how do folks deal with organizing 1000+ books?

  Thanks,
    Rich


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Categories is actually more like tags in that you can have one book in any of several categories.  But there's only one level.  So you can have Mystery, Sci-Fi, Classic, etc.  But you can't have sub categories in Mystery for, say, Cozy, Hard Boiled, etc. . . .

If your books have DRM, you may not be able to legally convert them to work on a Kindle.  Of course there are, literally, a million public domain books out there that are free and will probably convert just fine.  And my independent authors don't put DRM on their work if they don't have to. . . . .

I have acquired most of my books from Amazon and they keep back up copies there. . . .when I sort them into collections on my new Kindle, Amazon will keep track of that as well.  Beyond that, my only organization (over 650 books) is "If it's on my Kindle I haven't read it, if it's not, I have."  And when I have read it and delete it I go to my collection page at Amazon and note when I finished it and a little bit of what I did or didn't like about it just to remind myself next year when I can't remember what it was about.


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## chilady1 (Jun 9, 2009)

Before the collections feature, it was a real nightmare to actually organize my books.  Since the collections feature has been added, I am now organizing my collections by series.  For example, I have all of the "In Death" books by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts).  I have created a collection entitled, In Death - J.D. Robb and all the books are put into that collection.

I actually read quite a number of series so most of my books are organized by that series.  For those one off novels, I organize them by type, Suspense & Thrillers, Mystery & Detective, etc.  

I even have a collection called Samples for those samples I download from Amazon.  It took 1000 books from over 100 pages on my Kindle down to 13 pages.  Much easier to find the books I want now.  Good luck!

P.S.  I am like Ann in Arlington, if it is on my Kindle, it hasn't been read.


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## mpeg2 (Jul 30, 2010)

Thanks - I think I'm getting a better idea of how this works. DRM isn't an issue for me, since I refuse to purchase anything that is DRM encumbered (the notion of having purchased content held hostage to a particular device does not sit well with me). 

I read extremely fast & can't carry a collection of physical books when I travel (too heavy). The way I use an ereader is to park a huge library on it - and decide what to read when the opportunity arises. Between the notion of collections & search capability, I can probably figure out some way to make this work practically.

It appears that the design here is built around the notion of having most books purchased from Amazon (which is fine, since that's their business model). It would be nice, however, if there was better support for a collection that's side-loaded...

  Rich


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## luvmy4brats (Nov 9, 2008)

Hi Rich,

Collections will work with non-Amazon books just as well as Amazon books, but you can't do a collection within a collection. If you look at the names of my collections, you'll notice that I'e used different symbols at the beginning. Those force Collections to sort in a particular order. I have my most used at the top, genres in the middle, and different series at the end. Remember that books can be in more than one collection (think of it more as a tagging method). Unlike the others that have already answered, I keep ALL of my books on my Kindle now that I can sort into collections.

Here a few screen shots of how I organized my collections:






































Hope this helps.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Rich, you can d/l the User's Guide in PDF format from the Kindle Support page at Amazon. . .that might answer some questions. . .it gives pretty good step by step directions for making collections and putting books in them, etc.  There are a couple of threads around here too that explain some tricks folks have figured out to make collections work even better for them.  

The User's Guide will also have a list of supported book formats which will be important for you if you're going to be converting non-supported formats.  Amazon will convert non-DRM titles for you, but lots of people use 3rd party software to do it themselves, most often Calibre and MobiPocket Creator.


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## pidgeon92 (Oct 27, 2008)

For organizing your books, definitely check out Calibre.

Be sure to watch the demo video on the website.


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## mpeg2 (Jul 30, 2010)

Thanks for all the suggestions - I'll look into them. The "good" thing is that I have almost a month to figure this out ...

  Rich


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## stevene9 (Nov 9, 2008)

Ann in Arlington said:


> "If it's on my Kindle I haven't read it, if it's not, I have." And when I have read it and delete it I go to my collection page at Amazon and note when I finished it and a little bit of what I did or didn't like about it just to remind myself next year when I can't remember what it was about.


OK, it's time for a stupid question. You say you go to your collection page at Amazon and note what you like or don't like about a book. I (until I just ordered the k3) have only had a k1, so I never paid much attention to collections, but what collection page at Amazon lets you takes notes on your book. The media library only lets you rate it with stars and I am not aware of any collection page. What and where is it? Thanks.


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## pidgeon92 (Oct 27, 2008)

stevene9 said:


> The media library only lets you rate it with stars and I am not aware of any collection page. What and where is it? Thanks.


When you click on a title in your media library, this is the page that pops up:


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I usually go directly to "your collection" which is the last link in the "Digital content" section of "your account".  There's a search bar at the upper right where you can find the title -- it'll be there if you purchased it from Amazon.  Then you get a page like Verena's shown above.


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## stevene9 (Nov 9, 2008)

Thank you all. All this time I have had a kindle and I never knew that. I have been keeping essentially the same thing on a separate spreadsheet. Thanks for the info.

Steve


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

In fact. . . . ."your collection" has everything you ever bought from Amazon. . . . .well, not tools and stuff, but music, videos, books, etc. . . . you can make notes on all of it!


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## katsim (Apr 19, 2009)

All this time, and I didn't know about that either! But my question is this: does the new collections feature only work if you have wireless access? I'm stuck in Iraq with no 3G connection (on a K2, my husband has my hand-me-down K1) and the 'Create New Collection' option on the menu is grayed out. I'm totally bummed - I was stoked to put my stuff in groups tomorrow when I have to wait on the flight line for three hours. Am I out of luck?


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

katsim said:


> All this time, and I didn't know about that either! But my question is this: does the new collections feature only work if you have wireless access? I'm stuck in Iraq with no 3G connection (on a K2, my husband has my hand-me-down K1) and the 'Create New Collection' option on the menu is grayed out. I'm totally bummed - I was stoked to put my stuff in groups tomorrow when I have to wait on the flight line for three hours. Am I out of luck?


I've just tried both my K2 and DXG with the wireless off and the Create New Collection is available to me, so no wireless can't be the reason for your problem. I would suggest you restart your Kindle - it's amazing how many things that sorts out.


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## chilady1 (Jun 9, 2009)

katsim said:


> All this time, and I didn't know about that either! But my question is this: does the new collections feature only work if you have wireless access? I'm stuck in Iraq with no 3G connection (on a K2, my husband has my hand-me-down K1) and the 'Create New Collection' option on the menu is grayed out. I'm totally bummed - I was stoked to put my stuff in groups tomorrow when I have to wait on the flight line for three hours. Am I out of luck?


No, you do not need 3G to create a collection, however, as soon as you are back in an area with 3G, turn it on and synch your Kindle. I created a number of Collections and synched up with my Whispernet. I am glad I did this because I had an issue with my Kindle that required me to de-register it and then re-register it. I don't think my Collections would have shown back up had I not done that synch with the newly created Collections. Just a thought!


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## katsim (Apr 19, 2009)

Nope, that doesn't make it happy either - restarted it twice. It shows grayed both in the menu and in the sort bar up top. The poor thing has never been able to connect to 3G, since it has lived its entire life in the desert - so the clock is messed up too, and the 'most recent first'. I guess I just won't worry about it until I can either call CS or get back at least to Germany. Thanks for the suggestions though!


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## NiLuJe (Jun 23, 2010)

It doesn't need Whispernet, but it does need to be registered. (There's a thread over @ MR to 'fake' a reg if you're out of 3G coverage).


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I wouldn't think you'd need to 'fake' it. . . .seems like you could register it via the Manage Your Kindle page. . .you'd have to have Amazon account log in credentials and the S/N of the Kindle of course. . . . .or maybe I'm not understanding something.


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## NiLuJe (Jun 23, 2010)

I'm not sure either, but, giving the feedback on the MR thread, that seems to do the trick to enable the collection feature.


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## pidgeon92 (Oct 27, 2008)

Ann in Arlington said:


> I wouldn't think you'd need to 'fake' it. . . .seems like you could register it via the Manage Your Kindle page.


You can register it from that page, but how is the Kindle itself going to know it is registered if it cannot communicate with Amazon?


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## katsim (Apr 19, 2009)

Yes, it is registered on the 'manage my Kindle' page but the Kindle doesn't know it is registered yet. I guess it will have to wait until I go home on mid-tour leave. Such is life. The sacrifices I make for the country. (kidding!)


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## GBear (Apr 23, 2009)

I am also migrating from a (broken) K1 to a K3. While I'm waiting impatiently, can I create collections on the Amazon site by tagging all the books in the archive so that they'll fall into the proper collections when I download them into the new K3?

(It appears from reading the manual that this would not work. But I can't see yet where collections appear on the Amazon site, although I guess they are different from tagging in the Media Library.)

I have a more embarrassing question, too: I can't figure out how to regularly get into the "Your Media Library" area mentioned above. I've done it once by accident and just now by searching for Media Library in Kindle Support. But I haven't found a "normal" route to it.

Thanks!


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

GBear said:


> I am also migrating from a (broken) K1 to a K3. While I'm waiting impatiently, can I create collections on the Amazon site by tagging all the books in the archive so that they'll fall into the proper collections when I download them into the new K3?
> 
> (It appears from reading the manual that this would not work. But I can't see yet where collections appear on the Amazon site, although I guess they are different from tagging in the Media Library.)


Nope. . .I don't think so. . . .what I plan to do is move a few books at a time (definition of 'few' to be determined) when I get my K3 and build collections as I go.


> I have a more embarrassing question, too: I can't figure out how to regularly get into the "Your Media Library" area mentioned above. I've done it once by accident and just now by searching for Media Library in Kindle Support. But I haven't found a "normal" route to it.
> 
> Thanks!


Go to Your Account, log in, and go down to the section that says "digital content". "Your collection" is at the bottom of the second column. Is that what you mean? Once you get there once you can bookmark that page in your browser so you can go directly. . . .


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## GBear (Apr 23, 2009)

Thanks, Ann. I was mainly trying to get there from the Manage Your Kindle page.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Go to Your Account, log in, and go down to the section that says "digital content". "Your collection" is at the bottom of the second column. Is that what you mean? Once you get there once you can bookmark that page in your browser so you can go directly. . . .


UK users might want to note that so far there is no 'Digital Content' section on the 'Your Account' page and the 'View Your Digital Orders' option in the 'Orders' section is 'View Kindle Orders & Charges' on the UK site. The 'Manage Your Kindle' option comes under the 'Settings' section. There is no 'Your Collection' option at all. I've now swapped my account to the UK site but I can still access 'Your Collection' from the US site as described above. It includes items bought on the UK site since I swapped. If you're in the UK and new to Kindle and don't have a US account, I'm not sure where you would access yours. Possibly once the K3s are shipped and newbie Kindle accounts are 'live' the options on the account page may change. They've gradually been changing since the K3 went on sale, but this is the situation as it stands today.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

That's good to know, lin. . . .but weird. . . .Do you have this site: http://kindle.amazon.com/your_reading? That's definitely one you can't get to from Amazon.com. . . . .I wonder if there's an analogous UK address. . . . .it basically has your Kindle library in a different format but you can see popular highlights. . . . .I haven't played with it much. . .it doesn't add a lot for me. . . .but it's there. It does say it's in beta, so who knows?


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