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The Art of Ebook Uploading

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This blog is for an old man who is getting on in his years (he shall not be named but some of you know who he may be). think

Uploading books must be the easiest thing to do right?

Unlike movies and music which actually has to be converted from one form to another; and apps that need to be cracked; with books, well what do you have to do with books? Some would think you get a book, upload it to Kat and then throw a pretty picture on it and Boom.. done.

Wait a minute.. not so fast there with your misguided

Sometimes it can be that easy, but most of the time there is alot of work involved.

First we have to find the book. You think we actually buy all these books we upload? If we could do that, I'd be laying on a beach in the Mediterranean with a beach boy bringing me drinks and feeding me grapes. coolrockcool

We have to search through a lot of places to find the free books or a complete series that we want to upload. They don't just fall on our laps.

Some people upload a variety of books from different genres but I prefer to stay within a certain genre unless I get a request for something different. That can be a bit trickier.

Once I find books that I want to upload, I have to add it to calibre, look through it to make sure it's complete and in almost retail shape. Most of the time, they aren't. The next part is what takes the longest.

Cleaning up a book: It involves opening the metadata on calibre and changing the book layout. Taking out extra spaces and correcting any large spelling errors or punctuation issues. That can be very time consuming depending on how bad the book is. Sometimes it's just a case of adding a cover to the book.

Another part is the dreaded DRM. punch That is where they put a 'lock' on a book so it can't be converted or used in any other way except on a certain reading application that the publishers approve. When this happens, we have to strip the DRM from the book so we can then change the format before it can be uploaded.

Once the book is prepared, readable and ready to go, then it gets uploaded. The rest is fairly simple, just a case of making the title, adding it to the seedbox if you use one of those and then uploading to Kat. Of course we want the book to look 'pretty and presentable' so we like to add a picture of the cover and a summary of the book. Some uploaders also like to add publication dates and the technical details of the book. We also have to find the ISBN number to create the metadata for the book on the site.

After all that is done, off to start again with the next book.

Hope this helps everyone understand the work that goes behind that book that took you 5 seconds to download.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some grapes to feed myself while reading a book. lolnerdrofl

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Blog: The Art of Ebook Uploading

Top Comments

There are a few uploader not only just for ebooks but movies, music etc, do not care about quality.

I for one and a majority of us uploaders take great pride in making sure what we have our name on is only the best quality. It's a shame that a few just throw anything on here.

When you find something like that, try and PM the uploader and let them know. Sometimes they may not realise how bad it was and will take measures to fix it. If after you've PM'd them and nothing has changed, leave a comment letting others know how bad it was so others won't waste their time. facepalm

I have found a few myself that were hilarious to look at lol
Ahahahah! An amazing blog explaining the job of us Book Uploaders.
Like you, I have my own sources.
But I usually stick to one Private Site.

But, I do not add those books to Calibre. think
I simply just tidy them up if they're a mess! shocked
However, that might not actually work well with other people considering they use different methods of reading the book.
Like using a browser or Kindle!
I use Sigil to read or edit my EPUB Books.
Since its the easiest way to edit it, unlike PDF where if it is locked. I cannot fix it! huffy

And the ISBN..
Oh.. The ISBN..
Most of the ISBN I use doesn't really register, especially Amazon ISBN's.
And don't count on finding the ISBN on ISBNdb if the Amazon ISBN doesn't work. titter

Anyway, amazing blog.
I can definitely relate! thumb_up
I was hoping my fellow Book uploaders would respond and help explain how they do things their way. claplol
The way I described is the way that works best for me but I know there are lots of different ways to do it. cool
I'm a firm believer that ebook uploaders should only slap their tag on an upload if they were the ones who stripped DRM. Just saying...

All Comments

Thank all the uploader......
Thank you so much and i apreciate all the hard work you all put in.....

My life would be so much harder if i didn't have a book to escape to.

Thanks againthumb_upinloveboo
Thank you all for your time and hard work.
This would make for good inputs on how to be an ebaook uploader thread if there isnt already one :)
Great blog!
Says from my heart :)

Well, I can feed u some


Last edited by SPirate, 1 week ago

It really needs lot of work to collect something ,converting and then sharing ..from ebooks to movie each and every upload is not just an upload ..its the uploaders soul integrated with the job.. and as soon as they are downloaded ..aah a relief least I have shared something that will matter ..
Nice read. I'm another one who appreciates all the ebook uploads that people put up. As you mentioned, some ebooks require a lot of editing until they reach the "retail" stage. I'm sure I've downloaded a few of them. chuckle

Actually, my missus and I both have Kobo ereaders. She's bought a couple of books which I'd like to get off and into Calibre, minus the dreaded DRM. I've tried using one of the tutorials on KAT, but had no success. Annoying, to say the least.

We have a lot of books to read from this site so THANKS to all the book uploaders and the book request wizards! clap

Last edited by B3XM4N, 1 week ago

"Retail" in its true sense means that the ebook is untouched. All you did was strip DRM, and the book (and all meta) is exactly as it was put out by the publisher. Adding meta and other details is a personal preference, but it actually ruins true retail status.
Usually I have to change the book when it's something where I'm trying to find a complete series and one of the books is older and wasn't downloaded properly and needs work.

Retail was more of my example of the book almost looking like a 'buyable' copy. I do understand what you mean though. There shouldn't be any reason to change the metadata in the inside of a new book.

Thank you for this explanation, and also thank you to every book uploader out there for all their hard work. You guys are an underappreciated few. I for one value your efforts tremendously, and do what I can by seeding books not just for a short while, but INDEFINITELY. Torrent client organizing addons help with this, so you can keep torrents forever and hide certain categories, or the ones you don't need to see all the time.

I hope everyone who cannot upload will at least seed as much as they can. We should never let a book torrent die! :)
That was interesting! Even though I haven´t downloaded any e-books, I appreciate the hard work and dedication for the cause! For I do read books and e-books by thousands so far. Fiction, especially sci-fi and some chosen fantasy.

I happened to read Game of Thrones (first four of them) both in Finnish and in English before tv-series began. The other end is Vernor Vinge´s Zones of thought -series, first two books in a row and the third later as it was published. A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the sky were masterpieces! The last one, The Children of the Sky, was good, but inferior to the others.

Of course nowadays my Kindle is so full of sci-fi that I can´t read all of that in my lifetime.

Anyway, thanks for bringing civilisation for the masses!
Yes, you are right!! Uploading books isn't as easy as everyone thinks it is!!sweat

It can easily take me up to 2 or more hours to upload about 15-20 books!!

And.. Adding to the process, I compress the books (pdfs) to save a few bytes for everybody!!wink

I am grateful to all the book uploaders for sharing the true knowledge!!

Last edited by Sherlockism, 1 week ago

I've tried to compress mine before but then I ended up with PM spam asking how to read the book and then the silly few who would downvote the book because they couldn't figure out how to open it and that was my fault of course. dullchuckle
I do double compression. I first compress the pdf itself and then again compress it with winrar. The old books I upload are scanned documents, so they are bigger in file size.

Sometimes, I get around 70-80% compression. It's great.

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