Confused about the many ebook/manga management solutions

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨whysofurious@sopuli.xyz⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

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 :)

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Deebster@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
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.

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- BarHocker@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Where do you get DRM free ebooks for sale?
  
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  - GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Ebooks.com has a ton of DRM-free ebooks. They have a whole DRM-free section, plus a search filter, and they clearly display all available formats before purchase. That’s my first stop for ebooks.
    
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  - Deebster@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    None of the books I’ve bought from kobo.com have DRM.
    
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  - Scrath@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    If you are in germany, thalia lists whether a book has DRM
    
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- whysofurious@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  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?
  
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  - Deebster@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    The latest Kindle update broke the jailbreak even if it was installed, so you’ll need to stop updates. 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.
    
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smiletolerantly@awful.systems ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
I went through essentially the same thing a couple months ago. Tried Calibre (and Calibre server) since everyone recommended it.

Really disliked it. Calibre is great for converting ebooks, but has shit management and webserving capabilities.

I ended up with Kavita and am super happy. On the web client, both management and actual reading are a pleasure. Any phone/tablet client supporting OPDS works perfectly to read/download your manga/books from the server.

And a select few clients go a step further, supporting Kavita’s API, which allows for 2-way sync (effectively, syncing reading progress between all your devices).

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- UnpledgedCatnapTipper@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Do you have any client recommendations? I’ve tried Kavita and I liked the web app, but having a dedicated 2-way syncing client would be nice!
  
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  - smiletolerantly@awful.systems ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    For manga, I’ve found Mihon to be nicest, by far, and it supports the API. For books, I am currently “stuck” on koreader on Android (which “only” supports OPDS-PS). I do most of my reading on a reMarkable currently, and that has no supporting client. Writing one is on my to-do list, but it’s a bit daunting of a task…
    
    Here is a pretty good list of what is supported where.
    
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- whysofurious@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  That seems nice, thanks for sharing! I read Kavita has some weird requirements for path organization for it to work correctly, or do I remember wrong? Do you also do metadata editing in Kavita itself?
  
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  - smiletolerantly@awful.systems ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Haven’t had any issues in that regard, so can’t really say, sorry. I have two folders (Mangas and ebooks) on my NAS, and in Kavita, created a library for each.
    
    You absolutely can edit metadata, although I personally haven’t had the need yet. I use readarr and suwayomi for “obtaining” books and manga, respectively, and what they come up with is usually just fine.
    
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Landless2029@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Android tablet phone here.

Manga - Mihon

Ebooks - ReadEra premium

I use calibre on my PC to manage ebooks, but I often download directly on my phone.

I use TTS (Text to speech) to listen to my ebooks. Sometimes I use @Voice to listen to books. It’s better for that.

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- whysofurious@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Thanks! Never heard of both, but I will definitely check them out :)
  
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  - Landless2029@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    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: raw.githubusercontent.com/…/index.min.json
    
    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)
    
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Estebiu@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
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!

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- whysofurious@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  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 :)
  
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  - Estebiu@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    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.
    
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tal@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

I would like to start managing ebooks and manga properly.

I guess my question is how is everyone using these services for their own library :)

I moved away from dedicated readers. They’re nice, but I have a tablet, a phone, and a laptop. I don’t need a fourth device with me.

For me, the major selling point for dedicated readers is their insane battery life and how they work very well in sunlight or otherwise brightly-lit conditions, so you can read outside.

For comics — I don’t know if you’re only viewing black-and-white manga — my understanding is that color eInk displays have limited contrast compared to the black-and-white ones. I think that if I were viewing anything in color, I’d probably want to use some kind of LED or LCD display.

I will occasionally read content on my Android phone with fbreader. The phone isn’t really a great platform for reading books — just kind of small — but it does a good job of filling the “I’m waiting in a line and need to kill a few minutes”. With an e-reader, you need something like Calibre to transfer books on and off, but with Android, I can just transfer files the way I normally would, via sftp or similar. I don’t have any kind of synchronized system for managing those books spanning multiple devices.

I use an Android tablet sometimes, almost always when I want to cuddle up on a couch or just want a larger display or want to watch videos. Same kind of management/use case. I think I used fbreader to last read an epub thing. I’ve switched among various comics and manga-viewing software, am not particularly tied to any one. There’s a family of manga-viewing software that downloads manga from websites that host it; I can’t recall the most-recent one I’ve used, but in my limited experience, they all work vaguely the same way.

I’ve increasingly been just using GNU/Linux systems for more stuff, as long as space permits; I’d rather limit my Android exposure, as I’d rather be outside the Google ecosystem, and the non-Google non-Apple mobile world isn’t all that extensive or mature. For laptops, higher power consumption, but also vastly larger battery, and much more capable. On desktop, it’s nice to have a really large screen to read with. For comics — and I haven’t been reading graphic novels or comics in some time, so I’m kind of out of date — I use mcomix. For reading epubs, I use foliate in dark mode.

I don’t have any kind of system to synchronize material across devices or track reading in various things. Just hasn’t really come up. If I’m reading something on two different devices, I’ll just be reading two different books at the same time. Probably have some paper books and magazines that I’m working on at the same time too.

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- whysofurious@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Thanks so much for sharing and for such a detailed answer! I understand where you are coming from, I don’t have a tablet so for me an e-ink reader would not be too much (I work on my laptop most of the day and I don’t like reading on the phone, so a device like that is a sweet spot for me).
  
  I tend to mostly read bw manga (webtoons I read it on my laptop usually), but I heard the same about e-ink colored devices (and most generally that you “shouldn’t” read bw on colored eink screen).
  
  For the same reason as yours (mandatory calibre for transferring), I am looking at Onyx Boox e-ink devices, which are basically android tablets but with an eink screen. This gives me the freedom to install whatever app or sync I want, limit my exposure with something like nextdns, remove google stuff as much as I can, and things like that.
  
  In the end I guess it’s a balance between actual functionality and convenience, if a whole pipeline become too hard to manage than doing some parts manually might actually be better.
  
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