[chilady1]

I use Calibre exclusively to keep my entire e-book collection organized.  With Calibre, I am able to track the books I have read, create Collections and import to my Kindle and download metadata from Goodreads, Amazon, etc to populate the information about the book including the series number of a book (if the book is part of a series).

The only books on my Kindle are those that are unread.  Once done, I delete and mark book as read in Calibre.  No matter where I purchase content from: BoB, Amazon, Kobo, etc - I import the book into Calibre ensuring that all of my content is somewhere I can get to, I never want to be at the mercy of any company for content that I have purchased.  Fictionwise shutting down recently is a perfect example of this.  There are lots of people who for whatever reason were not successful in getting all of the content ported over to B&N per Fictionwise's instructions.

Good Luck!

 

[chilady1]

Which Kindle do you have, Chilady? At one point, it seems to me I read that the Collections plug-in didn't work for all Kindles because later Kindles used a different method. Is that still true?

Betsy

Betsy - true. The Kindle Collections plug-in for Calibre works on the KDX, K2, K3, K4 (non-touch). I also believe there is a way to use the Kindle Collections for the KPW but not 100% sure on that one. I personally have the Kindle Keyboard and Kindle Collections works flawlessly. For some reason, this plug-in doesn't work on the Kindle Touch because Amazon changed the way Collections are managed on the Touch.

My home page look like this:

Series Name - Author (# of books)

Borderline - Griffin, Laura (2) - when I open up the Collection I see the following:

01 - One Last Breath
02 - One Wrong Step

The Kindle Collections Plug-on does all this for me. It has been a real time saver. I also use another plug-in called ePub Split which allows me to split out ePubs from one book. For example, Jennifer Blake's Royal Family of Ruthenia was available for free on Amazon as a boxed set. The ePub Split plug-in allowed me to separate the books out into 2 individual books. Not a big deal, but love the plug-in.

Lastly, I created custom columns in Calibre that once I indicate that I have read the book by indicating YES, it turns the title of the book to the color of RED which allows me at a quick glance to know which books are still un-read.

I agree that Calibre takes some getting use to but with patience and some help from folks on the boards, I finally have Calibre the way I want it and for me it has been a great program.

 

[chilady1]

Open Calibre>>click Preferences>>Look and Feel>>Column Colouring>>Add Rule

For example, one of my rules is "Set the color of all columns to turquoise if the read column is yes.

You beat me to it Mandykins - and let me change my original statement because like you, instead of just the TITLE tuning the color RED - I know also have ALL COLUMNS turning RED which is even better. It it nice because it gives you a visual way to see what has been READ vs. what is still un-read.