[Misc]: 2013 TBR, Calibre & AO3 Series
So my streak of not picking up an actual (e)book since December is still continuing. In an effort to get myself psyched up to start reading (e)book again, here is some of my TBR that theoretically should have me diving into them as soon as I got my paw on them >_<
1) Patricia Briggs - Frost Burned
2) Jeaniene Frost - Twice Tempted
3) Jennifer Estep - Deadly Sting
4) Ann Aguirre - Agave Kiss
5) JD Robb - Calculated in Death
6) Stephanie Laurens - And Then She Fell
7) Moira J Moore - Heroes' Reward (Last book of the series, self published when it was dropped by the publisher)
Anyway I somehow made my peace with Calibre. Previously I poked at it but because I don't like that Calibre used a Title - Author naming convention to save its file, it did not end up as my top tool for converting ebook. Surprisingly though (not), fanfiction, specifically the ones on AO3 got me to using it again. While I already have a Fanfiction Downloader, it does not work for AO3. Which is fine as AO3 already cater to those who wish for a downloadable version of the fanfiction hosted on its own site. But I sometimes go Grr at series that will have multiple works of 1 chapter each as it means I still have multiple short files instead of just one long file to read from.
Finally, a comment at squee!Book LJ mentions the Squee site can be used to combine AO3 series as single ebook. Yea, I thought... but it is a just a temporary measure, as you still need to edit in the link, author and/or additional info such as summary manually and you still need to have another editor if you want to include tags.
Anyway last weekend, hit jackpot, when I discovered that the Fanfiction Downloader plugin for Calibre can download AO3 series and it is automatically formatted with all the pesky additional information ^^. But what about the naming convention? I poked further and discovered while you are not supposed to change anything in the Calibre Library setting, you could actually play around with the default naming template for Save to Disk option. Since I will only use Calibre just to get the initial ebook for the series and does not really want to save them in Calibre Library, that actually works for me.
So my 3 4-steps to download AO3 series is as follow
1) Copy series URL and paste "Get Story URLs from Web Page". It is currently default to download as epub only.**
3) If you like epub, can skip. My reader sometimes have issues with epub so I convert to mobi just to be on safe side
3) Save to Disk . My current naming template is @{author}/{series:||} {series_index:0>2s|| -} {title} which output as @Author/Series 03 - Title. But most of the time, the series name is already the Title for A03 fanfics. So now in the Fanfiction folder, I have the fanfiction divided into author's folder but without the annoying title folder that is in the Calibre Library itself
4) Because I already have a copy in the Fanfiction folder, I can delete the fics from Calibre ^^. Of course you can keep them there if you are a full-time Calibre user. One pro for keeping them in Calibre means you can also instantly update any WIPs without having to re-add the files again.
So after I looked back at my Fanfiction folder and noticed all the HTML files* manually downloaded from the AO3 site are downloaded as Title - Author - Fandom even when AO3 setting changed to show Author - Title - Fandom. So just to keep things neat (hah) I am using BulkRename Utility to rename all the downloaded AO3 HTML files to Author - Title - Fandom.
*While I acknowledge epub/mobi as awesome ebook format, HTML still my first choice as I considered it basic editable format that can be converted into any other format including the dreaded PDF :P
** LOL I actually realised, the very first step should be install Calibre (or use Portable version) AND the FanficDownloader Plugin
While at it, unless you want the plugin to keep asking you to if you are sure for fics marked as Adult... go to Configure Plugin (once installed), and at personal.ini, skip AO3 Adult Check Setting by adding the lines
[archiveofourown.org]
is_adult:true
And done ^^
1) Patricia Briggs - Frost Burned
2) Jeaniene Frost - Twice Tempted
3) Jennifer Estep - Deadly Sting
4) Ann Aguirre - Agave Kiss
5) JD Robb - Calculated in Death
6) Stephanie Laurens - And Then She Fell
7) Moira J Moore - Heroes' Reward (Last book of the series, self published when it was dropped by the publisher)
Anyway I somehow made my peace with Calibre. Previously I poked at it but because I don't like that Calibre used a Title - Author naming convention to save its file, it did not end up as my top tool for converting ebook. Surprisingly though (not), fanfiction, specifically the ones on AO3 got me to using it again. While I already have a Fanfiction Downloader, it does not work for AO3. Which is fine as AO3 already cater to those who wish for a downloadable version of the fanfiction hosted on its own site. But I sometimes go Grr at series that will have multiple works of 1 chapter each as it means I still have multiple short files instead of just one long file to read from.
Finally, a comment at squee!Book LJ mentions the Squee site can be used to combine AO3 series as single ebook. Yea, I thought... but it is a just a temporary measure, as you still need to edit in the link, author and/or additional info such as summary manually and you still need to have another editor if you want to include tags.
Anyway last weekend, hit jackpot, when I discovered that the Fanfiction Downloader plugin for Calibre can download AO3 series and it is automatically formatted with all the pesky additional information ^^. But what about the naming convention? I poked further and discovered while you are not supposed to change anything in the Calibre Library setting, you could actually play around with the default naming template for Save to Disk option. Since I will only use Calibre just to get the initial ebook for the series and does not really want to save them in Calibre Library, that actually works for me.
So my 3 4-steps to download AO3 series is as follow
1) Copy series URL and paste "Get Story URLs from Web Page". It is currently default to download as epub only.**
3) If you like epub, can skip. My reader sometimes have issues with epub so I convert to mobi just to be on safe side
3) Save to Disk . My current naming template is @{author}/{series:||} {series_index:0>2s|| -} {title} which output as @Author/Series 03 - Title. But most of the time, the series name is already the Title for A03 fanfics. So now in the Fanfiction folder, I have the fanfiction divided into author's folder but without the annoying title folder that is in the Calibre Library itself
4) Because I already have a copy in the Fanfiction folder, I can delete the fics from Calibre ^^. Of course you can keep them there if you are a full-time Calibre user. One pro for keeping them in Calibre means you can also instantly update any WIPs without having to re-add the files again.
So after I looked back at my Fanfiction folder and noticed all the HTML files* manually downloaded from the AO3 site are downloaded as Title - Author - Fandom even when AO3 setting changed to show Author - Title - Fandom. So just to keep things neat (hah) I am using BulkRename Utility to rename all the downloaded AO3 HTML files to Author - Title - Fandom.
*While I acknowledge epub/mobi as awesome ebook format, HTML still my first choice as I considered it basic editable format that can be converted into any other format including the dreaded PDF :P
** LOL I actually realised, the very first step should be install Calibre (or use Portable version) AND the FanficDownloader Plugin
While at it, unless you want the plugin to keep asking you to if you are sure for fics marked as Adult... go to Configure Plugin (once installed), and at personal.ini, skip AO3 Adult Check Setting by adding the lines
[archiveofourown.org]
is_adult:true
And done ^^