Do you have ebooks from Amazon China's Kindle Store?

[Luxi]

For those who don't know yet, Amazon China's Kindle store has now closed down ?, the Chinese Kindle app will continue for 1 year before being permanently deleted.  

If you have any Kindle ebooks purchased from Amazon.cn, and don't want to lose them,  you have about 12 months to download them and save them somewhere safe. You can still use the Kindle, but move your account to your country's Amazon.

 

Search around these Forums for alternative sources of Chinese ebooks.

[TheBigZaboon]

I bought a good number of mainland Chinese books through the US and Japanese Amazon Kindle stores. They're mostly young adult history/current events readers. Do you have any idea what will happen to those?

 

Also, any tips on where to find any previously downloaded Kindle content would be greatly appreciated. I'd rather somebody told me how to do it, to avoid the grind of fighting with the problem myself.

 

Thanks in advance...

 

TBZ

[Luxi]

On 7/5/2023 at 8:06 AM, TheBigZaboon said:

I bought a good number of mainland Chinese books through the US and Japanese Amazon Kindle stores.

 

Nothing will happen to them, hopefully not for a long time. Only Amazon Kindle books bought from Amazon.cn (Amazon China store) are affected, I don't know about other digital content bought from the cn store, best to check (see below) and backup somewhere else.

 

On 7/5/2023 at 8:06 AM, TheBigZaboon said:

any tips on where to find any previously downloaded Kindle content

 

To see what digital content you had from Amazon (in a browser):

 

- Sign in to the amazon store where you bought your ebooks with the account you used to buy those ebooks.

 

- On Bar at the top of the page, click: Hello XX / Accounts & Lists

 

- If a Popup opens, under Your Account click: Manage your content and devices. Click: Books (or anything else on the list, including 'Docs' for any files you may have uploaded to your Kindle using 'Send to Kindle')

 

- If there's no popup, on the 'Your Account' browser page that opens, scroll down to 'Digital content and devices', select 'Content and devices' and it will take you to all the digital content you have ordered from the Amazon store for the account you're signed on to.

 

Choose 'Books' and it takes you to all your Amazon Kindle ebooks (mine has 5362 titles!), and you can pick one of several options.  If you ever used 'Send to Kindle' to upload files (docs, txt, pdfs) with the email address Amazon gave you with your Kindle device, your files will be listed under 'Docs'

 

[TheBigZaboon]

Thank you for going into that much detail. It's more help than I've ever gotten from Kindle or from Amazon itself.

 

I normally use these books as a source of native text that I cut and paste into a Text-To-Speech (TTS) app. I usually just do that from the Kindle app display. But what I'm wondering is how (in what format) and where they're stored on my phone or tablet. I'm also curious as to whether I'll be able to copy them to another location to keep the Kindle people from taking them away from me at their whim in the future. I anticipated this might happen someday, so I bought a hardcopy, too, in case I had to use an OCR to make use of them on some less than optimum day in the future. But I assume that they're probably encrypted when stored on my phone or tablet, so I guess I have to puzzle this out for myself.

 

And also, thanks for the initial heads-up on the Kindle situation in China.

 

TBZ

[Luxi]

On 7/5/2023 at 2:32 PM, TheBigZaboon said:

how (in what format)

Kindle books are in AZW3 format, exclusive to Amazon.  You may want to check Calibre.

 

About TTS:

On 7/5/2023 at 2:32 PM, TheBigZaboon said:

I usually just do that from the Kindle app display.

 

You could also copy and paste from the Amazon Cloud Reader ('kindle for the web') in a browser. To use Kindle for Web, go to :

https://read.amazon.com/

Sign in with your Amazon account. Most of your purchased titles will appear under the 'All Titles' tab. You can read directly from the browser and don't need to download an app.

 

On 7/5/2023 at 2:32 PM, TheBigZaboon said:

I'm also curious as to whether I'll be able to copy them to another location

 

Yes, you can, see 'More Actions' in Contact and Devices / Books  (on my previous post):

After downloading [to your Kindle reader or Kindle App], use your USB cable to connect your computer and Kindle. Your Kindle will appear as a drive on your computer. Copy your downloaded file from your computer to your Kindle's documents folder (I think the Kindle's document folder is created automatically when you first connect a Kindle to your PC)

 

Edited: I had to delete 'In Edge you can have Azure natural voices reading directly from the screen (use the Read Aloud option) it's very good in Chinese.' because it no longer works in the Kindle Cloud Reader, Amazon have replaced the easy simple original reader with an inflexible 'app' that doesn't even have a Chinese dictionary. No more 'read aloud' this way. 

You have to convert the kindle text into a txt, doc or pdf format. Can be done via Calibre or through copy and paste.   

Sorry!  

[TheBigZaboon]

@Luxi This is better than "True Love" overload. I feel guilty about the amount of time and effort you are putting in to answer not only what I ask about, but even things I'm thinking about, but only hint at.

 

And I had completely forgotten about dedicated Kindle devices. At first I thought that I don't have any, then I remembered that I have a Kindle Fire that I seldom touch because I have to side load so many apps that I want to use. I've got to open it up and find out what advantages it may have that your answers explain. Although the books i bought state that they're not optimized for TTS, maybe I can figure out a workaround.

 

In any case, I feel that, in all fairness, I shouldn't even give you an opportunity to provide any more answers until I exhaust all the information and advice I've already gotten through your generosity. You should relax and enjoy the 5000+ books you've already bought from the Kindle Store.

 

You've give me a lot to think about, including, dread the thought, a ban or moratorium on buying printed books...

 

Thank you...

 

TBZ

[TheBigZaboon]

Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment, but I just bought a new MAX 11 Fire tablet from Amazon.jp during their recent PrimeDay sale. I haven't received my new toy yet, but I'm unable to sleep with (vain) anticipation.

 

It seems they still have bans on Chinese TTS unless you buy via Amazon.malaysia, or unless you buy certain titles in Traditional characters from Amazon.cn. I'm wondering (but not hopeful) if there have been any recent changes to policy, especially because of the announced discontinuation of Kindle service from China. In any case, I'm sure I'll still be able to cut and paste to third-party TTS applications, and the big screen library management of my purchases will give my old eyes a rest.

 

By the way, I was playing with a textbook that has a considerable amount of Chinese text in it. When I tried to force the Kindle eBook system to read the Chinese text, "Joey," the default American English voice character read me the Pinyin instead of the Chinese text in an American accent that you would hear on any American television sitcom. It was just like being back in Chinese class in the university many years ago. No attempt at imitating Chinese pronunciation at all. Very funny...

 

Anyway, I'll update you after I get my new toy on Friday...

 

TBZ

[Luxi]

On 7/12/2023 at 10:19 AM, TheBigZaboon said:

a new MAX 11 Fire tablet

I never tried the Fire tablet, but any tablet will be able to do more than the Kindle reader device. I much prefer using the Kindle App (downloadable from Amazon) in an iPad or a Windows laptop,they have much more resources at hand. Somehow the Kindle didn't move with the times. Lucky for me I never had any problems with the non-paper screens (except when reading in the sun). 

 

On 7/12/2023 at 10:19 AM, TheBigZaboon said:

the big screen library management

 

Absolutely! Last Chinese paper book I bought still sits on my desk waiting, I couldn't cope with the minute delicate greyish text on a sea of bright white, even though I very much want to read this book and the author seems to have a grudge (partly justified) against ebooks.