For years, the members of my household had Kindle Fires. I liked Amazon Kids way back then, but I grew very frustrated with the limitations of the devices themselves, and I hated the likelihood of data mining. Over the last four years, I secured iPads for every member of our household, and they are used daily every single one of us. For one thing, our kids use them to play educational games–Stack the States, Stack the Countries, Seterra, etc. But more so, we use Libby and the Kindle app to read a lot of books, some borrowed from various libraries, some purchased with no-rush shipping credits from the days when we had Amazon Prime, some gifted, some downloaded for free. I downloaded digital textbooks and a lot more samples in the days when samples were downloadable rather than readily visible on Amazon’s site. In the last year, I bought a Barnes and Noble membership and have now acquired an increasing number of books on the Nook app, too.
It’s an absolute mess, and it has been for a while. But I felt led to fix it over the new year.
I divided all of the books into collections (Kindle) and shelves (Nook): organization, magazines, kids, literature, homeschooling, recipes, continuing education, music, etc. I put each e-book into its primary category. On the Kindle I removed all books from Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited and deleted books we’d already returned to the library. Finally I started reading the samples I’d acquired over the years and either deleted them or put them on my library’s “For Later” shelf or in my Barnes and Noble wish list. Both apps look so clean and organized now, and I can find what I’m looking for when I can’t quite remember the name or author of a book.
Going forward, I need to sort through my Calibre app. I’d hate to tell you how many books I have on it! Speaking of, have you checked out the books that have entered the public domain as of January 1st? William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is in the public domain now and readily available on Standard Ebooks, as is Langston Hughes’ Not Without Laughter. The first set of Nancy Drew books are available also. Check out the entire list here.
Happy reading!
Erin
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