Amazon Kindles will soon support ePub file format via Send to Kindle

This weekend, a report from Good e-reader He seemed to be suggesting something really wild. After 15 years, Amazon was finally bending over the competition and supporting the ePub format for e-books used by the vast majority of online bookstores, publishers, and competing services. But it turns out that Amazon won’t natively support the ePub format. Instead, for everyone Send Document Update to KindleAmazon Kindle will soon support the use of the Send to Kindle function to convert ePub files to Amazon’s own digital book file format.

We were so close! Which is wild because we’ve been so close, and even now, since the launch of both the Kindle and ePub file format in 2007. Sony, Barnes & Noble, and other e-reader makers have scrambled to support ePub, the major technical standard form the international digital forum. Amazon has chosen to support other file formats, including Mobi, which it acquired with the French company Mobipocket in 2005, and AZW, which is actually a branded version of Amazon Mobi.

The actual implication is that for the past 15 years, if you want to put an ePub file in your Kindle e-reader, you first have to convert it, usually with the very powerful but very frustrating and ugly Caliber. It’s been a good workflow, but it has felt a bit more annoying over the past few years.

Publishers now regularly sell more e-books directly to consumers, often for less than what Amazon, Rakuten or Barnes & Noble might charge. Smaller publishers have even made it a selling point – because authors sometimes get a larger share of the sale directly from the publisher than they get from a larger seller of digital books, so you can better “support” your favorite author by buying directly from the site. publisher. But since you can very quickly get those e-book files in a Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Pocketbook e-reader, or one of the wide range of e-readers coming from China right now, you still have to stop and make a caliber step if you want the same book on Kindle.

Now, it will be a little easier to get an ePub on Kindle. Amazon will allow you to send ePub files to your Kindle using the Send to Kindle function, and then it must convert the ePub file to a KF8 file. What, while ePub technically doesn’t? Is that true ePub because it is supported by Kindles only.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like Amazon is building a big Amazon-branded glass wall between me and just the content so I’ll never forget the Amazon e-reader experience. And that’s one of the many things I love with Android E Ink tablets. I can just put an ePub on my tablet without jumping through hoops of Amazon branding to do so.