Book Report - Kindle Paperwhite and Acquiring Books

I'm getting a new Kindle for my birthday and I wanted to detail how I've been preparing for that.

I had a Kindle 4th Generation that a coworker gave me back in April 2020. His family recently upgraded to Kindle Paperwhite devices, and since nobody was using that old Kindle, he offered it to me. I've picked up a lot of his hand-me-downs through the years, but that one was one of my favorites. Thanks, Matt!

While I had that Kindle, I would frequently sync library books from Overdrive and then turn on airplane mode so I could keep those books indefinitely. It was a convenient system for hanging onto books for longer than an intended checkout period, but it wasn't perfect. I would occasionally check out large batches of books, sync them all at once, and then go offline so I could have some options available. If I ever wanted a different book, however, I had to resync and I would lose the books that had expired at that point. Alas, it did give me the capability to hang onto specific books for longer than a checkout, and I leveraged that to great effect.

Some time before October 2021, I accidentally broke the screen on that Kindle. I kept it in my bag for convenient entertainment, especially since the jobs I worked between August 2020 and September 2021 required travel on occasion and I wanted something with me that didn't require internet or immediate access to a charger. By that the time the Kindle broke, I didn't have AS much of a need for it, but I did hate to see it go. It was still mostly useable, but the weird artifacts on the screen made it cumbersome to read the bottom half of every page. That annoyance pushed me to stop using it as much.

After August 2021, I stopped covering eBooks for my Book Reports. There were a few residual posts from before the Kindle broke, but I mostly gravitated to audiobooks or the occasional physical book after that. Not only were the physical books uncommon, they were more niche or shorter to consume. Stuff like art books and cookbooks were easy to consume and write a post on without the hassle of taking them with me when I would have time to kill.

When I lost my job in January 2026, I decided to read another physical book, since it wasn't like I had anything else to do. I really enjoyed it, and I started identifying times when I could bring a book along and actually have time to read it: blood donations, picking up the kids from school, or taking family to medical appointments. It was the first time in a long time that I had actually read rather than listened to a book.

After I got another job, I fell back into audiobooks as my default method of consuming literature. Physical books became inconvenient again. I tried reading some through the Kindle app on my phone, but I get eye strain when reading from traditional screens for a long time. While we were on a cruise, I saw dozens of people around the pool reading on their Kindles. It occurred to me that a new Kindle would get rid of a lot of the pain points I had with physical books.

For a while, I deliberated on whether I actually wanted another Kindle or if I was just jealous. The more I thought on it, the more I realized I actually did want one. A Kindle Paperwhite is waterproof where my old Kindle wasn't, it has a backlight so I could read in the dark, and it has a touchscreen so the UI is easier to navigate. I genuinely considered that I might get a new one.

With my birthday coming up in a few weeks, my mother asked what I wanted. A brand new Kindle wouldn't be in her price range, but what if I found a cheaper used device? I started searching on ebay and eventually I came across a Paperwhite 4 10th Gen for $70 from a reputable seller. At roughly half the price of a new device, it was much more reasonable.

She ordered the Kindle and let me check it out when it arrived to make sure it worked. Sure enough, I signed into my Amazon account and I was able to pull down an eBook that I had checked out from Overdrive (Libby? I'm not sure what the service itself is called). We were back in business, and I could maybe resume my old tactic of checking out library books and taking the device offline to keep my access to them.

But what if that tactic doesn't work anymore? What if the Paperwhite was advanced enough to remove library books on their due date, even without internet access? I didn't confirm the possibility, but I did start considering alternatives. Sure, I could just request the book again if I didn't finish it within the first checkout period, but books with a long waitlist can be a pain. I had to split up the audiobook for Iron Flame across a few months because I had to wait for my turn to come up again.

What if... I just loaded books onto the Kindle myself? The friend who gave me his old Kindle mentioned doing that for a Paperwhite, so I knew it was at least possible. And I'm the last one to turn my nose up at piracy. Times are hard, we gotta catch a break where we can get it.

I started investigating exactly what I would need to do to manually load book files onto the Kindle. I was prepared to hook up the device to a computer via USB and load files that way, but it turns out there is a much easier way: Send to Kindle. You upload files to that site and they get saved as "docs" to your Content and Devices on Amazon. They supports a ton of file types, too. At the time of writing this article, Send to Kindle allows PDF, DOC, DOCX, TXT, RTF, HTM, HTML, PNG, GIF, JPG, JPEG, BMP, EPUB.

With so many options, I didn't know which I should focus on acquiring. When another coworker was loading content onto his Kindle a few years ago, I remembered him talking about MOBI and EPUB files, but I couldn't recall the specifics. I took to the internet to do some research.

EPUB is the modern, industry-standard ebook format supported by most e-readers (Kobo, Nook, Apple) due to its flexible, reflowable text. MOBI is an older, Amazon-owned format that is now largely obsolete, as Amazon has transitioned to using EPUB for Kindle. For almost all purposes, EPUB is the superior choice, especially since Amazon now converts uploaded EPUBs for Kindle devices. Source

EPUB, it is. The only question was where to find them. OBVIOUSLY, piracy is something we have to tread carefully with. I will try to be cautious with exactly what I share here, but I will say that Google is your friend. What I think is safe to share is "SLUM: The Shadow Library Uptime Monitor." You can't get books from SLUM, it just tells you what services are available and whether they are currently live.

As a second warning, I will advise that you be careful with WHAT you download. Piracy isn't exactly monitored or policed, and there is certainly the possibility of downloading malware or other unsavory content. PDF in particular is a file type rife with possible exploits. I don't know if EPUB is completely immune from malware and exploits, but I do think it is safer in addition to the other benefits like scaling text and smaller file sizes.

I personally used Anna's Archive (I won't link that here), and it seemed to give me pretty consistently good results. In particular, you can filter file type to EPUB and search for title, author, or ISBN. If you're feeling particularly paranoid, turn on a VPN before you download anything while you still can.

The last specific I will detail here is my attempt to avoid malware on my personal devices. Rather than opening those EPUB files on my laptop and risking what might be inside, I simply uploaded them directly to the Send to Kindle site. Occasionally, those files would fail to upload. I can't say for sure that those files WERE malware, but it would be a problem for Amazon then. I can't imagine the Kindle OS is even capable of getting a computer virus, so that seemed to be most of the risk behind me.

If these steps or my ambiguity concern you, it may be better if you just stick to buying or checking out books legally. Piracy often exists in those murky waters around DRM and other internet law. It is entirely too easy to risk exploits on your personal devices or even a cease and desist in the mail. Please, be careful if you're going to attempt this.

Alas, I was able to acquire quite a few EPUB books and confirm in the Kindle app on my phone that they are actual books. Once I actually receive the Paperwhite for my birthday, I can download those files and keep them for as long as I want. It's a very convenient setup.

I do still plan on checkout out eBooks from the library to support the author, I just may never open the loaned copy. Heck, I might even buy physical copies of the books I really like, just so I can lend those to friends. The last thing I want to do is punish the creator for the actions of the industry, something that piracy often does. Anna's Archive even encourages you to buy the book or check it out from your library if you try to download a recent book - I respect that.