ASIN Bulk Import
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1simply_jennifer
I have about a thousand books with only an ASIN, no ISBN.
I can add these to my library one by one, choosing amazon.com as the source, and I find them all.
I’d really rather upload the whole list of ASINs and have LibraryThing import them, but when I try, it tells me there are no books. Is there a trick?
I can add these to my library one by one, choosing amazon.com as the source, and I find them all.
I’d really rather upload the whole list of ASINs and have LibraryThing import them, but when I try, it tells me there are no books. Is there a trick?
2Petroglyph
Where are you trying to upload your list?
In what format do you have your ASINs? A table? A page on amazon?
If the former, use the .csv spreadsheet linked at the bottom right of the import page. Copy/paste your date, keeping in mind that the columns can be empty, but they must remain in the same order. The isbn column does not accept ASIN numbers, so leave that empty.
The second option on the import page allows you to paste the URL to an amazon page with a list of your books.
In what format do you have your ASINs? A table? A page on amazon?
If the former, use the .csv spreadsheet linked at the bottom right of the import page. Copy/paste your date, keeping in mind that the columns can be empty, but they must remain in the same order. The isbn column does not accept ASIN numbers, so leave that empty.
The second option on the import page allows you to paste the URL to an amazon page with a list of your books.
3simply_jennifer
>2 Petroglyph: I have uploaded the list as a .CSV or pasted the entire list into the box large box on the universal import page.
IS there a way to have amazon show me a list of all of my books? “Manage My Content & Devices” is 26 pages long!
I feel like there should be an easier way to pull a list of all my books, but Amazon is good at making things difficult.
IS there a way to have amazon show me a list of all of my books? “Manage My Content & Devices” is 26 pages long!
I feel like there should be an easier way to pull a list of all my books, but Amazon is good at making things difficult.
4Keeline
>3 simply_jennifer:, it sounds as if you have many books in Kindle form. I did a look at my own list of books and it was just 4 pages (25 per page).
https://www.amazon.com/hz/mycd/digital-console/contentlist/booksAll/dateDsc/
I think the above link will use the Amazon account that one is logged in as. What I don't see on that page is a convenient way to extract the Amazon product number (ASIN) from these pages. There doesn't seem to be an export. The title links will open you to a page with the number in the URL.
The ASIN seems to be buried in the code so it might be possible to extract it from the page but this is not a consumer-level activity. In my case, the top one on the list (most recent) is B0BR8K6Q92 (Promophobia). When I view the source of the page, I see this in the tag near the title:
But looping through the pages to capture all of these is nontrivial and could be broken if Amazon made a change. It would be nice if they had an export to let you have a list of those ASIN values. With 26 pages, you must have something like 625-650 books.
This is an interesting programming/data puzzle and I don't know if it has been resolved before. I think that others have asked about finding ways to conveniently add their Kindle listings, from the device or Amazon itself, into their LibraryThing catalog. Since I don't do this personally, I have not paid close attention to see what has worked for people.
The group Recommended Side Improvements is a place to look to see if this feature addition request has been made (likely) and see if there has been a resolution provided. If you look back for a reasonable period of time and don't find one, starting a new post may be the way to go.
Looking further, I see that there is a way to use axiom to extract ASINs from product search listings and the technique might be possible to get them from the Kindle book list. But it is not simple so I won't go into it right now. There may be easier methods.
James
https://www.amazon.com/hz/mycd/digital-console/contentlist/booksAll/dateDsc/
I think the above link will use the Amazon account that one is logged in as. What I don't see on that page is a convenient way to extract the Amazon product number (ASIN) from these pages. There doesn't seem to be an export. The title links will open you to a page with the number in the URL.
The ASIN seems to be buried in the code so it might be possible to extract it from the page but this is not a consumer-level activity. In my case, the top one on the list (most recent) is B0BR8K6Q92 (Promophobia). When I view the source of the page, I see this in the tag near the title:
<div id="content-title-B0BR8K6Q92" class="digital_entity_title">Promophobia: Taking the Mystery Out of Promoting Crime Fiction</div>
But looping through the pages to capture all of these is nontrivial and could be broken if Amazon made a change. It would be nice if they had an export to let you have a list of those ASIN values. With 26 pages, you must have something like 625-650 books.
This is an interesting programming/data puzzle and I don't know if it has been resolved before. I think that others have asked about finding ways to conveniently add their Kindle listings, from the device or Amazon itself, into their LibraryThing catalog. Since I don't do this personally, I have not paid close attention to see what has worked for people.
The group Recommended Side Improvements is a place to look to see if this feature addition request has been made (likely) and see if there has been a resolution provided. If you look back for a reasonable period of time and don't find one, starting a new post may be the way to go.
Looking further, I see that there is a way to use axiom to extract ASINs from product search listings and the technique might be possible to get them from the Kindle book list. But it is not simple so I won't go into it right now. There may be easier methods.
James
5Maddz
To be honest, my 2100+ Kindle editions were added piecemeal as I purchased them. I download into a suitable Kindle app and import the files into Calibre for further processing. This includes converting to epub, then using a Calibre plug-in to extract any ISBN (although that isn't necessarily pulling the correct ISBN - I've noticed publishers using multiple ISBNs on the copyright page - hardcover, paperback, ebook). Then I log each book individually into LT using 'Add books'. I've never tried batch importing the ASINs into LT on the grounds I want to control what's being added and edit as I go along.
Amazon exclusive books often don't have an ISBN at all. So, if you don't want to fiddle around stripping the DRM, you can import the Kindle files from the desktop app into Calibre as is and display the ASIN in the datalist. (Although the recent changes to the Kindle app mean that books published this year or later may not be easily imported into Calibre.) Note that this would only work for books you own - i.e. 'purchased' even if a freebie. It doesn't cover books borrowed via Kindle Unlimited which are effectively a loan.
Calibre is effectively freeware (actually pay what you want), so it's easily downloadable to try out. I think there may be a way to export a list of IDs from Calibre which include the ASIN. You could try asking on the MobileReads Calibre forum - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=166
Amazon exclusive books often don't have an ISBN at all. So, if you don't want to fiddle around stripping the DRM, you can import the Kindle files from the desktop app into Calibre as is and display the ASIN in the datalist. (Although the recent changes to the Kindle app mean that books published this year or later may not be easily imported into Calibre.) Note that this would only work for books you own - i.e. 'purchased' even if a freebie. It doesn't cover books borrowed via Kindle Unlimited which are effectively a loan.
Calibre is effectively freeware (actually pay what you want), so it's easily downloadable to try out. I think there may be a way to export a list of IDs from Calibre which include the ASIN. You could try asking on the MobileReads Calibre forum - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=166
6simply_jennifer
>5 Maddz: thank you for this! I started trying to pull in the meta-data from my books in calibre yesterday - I need to go sit down at my desktop and see if I’ve had any luck there with the new files.
Other than it being tedious, I think I might be with you that entering them one by one does give more control. And I only have this arduous task once.
Thank you!
Other than it being tedious, I think I might be with you that entering them one by one does give more control. And I only have this arduous task once.
Thank you!
7simply_jennifer
>4 Keeline: I must have more than 26 pages then… I believe I have just shy of 1100 books.
I’ll have to write up a tutorial for anyone who has a large Amazon library and has the patience for a really long and entertaining series of edits in goodreads and spreadsheets and in the end, I had an ISBN or an ASIN for every book. After all of that, I kind of balked at pasting in the ASINs one by one, but as imperfect as an ASIN can be, it probably is the best way to do it.
I had hoped to simplify some of that, but you are right, it’s just a complex.
Hopefully not many people has such enormous kindle libraries.
But appreciate your input and the mental connections it’s given me.
I’ll have to write up a tutorial for anyone who has a large Amazon library and has the patience for a really long and entertaining series of edits in goodreads and spreadsheets and in the end, I had an ISBN or an ASIN for every book. After all of that, I kind of balked at pasting in the ASINs one by one, but as imperfect as an ASIN can be, it probably is the best way to do it.
I had hoped to simplify some of that, but you are right, it’s just a complex.
Hopefully not many people has such enormous kindle libraries.
But appreciate your input and the mental connections it’s given me.
8Maddz
>6 simply_jennifer: Apparently, Big River have unilaterally decided that editions published on the 3rd January or after can only be downloaded to a PC/Mac/other desktop using the most recent version of the Kindle app (there's some fuzziness around this date so best to assume all published in 2023 onwards). Note that this includes new editions of books originally published before 2023.
This means that DRM is strictly enforced and you cannot use Calibre to format shift the file (and there are other issues like actually finding the file in the cruft the latest format produces). I use K4Mac v1.17 to get round this problem (I've blocked the automatic updates by making the update folder read only to anyone but myself).
The other way round this issue only works if you have an e-ink Kindle device using old firmware. You can use 'Download and transfer by USB' to transfer the file to your Kindle, and then import from the Kindle device instead of the desktop app but you must keep your device on the old firmware by never connecting it to WiFi (if it has WiFi) once it's registered.
This is the reason that I've transferred all my pre-orders to Kobo (who price-match), and have moved all my ebook purchases there as well (Daily Deals, Monthly Deals). However, my understanding is that you may need an old version of Adobe Digital Editions to reliably strip the DRM - v2 is safe, v3 may not be. Unfortunately, v2 is 32-bit so won't run on a 64-bit OS unless you like fiddling with virtual machines. Luckily, I have 2 Macs still running 32-bit OS X.
If Big River had restricted this change to Kindle Unlimited loans, it wouldn't be a problem; but they chose to do this for all purchased content as well as borrowed/shared content. It's a pain because I now cannot automatically share content with my partner; he will now have to download a copy from our shared drive and import it into his Calibre instance. (Which might be all to the good - he dislikes having to trawl through any non-SFF so he can see anything he wants to read (cue more online fiddling to tag the back-up author folders appropriately).
This means that DRM is strictly enforced and you cannot use Calibre to format shift the file (and there are other issues like actually finding the file in the cruft the latest format produces). I use K4Mac v1.17 to get round this problem (I've blocked the automatic updates by making the update folder read only to anyone but myself).
The other way round this issue only works if you have an e-ink Kindle device using old firmware. You can use 'Download and transfer by USB' to transfer the file to your Kindle, and then import from the Kindle device instead of the desktop app but you must keep your device on the old firmware by never connecting it to WiFi (if it has WiFi) once it's registered.
This is the reason that I've transferred all my pre-orders to Kobo (who price-match), and have moved all my ebook purchases there as well (Daily Deals, Monthly Deals). However, my understanding is that you may need an old version of Adobe Digital Editions to reliably strip the DRM - v2 is safe, v3 may not be. Unfortunately, v2 is 32-bit so won't run on a 64-bit OS unless you like fiddling with virtual machines. Luckily, I have 2 Macs still running 32-bit OS X.
If Big River had restricted this change to Kindle Unlimited loans, it wouldn't be a problem; but they chose to do this for all purchased content as well as borrowed/shared content. It's a pain because I now cannot automatically share content with my partner; he will now have to download a copy from our shared drive and import it into his Calibre instance. (Which might be all to the good - he dislikes having to trawl through any non-SFF so he can see anything he wants to read (cue more online fiddling to tag the back-up author folders appropriately).
9rosalita
>8 Maddz: However, my understanding is that you may need an old version of Adobe Digital Editions to reliably strip the DRM - v2 is safe, v3 may not be.
I have also heard this, but I can report that on my iMac running macOS 12.6 (Big Sur, which only runs 64-bit apps) I have no problems stripping DRM using ADE v4.x. So maybe it was a problem with v3 (although I never had problems myself), but it doesn't seem to be an issue with later versions of ADE.
I have also heard this, but I can report that on my iMac running macOS 12.6 (Big Sur, which only runs 64-bit apps) I have no problems stripping DRM using ADE v4.x. So maybe it was a problem with v3 (although I never had problems myself), but it doesn't seem to be an issue with later versions of ADE.
10Maddz
>9 rosalita: Thanks, that's useful to know. I suspect the issue is that for most fiction publishers still use ADE 2, but non-fiction (especially textbooks) they are using ADE 3 or 4 which as far as I know may still be an issue. Yeah, there is a version of Adobe ADEPT DRM that hasn't been jailbroken.
I'll probably keep one of the old Macs running just for that reason (not that I buy textbooks (and haven't needed to for many years but I do get the occasional expensive non-fiction book if I have a high % Kobo code available to me).
I'll probably keep one of the old Macs running just for that reason (not that I buy textbooks (and haven't needed to for many years but I do get the occasional expensive non-fiction book if I have a high % Kobo code available to me).
11rosalita
>10 Maddz: For the record, the books I am using it for are purchases from Kobo, and they are mostly fiction with the occasional nonfiction as well.
12simply_jennifer
>10 Maddz: Maddz and rosalita, thank you both!
I have a BOX full of old Kindles. Fingers crossed that one of them works! I've been very disappointed that suddenly my entire collection is now restricted, especially purchases I made without DRM.
I just bought a new kindle in November. Grr.
I have a BOX full of old Kindles. Fingers crossed that one of them works! I've been very disappointed that suddenly my entire collection is now restricted, especially purchases I made without DRM.
I just bought a new kindle in November. Grr.