It is freezing here in Texas. We had a 40 degree temperature drop, and now we are sitting at 24 degrees. You know my prayer. Hold, grid, hold.
The Price of Printed Books
Is it true that the price of printed books will rise?
Yes. Most of the books are printed in China or on paper imported from China. When the new tariffs go into effect, the prices will increase. It is very difficult to shift that production chain. The publishers tried during the pandemic and we had delays across the board. The Ingram Spark, print-in-demand publisher used by a lot of self-published authors, already announced the anticipated price hikes.
How much more will they cost?
We don’t know. Could be a couple of bucks, could be more. There is no way to tell yet. Nobody is happy about this situation, but that is the way it is. The cost of tariffs is passed onto the consumer, and we have to make at least $1 off each printed self-published book, or we cannot afford to continue.
A reminder: the political ban is still in effect.
Kindle USB
Let me say upfront, before there is a panic: this will not affect most people, because most of us do not bother with it. If you are wondering if this will affect you, then you probably haven’t used this feature before.
Most people either read their Amazon books on Kindle or on Kindle app. I use the Kindle app primarily, because I tend to read on my iPad or search the books for work on my computer. My books sit in my cloud library until I’m ready to download them to my device.
Some people back up their books to a USB device, meaning they download those files to a storage drive or a USB stick. A loose equivalent would be buying a movie on Amazon and burning it onto a DVD to keep.
Amazon is doing away with that ability. It goes away on February 25th.
Let me reiterate: most of the users will not be affected. You can still email the book files to your kindle, you can still download the books to your kindle, and they will still be available in app. If you haven’t downloaded books to store them somewhere else before, you will not notice.
Why is Amazon doing this?
Although we buy books on Amazon, our actual ownership is more similar to renting. We buy access to that book for as long as Amazon has it available. Amazon wants to make sure you continue to give it your money. If you delete your Amazon account, all of your books will disappear with it.
We have seen this model before with Audible, which is now owned by Amazon. When you buy audiobooks on Audible, you accumulate credits and if you cancel your account, you lose access to all of your purchases and credits. It’s an effective way to keep consumers tied to you. (Please see correction on this in the comments. Apparently, deleting the Audible account doesn’t prevent access.)
It does afford some flexibility. Amazon periodically pushes updates to these books. We have updated our books before because of typos or some inadvertently poor word choice or something the readers pointed out. If a publisher pulls out and takes their titles with them, Amazon wants to be able to disappear them from your library so not to be in breach of contract, etc. But mostly it’s about money and keeping you locked into the Amazon ecosystem.
Downloading these books to a storage device safeguards against that. If this is a concern, you have until February 25th to download your titles.
How?
Here is a video explaining how to do it. We have no idea if the software he recommends for bulk downloads is good, so we do not endorse it. Please do your research: Amazon’s New Kindle Rule.
Thank you to Jennifer Thomas from the Facebook Fan Group for bringing it to our attention.
Please do not email to Mod R asking her how to download your books to the storage device. The gentleman explains it in the video. We love you, but we cannot serve as Amazon tech support. We are not qualified.
Maggie Updates
The final content edit pass for Maggie’s book has landed. So much work has gone into this monster of a manuscript, and if it was printed, I would be lifting it above my head the way Moses in the movies lifts the stone tablets.
It means we are close to the manuscript being accepted for publication. It also means Gordon and I have a ton of work ahead of us to try to clean the story up. This is kind of our last chance to make large edits.
It is very exciting. We had a title conference and a cover conference, and now we are waiting to see what the art department is going to come up with. It is almost a book. Woo!
Yay for Almost a book, we are so excited for you and for us!!! We will be pa*tient!
Boo for freezing temperatures! Did you know that it is currently colder many places in the lower 48 than it is in Alaska??? I
Did I just comment on a blog post first? probably not right, it’s just a glitch and all the other comments will now load so this comment will look very silly! haha
First. Certified. 🙂
Haha Yay! Thanks Mod R!
Identity theft is not a joke, Jim 🤪.
Hehe. You got much better than a measly Mod R certification!
OMG I got a 1st comment and certification from ILONA!! Don’t mind me while i run around celebrating.
Apologies for the identify theft – my kids love to share and gave me the flu so cold medicine is dulling my current mental capacity!
HAHA
It sounds like it’s as heavy as the 10 commandments tablets!! Yippeeee!!! Words. All the words! Thank you for them all!
I had seen the Amazon announcement on Reddit and people are losing their minds over it. I don’t like the auto updates from Amazon because they change the cover art and I get used to the original art. (shakes my virtual cane at the young whippersnappers that make the titles hard to read so that I have to go by the cover art)
Hee hee hee … and a hearty “ get off my lawn you kids”.
Yes, I have been bothered by the cover art updates … I was pleased to have the original covers. New covers (e.g. first three Hidden Legacy) are nice, but having the original covers always reminded me that I purchased the books for Kindle when first available, not after the covers were changed…. Probably people are split on this topic … I’m just in the don’t-change-the-covers camp.
😊🙃
Yay for update on Maggie progress.
Yay for approaching the finish line with Maggie! Raise those stone tablets up in triumph!
I’ve been using that Download and Transfer via USB option to get my Kindle books ever since my very first Kindle over 10 years ago.
I’ll be shopping at the Kobo store after this. I checked and was glad to see I’ll be able to get House Andrews books there as well!
I’ll probably also finally take the plunge and get a Kobo for my next device. I’d been tempted by the colour versions, but it’s difficult to switch when I’ve been very happy with my Kindle all these years…
I’m very happy with my Kobo. That plus Calibre on my computer makes me a happy girl.
All of the House Andrews books are available on alternative retailers – with the sole exception being the ebook format of Fated Blades (Kinsmen 3), which is a Kindle exclusive, as it was published through Montlake, the Amazon publishing house. The audio and paper formats of Fated Blades are available through other retailers, however 🙂
I’ve always had a Kobo and love them. I also support several authors on Patreon and download my epubs instead of loading them directly, which makes transferring libraries of independent books really easy (it’s also great for story bundles and managing categories). Calibre is excellent for that.
I am also in the Texas deep freeze . . . and really want to be at home curled up with books, movies, tea, hot chocolate, etc.
Yay! for Maggie progress.
Am also sloggggging throug downloading all my Kindle books just to be on the safe side.
I hope this is allowed but I found a lovely shortcut in this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1intfa6/comment/mcgr5mw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Essentially it’s a chrome extension code that automatically does all the clicking for you. It took me a minute to get it working but it worked like a charm!
I hope it helps people, but I would just generally caution against running code or links by anonymous people on the internet – and if you decide to follow Kat’s link, please do your due diligence 🙂
Jinx, you owe me a soda.
Can’t wait to read Maggie. I love long books, the longer the better. LOTR remains one of my all time favorites, mostly because of the content, but I love that I can get lost in that universe for hours and hours. When I read House ANDREWS books, I always read the series books one after the other. I have read each series many, many times.
Thank you, Kat.
This blog takes no responsibility for the use of this shortcut. We know nothing, John Snow, and we are not liable. 🙂
🤣
I’m not sure I would trust that, but if you have an older kindle (mine is the 3rd Gen Keyboard) and you have all your books fully downloaded on that, the AZW files that show up when you plug it into the computer are the ones you’re looking for.
So instead of downloading the files 1 by 1 from Amazon, I was able to download them wholesale from my older kindle device because I could get into the file folder on it easily.
Thanks! That was super helpful. Makes me want to go down a rabbit hole of userscripts, though!
It works! I followed the link in Ilona’s post above which refers to your Reddit link .
I don’t think this violates anything, but I’m putting this in a separate comment for ease of deleting just in case:
I do recommend Calibre for organizing your books once you have them downloaded. It’s free and allows you to edit meta data, download that cover you really liked from X years ago, etc.
I made it a project over this past weekend to grab all my kindle books. I might move myself over to Kobo because they have Libby and Overdrive native on their devices, but we’ll see.
Very excited about Maggie!! Best of luck with the title and cover discussions! 🙂
Wouldn’t you have to rebuy everything? Or are you planning to download from Kindle and then upload to Kobo?
There are ways of converting books over. Many of us are sad about the Amazon policy change because we will buy books from Amazon (for example Indie authors that are Amazon exclusive) and then download, convert the file and then send the book to our Kobos or other brand ereaders. I’ve heard bookshop.org is starting to offer ebooks and if they get Kobo compatibility that will be huge as an alternative!
I’ve thought about switching to a Kobo for the same reason! It is such a hassle to transfer from library apps, but then I started using Scribd/Everand, and it seems like that app isnt compatible with either ereader, so now I’m just stuck with my phone which isn’t ideal.
I’ve heard that the Kobo Plus doesnt include as much as KU, but I’d be curious to hear from anyone who has used both!
Now that’s tricky, because the catalogues don’t only differ per brand, but also per geographical and/or language area. And stuff gets added and pulled over time.
There are self published authors who publish Amazon exclusive, Kobo exclusive, and then some publishers will sell on both but not include any titles in the models… 🤷
Honestly, if you’re eligible for the one month free trial, just have a look through their catalogue 😊
Can’t wait for Maggie! I will be p*tient! Congrats on getting that one step closer!
I know that titles can change but I really hope “Undying” stays in there somehow. It really conveys what the story is about.
Thank you so much for this heads up — first I heard of this new policy. As always I appreciate your blog, its variety is great with a mix of snippets, upcoming books, other authors to check out, great yarn info, and a wonderful insight into the life of hardworking authors and the publishing industry. Your blog is one of the first thing I check over morning tea. Stay safe in this weather.
yay for Maggie!!! one step closer to being able to read it 🥳
Sorry about the cold in Texas, I hope the grid holds. I’m glad you aren’t taking yesterday’s comment to heart, and are posting these fun updates. And thank you for the Tuna photos on Instagram! I have an orange cat too, but he rarely sits on my keyboard 😅
Same +1
Guess I need to research storage drives. Sigh.
OTOH, good incentive to wean off some Amazon services. everything adds up.
Yay for Maggie getting closer to release date! Boo for arctic blast. Hold, grid, hold!
Thank you for the Kindle USB update. I had no clue.
I would say, as someone with well over 2000 books in my Kindle account, I *do* download backups of them.
I’m not so worried about Amazon removing them, or Amazon going out of business, or anything like that. But it is not THAT hard to lose access to your Amazon account, if someone hacks it, bad divorce with a shared account, lots of reasons. My Amazon account uses my Gmail address, what if I lose access tot hat email?
My Kindle library is my retirement entertianment. (With 800 books on my TBR, you bet it is!) Would suck to lose that at some point.
Amazon is changing the terms now — no more download and tranfer. What happens in 20 years when they decide you need to pay a fee to access your books? Etc.
In that case, having a readable backed-up copy of my books would be .. helpful.
For this reason I have started buying directly from publishers, which are also usually DRM free. (Elizabeth Wheatley does this really well, for example.) I can always email them to my Kindle. Sure, there are some things you lose (series grouping, Kindle Web Reader access) but for me it is worth it.
I fully understand that Amazon’s terms rent me the books. Don’t much like it though, and I understand the downsides, while unlikely, are large.
I totally agree and have been downloading and backing up my ebooks for years for the same reason.
I also still have a Kindle Keyboard that can’t connect to wifi and that thing is about to become a brick with this update. Very disappointing.
I’m so excited to read Maggie the Undying. I hope the title remains the same. The little snips and scenes so far have whetted my appetite. They were so good.
Amazon, just…ugh.
Congratulations on your progress on Maggie! I’m really trying to w*it p*tiently. Very excited for the book and for you both!
Thanks for the PSA. I just use the public library for my ebook and audiobook needs and buy GA versions. They are on my phone and I am dreading the time I have to get a different phone later.
Not to be an Amazon apologist, but I had 2 Audible accounts a few years ago. Because I had already consolidated my accounts once prior I can’t consolidate again. I no longer have an active Audible membership on my secondary account. However, I can still access my purchaed books. I purchase all of the Edge books on that secondary account. I frequently go between the two accounts, even though I only have one active membership.
I did not know you could download your Kindle content, but I’ll be doing that as well (I also use the app; I don’t have an actual Kindle device).
I’ve always wondered why Amazon doesn’t give you an easy option to donate an ebook from your personal library to a public library so they could lend it out. I would love to be able to do that. Likewise, I’d love if there was a way to designate that at my death my entire Kindle library could be donated to a designated public library.
I doubt Amazon can make any money from that kind of transaction, so there is no incentive to allow it.
I’d donate many of my books that I seldom reread if I could…
(Blushes) My book list is over 10k. Oops –
Thank you! I’m not savvy enough to download copies like that right now, but I will do that later to my kindle fire. I appreciate you!
We had a few nights with -13°C, roundabout 10 Fahrenheit, so yes, it’s COLD. Feels even colder with wind from the east (in Bavaria)
aaaand I’m starting to sneeze and sniffle, so boooo winter!!!
Thanks for the Update on Amazon, I have to look into it.
I am becoming increasingly in need of a personal assistant to navigate the world for me, curate, back me up to the whatever thing and make it all a little easier for a while. Like just hold the plate, no it’s a platter at this point. A not delicious charcuterie of nonsense. Amazon, sigh. Someone shoe me to the emotional support kittens.
Same.
Thank you for the Amazon info! And congratulations on the progress on Maggie!
I haven’t done a download in a long time but may grab some of the “nearest and dearest” (of course IA books are at the top of the list – need anyone really ask? 😄).
Boo Amazon, yay Maggie book efforts paying off in more and more tangible ways for our glorious authors of amazingness so that they can see progress and light at the end of the tunnel! Yippee and thank you!
It is interesting to me, and I’d love to see the law on digital copyright and ownership, that we can pay almost as much for a digital version of a book as a printed version of a book and have fewer rights as to actual ownership. It is the same content and material. Why is Amazon allowed to retain ownership of one and not the other? As a non-practicing lawyer, I will put this onto my “research to do for fun and/or to practice anger management skills when yet another thing is JUST NOT FAIR”.
Can’t wait for Maggie!
it doesn’t matter how much books cost, I’m still buying them, especially yours.
Yay Maggie! So excited to read the new book when it comes out!! Since it’s being published traditionally will it be in bookstores?
Yes 🙂
Oh! I am so happy for the Maggie news. I was wondering about how far in the process it could be. You know I refuse to die before I get to read the final edition…hehehe!
The Kindle USB issue affects me, and I’m not sure how I’m going to read future releases. I don’t use a Kindle to read on, I purchased a very old, cheapest kindle out there just so I could use this feature. I use a PocketBook (switched from Kobo).
Frustrating.
Which also means Amazon will be losing my future purchases. I’ll have to purchase from somewhere else that I can transfer them to my pocketbook.
I use the Kindle app so I can read on my phone and on my tablet. I’ll be installing the Kindle for PC app so I can download my books to my computer. I think I’ll do the extra step of them converting them to PDFs since A) I already own Adobe Acrobat (which will do the converting), and B) in case Amazon or future changes to tech causes them to move away from whatever ebook format is used on the Kindle now.
Make sure you get the older version of Kindle for Windows 2.4.70904. The current version won’t let you download. The same YouTuber has a video on how to navigate that–just search “drm” on his channel.
Thanks!
I use pocketbook too! I have all my stuff in calibre, but you can do the publisher websites, nook website, b & n and ebooks.com and get real file downloads. I cancelled all my amzn preorders after the 25th and will not be buying books from them anymore.
I highly recommend (the free) calibre for people with big ebook libraries, I have over 40000 ebooks – (don’t ask and don’t ask to see my house cause it is literally wall to wall bookselves and cat stuff)- calibre is easy to use, lovely to find things in and very friendly to all kinds of e-readers, including kindle.
Your comment really made me laugh— good to know I’m not the only one whose house is mainly constructed of books and cat stuff! I think we’re closer to 5000 print books, plus 2400 or so on audio (no clue how many ebooks, but we do prefer print because of wanting to own our books— I didn’t even know ebooks could be backed up— and because if there’s ever an issue with the power grid, or a Shift, a la KD world, it’s hard to keep devices charged but print always works), but we always have more books than shelf room so there are a lot of stacks and boxes of books holding up our walls. We tried using our wide windowsills as shelves but the cats also like the wide sills and had a LOT of fun clearing the books off them before we gave up the idea.
See if you can download Bookshop.org’s new ebook app to your device. They are my favorite alternative to Amazon. Anything you purchase from them benefits your choice of local independent bookstore. I also use Libra.fm as a great alternative to Audible because they also benefit my local independent bookstore.
Much appreciation to your commitment – which you are not obligated to do – to educating AB’s informing the Horde about book/editing-related news and changes. Thank you!
Another comment because something struck me:
I don’t know if this is viable for you, but some authors sell ebooks directly on their website, allowing them to earn a larger profit of the overall price. It doesn’t seem that difficult to maintain — the reader buys the listing and then gets an automated email with the EPUB/MOBI file. This would also help with readers being able to keep the ebook file in their records since AMZ is removing the download button.
Again — not sure it’s viable, just wanted to raise it as a possibility! I would be happy to buy ebooks from you directly if it meant that you earned more per ebook sold.
Edited to add: this would only be for self-published ebooks, of course (and maybe audiobooks).
Hi Di,
The amount of handholding this would necessitate is staggering. We already get a lot of questions like “I can’t find free fiction” even though it is in the menu in 2 places. I would need to hire another person just to explain to people how to download things to their devices.
Ugh, I believe you! I just wish it were possible because I’d love to support my favorite authors directly. If I’m paying $7 for an ebook, I’d want the majority of funds to actually go to the creator.
Thank you for replying!
I read on Apple Books on my iPad. Am I just renting those as well? They seem to be available in cloud if I haven’t read them for awhile.
So excited about Maggie😎
As as I can tell, basically everything is rented now, from everywhere. I used to buy all my mp3s/singles from the iTunes store & then burn them on CDs (this was like, 15, 20 years ago). Imagine my surprise when a disc had an error with the creation & I got a notice when I tried to re-do it that you were only allowed to create 7 copies of “your”music ever. I don’t imagine Apple has gotten less restrictive in the past decade.
The ‘streaming’ (for lack of a better term) model every business seems to run their digital goods off is all renting, except for rare cases like open-source, direct-from-creator, etc. If a business is storing it for you for free, consider it rented.
I had some books on the Kindle app but being Canadian I am not allowed to buy a Kindle reader. I have had a kobo for probably 20 years now. And my current kobo for probably 5. Being able to access my public library and being able to switch where my book is located along with syncing on my phone, ereader and computer is great.
Obviously I’m not great at writing or reviewing but kobo gets 3 thumbs up from me.
Wait, I’m not sure I understood this right. There aren’t Kindle devices in Canada?
Uhmm… I am in Canada and am reading this blog and writing this entry (and reading books) on my Kindle Fire tablet… which I bought from Amazon.ca …
I’m definitely not reading something correctly in Catrun’s comment, my bad.
Trying to avoid politics but as a Canadian I can provide a simplified explanation – Canadians are mad at the US right now, and many are choosing to boycott American products if possible. Kindles are an American product. Kobos are made by a Canadian company (although its a subsidiary of a Japanese one)
Thank you.
The “not allowed” threw me. I understand a personal preference to not support it 🙂
Yay! Maggie is close!
Thank you for the updates.
Stay warm!
Houston is not as cold (Gulf of Mexico is good for that), but the windchill is getting scary for hot house flowers like creaky old me
Just a quick correction about Audible straight from their website.
“Can I still access my Library when I cancel?
You can listen to titles you purchased with a credit, credit card, or debit card anytime. They’re yours to keep and will always be available in your Library whether you’re a current member or not.
You can download titles you’ve purchased as many times as you want, even if you cancel your membership. However, you’ll lose access to any included titles you’ve downloaded that are in the Plus Catalog. Any titles that were included in the Plus Catalog will be locked.
Notes:
You may also continue to use your account to purchase new titles without a membership.
You can purchase locked titles if you’d like to own them or become a member again to regain access. If no purchase options are available, we no longer carry the title.”
It doesn’t help that they engorge the prices for direct card purchase and push you towards the Audible credit system as the much more convenient option – I think that’s mainly what Ilona was referencing 🙂
i have been a member of audible so long I’m still on a $10/year plan and they haven’t forced me to change yet… and no credits come with that, just the 30% off pricing.
I find the whispersync program to be the most useful for getting books cheap, which is where you get the kindle version first the audio is cheaper and it tracks between the two formats as the whims of ADHD and time carry my ability to focus.
I’ve also learnt that if you have some surplus credits, and cancel your subscritpion, you lose the credits. I missed cancelling my annual subscritption last month, so have another 12… I just need to buy all the books I want and then cancel… npo hard really, but I bet I miss next year as well.
I had no idea you could download your Audible audiobooks and use outside the Audible app!! I thought they were stuck within the Audible system! My pet peeve is when an app or software fazes out then you look up and realize all your stuff is gone, so I like to have a backup
OMG I can’t wait for Maggie. And *insert nasty word here* amazon 🙁
You have my sympathy on the cold. We just got over -20, followed by a foot and a half or more of snow the following week. and we are not the coldest spot in Montana by any means. I did have to buy a new car battery, the old one couldn’t handle it any longer.
Congratulations on Maggie!!
I’m absolutely loving this cold front before the relentless muggy heat of Florida returns for the next 9 months… I don’t belong in this state.
Congrats on Maggie!! Imagining Ilona holding up Maggie like Moses made me giggle. I love this blog <3
Thanks for the info on Amazon. I had missed that. Now I need to figure out how to download the books. Thanks for looking into that some.
I too need an assistant to do all this!
Glad you are on the Maggie edit train! May it go rolling right along!
Thanks for this blog and all you do for us! Hope the grid holds during the cold. We just came out of two weeks of deep freeze! But we’re in the Northwest so it is expected to happen once or twice every winter. The weird thing is we usually get a first hard freeze in Sept or Oct, but this year our first hard freeze (where plants freeze) came in January!
re: Audible
if you cancel your membership you still have access to the audiobooks you purchased (but not anything you had access to in the plus catalogue) – but yes, if you delete your whole account even if you did dl the files directly you wouldn’t be able to listen without a lot of hoops…. at least the files i have DL’ed from early on (2006) they had a proprietary file format (.aa).
First of all – Hold, grid, hold!! 🥶
Second – the mental picture of Ilona holding up the Maggie manuscript like the tablets in the Ten Commandments is glorious!! 🤭
Third – I don’t need cable or any other pay-tv service, don’t have them, don’t want them. But I do need books, specifically print books, because they are essential to me. 📚
(Maybe the rise in print costs will help me cut back on my “I’m too tired to cook, I’ll get dinner from the drive thru” bad habit!!) 🙃
oh wow. thank you so much for doing this. for some time now, I have been thinking of moving off of the Amazon ecosystem altogether. does anyone have any good recommendations to replace? kobo?
also I’m excited for Maggie! I didn’t want any spoilers so I avoided all snippets, fun to dive into a new world!
Thanks for posting about Kindle. I was wondering what was going on and what this would mean in the future.
Yay for almost a book! Clap-clap-clap! Sending you thoughts of cozy beverages & warming soup!
Glad to hear about Maggie. Thank you for fun books 🙂
Woohoo! I’m so excited to read that we are that much closer to being able to purchase Maggie!
Also, thank you for the head’s up about Amazon doing away with the ability to download our ebook files. 😡 <– This is how I feel about the fact that we pay full price to "rent" a book that they can yank away from us at any time! This is also the reason I will never convert fully to ebooks.
YAY!!! for the Maggie update! Maybe one of these days we’ll have both a Hughday AND a Maggieday?
And thank you for the Kindle and Amazon info! I had no idea. I would be devasted to lose not only 3/4 of my HA content, but a lot of others!
Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Ah ha that explains why my old PG Wodehouse titles disappeared! I didn’t understand why I couldn’t find them.
It’s very disappointing and I am sad. Thank you guys for the info !
Hello Yvonne,
To clarify:
1. This change in policy will not be removing any of your books. It will just remove, not retroactively, the option to download books to USB. If you have books missing, now, from your Amazon account, please contact Amazon support.
2. This policy has not yet entered in effect 🙂 . There is still a week until the 25th.
Yvonne, you should go to your account on the Web site, check the Content Library and search for those books. You can re-download them before the deadline.
There is also a known bug that if you have kept your Kindle on airplane mode for awhile, when you connect to WiFi again, Amazon starts deleting any books that you transferred to your Kindle from your PC via a USB cable. These could be Kindle books or books from other sources like Project Gutenberg. In which case, you should have those files on your PC and can transfer them over again.
From what I heard on the news in the DFW area when I went to lunch around 11 am, the Texas grid is holding.
Fort Worth is as cold as being up near Michigan right now. Plus, the DFW area got lake effect snow earlier this morning. Yes, the lake waters are that warm to create snow. Not Lake Michigan, Erie, or Superior snow. Just enough to cover the grass.
Thanks for the PSA about Amazon. I have the Nook from Barnes and Noble where I buy all my e-books. The only book I have from Amazon is Fated Blades, and that’s on Amazon’s app.
Congratulations on Maggie! I thought if the book as it is now like the 10 Commandments, it’s going to be a door stopper. Thank goodness for e-readers. Saves on wrist ache while trying to read it in paper form.
As to the tariffs…oh well. Not much we can do on that.
I’m so excited to read Maggie! how do I become an ARC reader?
Tor publisher is handling all of that, so when the manuscript will be ready, they will make the decision. If lists are open, we will announce it on the blog 🙂
Hold, grid, hold! My closest neighbor, a line crew foreman for our regional electric co-op, parked his work truck at home overnight. This is a reliable indicator, if someone had missed all the warning texts and emails, that they expect lines down. The work truck is gone now, and there are several extra pickups in that driveway.
Meanwhile the HVAC is struggling with the low temps and wind chill, so the space heater is assisting. The good news is that, rather than the 22 inches originally forecast, we will likely get only a couple. So I can get to work tomorrow, with a reasonable degree of caution. And instead of single digits, we will at least have temps in the teens.
Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! I have Kindle for Mac, but I doubt I’ll buy another book on it. It’s not my favorite way to read anyway. IIRC I got it specifically for Fated Blades, or else for one of Ben Aaronovitch’s that wasn’t otherwise available at the time. I do have other books on it now, though not nearly as many as on my Nook. I’ll be wanting a hard copy of Maggie.
We are finally out of our freezing spell with snow and temps @ nite in the low 20’s here in Oregon where it is usually moderate winter temps. Hummingbirds stay the winter, I had to keep the feeder free of ice & snow and full of nectar. Hummingbirds stay wars ensued, so somehow they made it!
Excited that Maggie is getting closer to publication!
Woohoo on Maggie! 🎉 Your hard work is very, very appreciated <3 Thank you for writing, your books bring so much joy 😀
is going to be on preorder (ebook) as soon as it is available, thankyou for your hard work!
Congratulations on Maggie!
It is 29 (feels like 19) degrees here in northern NC. So far there are 3 inches of snow in the yard and still heavily falling. Looking out the window in my warm room it is beautiful.
I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe and warm.
Congrats on the milestone. You’ve worked so hard to get there. I hope you had a chance to celebrate (and buy more yarn).
We’ve had some minor power outages (Austin, Cedar Park), lets hope the grid stays up for another 48 hours!
As always looking forward to anything you write.
I am so stupidly excited for Maggie! Thank you so much for delivering new things to the Horde!
So very excited as Maggie gets closer to published. It’s funny but until the first snippets were published and I understood the premise I was fairly indifferent. But now having read those I am all in. Can’t wait!!!
So excited for Maggie! yay!
Yay for the Maggie news, I hope this pass isn’t as tiring as the last one. Meanwhile I hope the grid holds so our authors are warm and able to play, work, eat etc. as they choose.
I read a thing that said that in the kindle app if your book has a tick in the bottom right corner it is already down loaded. When I looked at my library I found most of the books were already down loaded, so it wasn’t much of a bother to click on the three dots and click on ‘down load’ from the list. I guess how long that takes will depend on how fast your down load speed is, ours is pretty good because of dearly beloved needing it for work, and the books were loading about as fast as I could do it on the older laptop they’re on.
Thank you for the Kindle explanation. cleared it right up for me
Yay for Maggie!! Boo for the Kindle news.
Woohoo!! Congratulations!! I’m so proud for both of you. You are my favorite authors and the BDH are my favorite peeps!! I’ve reread everything you have written at least 3 times. Your books are my comfort food!!
When I’m stressed out and need to hide from the world for awhile I pull out a series and read the entire set and when I resurface the world doesn’t seem so bad.
Thank you and Mod R for caring.
“You are my favorite”
I’m so looking forward to Maggie! I’m glad you’re almost done, I know it was a huge project. I didn’t realize the cold was going that far south, I’m sitting in Nebraska dealing with my mom‘s estate, and it’s been below zero most of the week. Not very fun, but at least my house is cozy and warm, and I have young people in my life that can shovel the snow! Can’t wait to get back to California soon, though, I’m missing my warm sunshine. Hoping the power grid holds out for you guys!
Prices of everything are going up, so I’m not surprised that books will be increasing as well. I know you guys have to make a living off of them, so I think we’re willing to pay whatever we need to pay for your books!
Congratulations on ‘almost a book’.
WOO HOO
Will Hidden Legacy books #4-6 also get updated covers like #1-3? If I recall from an older post it would depend on how the new covers for #1-3 sold & just wondering if there is an update. I would love to own the complete set & prefer the new covers. Thank you
No update from Avon at the moment.
I am so geared up for Maggie🥳. As soon as the pub date is known Im going to take that day off and read, read, read! Imagine the Cookie Monster but with a book📚.
I just pulled all 559 of my ebooks down from the Amazon content library. It’s a huge PITA, but it’s done.
Amazon screwed me over already, by discontinuing updates on my Paperwhite, and then pushing one last update that disappeared MOBI format.
I’m done with Amazon. I’ll be making my purchases from Kobo going forward.
Yay for Maggie! Hang in there, and remember to take care of yourselves.
Yay Maggie! ( I kinda hope it stays Maggie the Undying ) I will buy it whatever it is called though lol! I can hear Book Goblin chanting Book Book! BOOK! It is a song in my soul lol New Ilona Andrews world! More Hugh! What ever is after that woo hoo!
Easter Ontario, Canada checking in ….67 cm of snow in 4 days (about 27 inches). It may have been more but we stopped counting. And cold, highs of -14 C (about 6F).
Maggie would have been a perfect read! So I reread the Wilmington years and Innkeeper and hoped that spring hadn’t forgotten about us.
I hope the final editing process goes well for you and that any changes you want to make flow effortlessly from your fingers on the fancy new keyboard.
I smiled at your reference to Moses lifting the Ten Commandments tablets above his head in the movie. It reminded me of Mel Brooks’s take on this scene in History of the World Part 1 when, in what must be the quickest edit of the written word ever, 15 commandments became 10! ( Those interested can see this on U tube).
Chalant! Book of Wanting is almost Book of Having! #afternoontea
I tried to check out a certain very popular book from the library, (780 pgs), and was very uncomfortable trying to read it. Kicked up my carpal tunnel in a hurry. Any chance of Maggie coming out as a boxed set; vol. 1 and vol 2? It would be necessary to be able to order the volumes separately, because the first thing to happen would be to spill hot coco on vol. 2 while reading vol. 1.
Hi Connie,
The manuscript for Maggie is not finalised, so we do not yet know the exact length or what official formatting decisions Tor will make 🙂
I would suggest that if the carpal tunnel is severe enough to affect you holding books, you may want to try an e-reader or an e-reader app on a device you’re already familiar with? Libraries have a vast lending library of digital books too 🙂
Regarding the carpal tunnel:
I put a couch pillow on my lap, not just when using my laptop, but also to support any book I’m reading. Might make a difference for reading heavy books. If budget were no consideration, it could be a lap desk. The pillow works just fine though.
Re: e-books. I don’t do them because the blue glare interferes with my sleep. I also am uncomfortable with the editing and disappearing access issues you were just mentioning. (Plus if I am reading a paper book I am forced to stand up to put it away and walk over to get another.) Also, sorry to say my budget demands I buy all my books used, and am actually on a buying moratorium for the rest of the year. I am proudly claiming genus: BDH, species book dragon.
respect the paper book choice, but search “night time mode” or “sleep mode” for whatever model phone you have. most phones can be set to automatically turn down the blues at night/go into grayscale mode. it’s a lot calmer on the eyes at night no matter what you’re using the magic box for.
Wooooooo!
Yay for Maggie progress! I can’t wait to read her story!
I am also in the Texas freezer. The windchill was -5, and I drove to work this morning through snow flurries.
Note that Bookshop.org now offers ebooks, though their reader app is not available on Kindle devices. They benefit independent bookstores and are generally free of the chicanery that our corporate overlords Amazon are known for. I am reasonably certain that House Andrews works can be found there.
As a mad book owner I must confess I have never owned nor read an ebook. I know, gasp, right? I have probably at least 10 000 paper books in my house and will continue to grow my collection. I have more bookshelves than furniture, lol!
We have currently a balmy -10 C, windy and 2 feet of snow. Good thing I love Canadian winter!
Really, really looking forward to (any) new book from the HA, even with a price increase! I will be fluffy and chalant and p*tient. I hope.
Love your blog, it is the only one I follow, love all the various topics you cover, and ModR you rock!!
YAY, almost a book! I can’t wait!
Yaaaassss so happy to hear about updates on Maggie! Glad to hear it’s progressing nicely. Always looking forward to a new book from you 🤩
i am from germany and i read a lot of books per month, most in english and paperback because i still love the feeling of paper in my hands. up till last year most paperbacks i bought for about 6 to 10 Euros but now i have to pay for the new released paperbacks 10 to 18 Euros. Kindle is a bit cheaper but i had the feeling the prices there have already risen , too. . only old copies of some books are still cheap.
Is it still different in the US?
Mainland Europe here, and yes, prices have gone up. My main gripe is that I can understand why prices go up, but then _they also make them trade paperbacks_. So a size up from regular mass market paperbacks. In the middle of a series. Which means my books don’t fit on my shelves anymore nicely lined up per series because the newer installments are suddenly a bigger size 😭
Is it because a larger book makes it feel like the higher price is justified? Is it because certain sizes are more advantageously priced at the printers’? Is it because bigger pages means more words to the page means fewer pages means cheaper to produce? I don’t know the reasoning behind it, but it really bothers me…
I know, I know, in the grand scheme of things that shouldn’t be a big thing. But it is to me 🙈
US here. I’ve been so annoyed by the disappearance of MM paperbacks. They were my preferred format because they fit into a decent sized coat pocket for waiting rooms, not to mention taking up less shelf space. Here, they seem to have started disappearing as brick and mortar stores started struggling, and as e-books took off. It may be something about the relative price points of MM, trade, and e-book competing for shelf space, as it were. Sometimes you can still find MM for back catalog books.
it’s my understanding that the manufacturing cost of mm paperbacks went up so much that it was close to the cost of printing a trade paperback. Most publishers I buy from (in the US) have quit mm in the favor of trade sized. (of course, they are also more expensive.) While it’s annoying, it is preferable, in my opinion, to those extra tall mass market width abominations.
Very excited for Maggie
I download my books semi regularly; I haven’t for a whole so started downloading my more recent purchases and apparently they’re rolling the policy out in waves. A good 50 books I’ve bought, I can’t download anymore. It may already be too late for you – if you want your books, I’d try to download ASAP and not wait until the 25th
Great news about Maggie, happy editing! Thank you for the heads up about kindle. This is the first time that I have heard about this. Now I have to learn how to download. It always seems to me that temperatures in the lower 48 feel colder than the same temperature in Alaska. Also our winters last a bit longer than they do in Texas😉.
Odds bodkins; what a kerfuffle! I long resisted e-books due to a dislike of non-ownership of them as well as a love of the books, themselves. Then along came an author whose books were only available online, and now I’m hooked on my kindle. Thanks for the information on this; now I need to find what this old fogy needs to do about it.
Great to hear about Maggie getting closer to publication!
Actually, in theory, if you email a copy to the Kindle app, you will have a copy of the book file in your sent folder in email. I’ve no idea what the shape or form of the file will be.
Yay for Maggie almost a book!!! Thank you for the info on the Kindle thing,I kept seeing reels and TikToks about it but none of them explained the actual scenario properly, so this was helpful and I now know I won’t be affected.
My books are made in China?! OMG. Who knew.
LOVE the picture of the library. They don’t look like that anymore. Now there is A LOT of space between few rows of books on metal shelves. And that was a new bldg. Very airy, few books, because they are online. Sigh
Let me state I have all your physical books, and now through Audible the graphic Karen Daniels series and Innkeeper series. Regarding Audible: they inform us that if one quits the subscription one will still have access to the purchased books, thru their app. I am excited that I have found all your graphic versions on cd and mp3. I look forward to physically buying the cd’s from Audio Editions. The only problem is that Audio Editions won’t carry independent Authors such as the fun books by Lindsay Buroker, though she is on Audible and Lindsay offers some of her books for free on YouTube which got me into checking out audio books in the first place. Lindsay’s books are not graphic but the narrator is awesome and talented (it’s a fun snarky ride) for her Death before Dragons series.
While yes, money is a factor, I don’t believe in this case it’s the primary one. Or at least, keeping people locked in likely isn’t the biggest motivating factor.
There have been serious DRM violations and this mode is a main way files are transferred for that use. DRM violations are a huge beach of publisher trust and contracts, and contracts and publisher trust are things which Amazon has to maintain carefully. Due to several considerable software constraints, blocking USB transfer is likely a main way of ensuring that regardless of whether various devices get software updates or not in the future, bad actors won’t be able to download and transfer the book files to crack the encryption. It’s one of the reasons old book file formats have been deprecated as well.
Not to be a Kindle apologist, but for the most part people at Kindle genuinely try not to remove any features that already exist, and especially not ones that are popular and people use. Something like this though is an intersection between free customer use of stuff they’ve purchased and publisher concerns, so the latter ends up winning.
I could be wrong in my surmises though 🙂
*breach. Thanks autocorrupt
Piracy is definitely one of the main considerations, I agree as well 🙂
Hi, I have had a lot of problems with books purchased through Amazon over the last year. I tend to reread specific books after a period (innkeeper series reread 4 times 😁) but last year I found over 30 of my top titles (out of 300) I could no longer open unless I bought them again, I didn’t check every book so there may be more.
It took about 4 months before Amazon backed down but I still had to buy again and then be refunded. Initially they would only give me “gift cards” to use through Amazon but I dug my heels in and received the credit.
This will undoubtedly become a bigger problem going forward.
So my daughter said he script worked to download 25 books at a time in 15 seconds. I’ve been slowly moving to KOBO. My biggest fear is losing my Amazon account and all my books. Also the kobo has a color eReader which is great for comics, graphic art and Manga. Mostly I read on my iPad mini, but it sucks to read outside so that’s where the kobo will be used.
Yeah for Maggie, looking forward to it, and really to everything.😻
Thank you for the kindle info. I was aware we don’t actually own our books we buy, which has always po’d me. I continue to buy from them because a lot of books are simply not otherwise available. I guess I’ll have to decide if I want to spend the time downloading them now.
I buy direct from authors whenever I can. That way I don’t have to worry about B&N going out of business someday, Amazon changing the rules, Kobo changing rules…etc. Most trad authors don’t sell direct, obviously, but there are some hybrid authors who have started stores. I know a few of my reader friends have gone back to paperback just to avoid the whole mess of sideloading, where did I buy this book, does that reader still work. For me, I live two hours from the nearest bookstore. I rely on ebooks.
Stay warm everyone!
The way my heart soared when I read the Maggie update!!
Ilona et-al, I try to refrain from reading on PC-Electronic reader. Studies have shown it’s bad for your eyes, unless you do it using the 20-20-20 rule. Which most of us do not do. So printed books are my mainstay. You can agree to disagree, I want publishing back in the USA, why, simple, Americans are working period. It can double the price of a book, but I KNOW, by my purchase, I am supporting an American person holding down a job. Second, we do NOT WANT to LOSE the ability to do this kind of work, manufacture these machines which do this, or the complex processes involved. Humans, learn by “doing” not by watching someone else do it, although we learn those processes by, watching initially. The old adage, “practice makes perfect” are words to live by. The feel of a book is way more rewarding than holding my laptop/reader.
Many devices now have blue light alternatives such as Night Mode, or Warm Light screens, which are not as damaging to the eyes – you may wish to look into that, it could help 🙂
Printing happens China because there is a significantly lower cost of production, due to a combination of readily available cheap raw material, lower labour costs, proprietary methods (such as those needed for printing colour illustrations with specialised inks) and efficient large-scale production capacity- capabilities which have gotten more developed as years went by and demand grew. The industry has consolidated there. Reaching a similar level in the US and Europe will take a long time, supply crises of material not withstanding – and with perhaps not that much incentive for publishers, as most sales are for book formats other than print. I hope you are ready for a long wait.
What Rossana said. Basically, you can either have a strong dollar and ability to impose economic sanctions on other countries or you can have domestic manufacturing on large scale at decent prices. This was a deliberate choice made by US decades ago.
About the Amazon thing:
Download your books, then download Calibre for free to manage them. Calibre will, with additional some additional (but we’ll documented on the internet) allow you to read your books on whatever device you’d like.
I *hate* the fact that I pay for a book but it still belongs to Amazon and they could take it back if they felt like it. Personally, I downloaded all my books and I won’t buy from them again.
If not for your blog, this new rule would have completely slipped by me. As it is, I learned from the YouTube how to download my entire Kindle library before this happens, found the third party ebook downloader, and found an audiobook downloader for my sister who swims listening to audiobooks on her MP3 player. Very grateful, thank you!
Anyone have news regarding Barnes & Noble (Waterstone) relationship to ebook title saving from nook or their app? I see lots about Kindle, but not other alternatives, but for kobo.
I buy hc, tp, or mass if it’s a book I want to own for life, but still, I’m surprised when I looked over the number of ebooks I own.
MAGGIE!!!
I do mostly KU precisely so that I don’t collect reams of virtual books, so i am an oddity among the Horde there. I get joy in “returning” the books and getting them out of my library. I don’t quite sing the clean up song, but it’s a close thing.
I use my Kobo Plus the same – treating it more or less like a library because I live in a non-Anglophone country so the _actual_ library doesn’t hold very many English titles. (Mind you, Kobo Plus is significantly more expensive than a real library subscription, but oh well. I switch the KP on or off depending on how much reading time I expect to have in the month(s) ahead.)
And whichever titles or authors I discover through Kobo Plus and really like, I’ll upgrade to preorder ebook or, the top contestants, printed copies.
Brrr! Still freezing here in Dallas too.
I always learn so many things from your blog (along with all the fun stuff). Thanks for that! 😊
Stay warm! And thank you for pointing out the Download to USB issue. Really appreciate it.
Thank you for the explanation on book prices going up. I guess I had better buy some favorites now! congrats on Maggie, I am looking forward to reading it!! Thank you as always for all your hard work writing these amazing books.
I’m always happy to see an email from you in my inbox. It’s like a little ray of sunshine amidst clouds of doom.
Yay Maggie!!
Will your books be available on the new bookshop.org ebooks?
Thanks for all the writing that’s helping keeping me sane. Or sane-ish. Stay warm!
Hi Karen, most Ilona Andrews books already are https://uk.bookshop.org/search?keywords=ilona+andrews and will continue to be 🙂
Woo-hoo! I’m going SHOPPING!
Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! I always want more of the all of the existing series but the Maggie world looks so interesting!
Congratulations on reaching the Maggie summit. May it be a smooth downhill (controlled) glide from here.
Good luck with the final edits! It is exciting to be getting a new universe to read. One question is Hugh Friday taking a sabbatical until you finish?
Hi Vincent,
There is no question of a sabatical, as Hugh is not a serial – something House Andrews has repeatedly reinforced 🙂 https://ilona-andrews.com/blog/wait-is-it-hughday-again/ – Is it a serial? No. It’s going slow, and we are having to backtrack, so it is probably not suitable for serialization.
We will continue to get snippets up to a certain point in the book as and when it is convenient and possible with the authors’ schedule. There will be efforts to always have something fun on Fridays, be it Hughday or not, however 🙂
Congrats on Maggie nearing the end! I hope you plan a big celebration when you finish housekeeping it. We’re having weather whiplash here in SD. It’s been -17 (-25 windchill) the last few days and believe it or not 60 this weekend! All the snow and ice will melt and dry up and people will be wearing shorts again for a few hours. I fully expect a blizzard with heavy wet snow causing massive damage sometime in April or May; that seems to be my experience when winter is mild. All the computer comments are interesting, I had no idea.
It finally warmed up where I live. Today is +5C which is roughly 41 Fahrenheit. This is welcome, as it was a brisk -30C with the wind chill most of yesterday & the daily temperatures were in the -20C range w/o the wind chill for the better part of the past 3 weeks. Winter is not yet in our rear view mirror despite the warmer temperatures. Cold weather means different things depending on where you live!
Question: is the library in today’s photo an actual place? Or is it some AI generated image? Because if real, is my idea of what a library should look like:)
The authors do not support the use of AI generated images, and you will not find them on the Ilona Andrews website and blog.
Most of the featured photos are bought on stock image websites with licence to use on the blog. This particular image is the Lusatian Library of Sciences in Germany https://www.mywanderlust.pl/visit-goerlitz-germany/
Right clicking on an image gives you the option to reverse search and find out its source 🙂.
One of the main reasons why social media sucks. Easily spreads false information. It only takes one person to misinform another and BOOM. So many people are freaking out about the Amazon thing even other authors are spinning it as the apocalypse. 😂 People need to do a simple Google search and read the articles linked to it. I’ve explained it to so many people who are then relieved and I even send them articles stating what it means. It’s not going to affect 80% of people who use it. Most people just don’t download like that anymore. They indeed use the Kindles and the app. This honestly doesn’t surprise me. Things are going to be changing soon for a lot of things especially in regards to electronics/digital things. People are used to the hard copies of things they buy or something they can touch or have access to whenever they want it. Not unreasonable. Amazon is money hungry and that will never change especially considering their “Prime’ is a failure. It’s not a good deal anymore and many other retailers offer the same thing if not better incentives and cheaper.
Excited about Maggie 😁
I love renting for access but I think when you buy a book, and you pay market value for that book, regardless of the format, you should own it. Which means you don’t lose access to it when you don’t play with the provider. Fortunately, while they are the fastest and easiest, Amazon isn’t the only game in town. I guess it’s time to look into Kobo and the like. Will I find your books on other e-book sites as easily as I do Amazon?
All of the House Andrews books are available on major retailers websites, as well as a few indie alternatives.
If you go to the Read Our Books section of the website https://ilona-andrews.com/books/ , we have tried to include several retail options for each book entry, because the aim is always to make it as available as possible 🙂.
The sole exception is the ebook format of Fated Blades (Kinsmen 3), which is a Kindle exclusive, as it was published through Montlake, the Amazon publishing house.
The audio and paper formats of Fated Blades are available through other retailers, however 🙂
I’m shocked, truly shocked at how many people are shocked that tariffs will make most of your purchases from any given tarif-levied country more expensive. It has always been tat way. It will always be that way.
[Edit Mod R]
A reminder that the political ban is still in place, and the authors wish to have a space free of political discussion.
This was simply ment to be an economic commentary. In other words, what Ilona said… When Tariffs (taxes) are levied on countries, they simply pass on those costs to the consumer- almost every time.
Thank you for the excellent break down. I typically read through my kindle app b/c it is just the easiest way for me, these days. So I’m glad to know things won’t be changing in the way I use my ebooks.
I’m pretty familiar with the idea that things can disappear from a library since I’ve been a faithful spotify user for a long time. It sucks that paper/printed book prices are going up, but from my perspective everything is going up in price so it makes sense that book prices will too.
I worry for authors and aspiring authors tho, higher book prices will make it harder to sell your work.
It seems that because I don’t have Kindle, the download option is not available. I have the Kindle app on both PC and android phone but nothing I do will allow me to download any books. 🤔
The download to usb option is on the actual Amazon website when you go to your digital content library. If you go to the website on your computer, you should be able to download the files. No need to own a kindle!
Thanks for the heads up about Amazon, I expressed displeasure through their customer service and demanded follow up. Let’s see if I get a response (I’m thinking it’s not likely).
I prefer to read real paper books, but not super big ones. The last 700+ pager (Susan J. Maas) was annoying, so I’ll probably get Maggie digitally. The main reason I prefer paper is I see them sitting on the shelf to take down and read again. In the computer they pretty much disappear after the initial read.
Ton of clean up on Maggie. I must have misread earlier about six edits being done already. I feel sorry for you guys. To me ( I don’t know anything about publishing) it seems like a horrible amount of work and time. I’m glad the BDH gets the finished product. Carry on brave soldiers. We gladly await the results of your efforts.
Seriously, it really does seem to be horrible. Hopefully it only seems that way
It’s the life cycle of a book 🙂. Several rounds of self edits, then editor developmental edits, line edits, beta edits etc.
I’ve copied a link from a bookriot.com article about tariffs and book costs.I found it interesting. You may have to cut and paste it into your browser.
https://bookriot.com/how-tariffs-will-impact-book-costs-for-readers/
So that is why the small print “buying a license “ pops up with kindle purchase
Yeah! Excitement! Anticipation! Can’t wait!!
Book! Woohoo with a cherry on top!
It is times like this that I wish I could draw!! I have this image of you both standing there with the tablet of Maggie and the BDH below giving reverence!
Congrats on almost-a-book!
If you want to move your books to a computer after February, a workaround might be to download the book to your kindle, then connect the kindle to your computer via USB and simply copy the books from the kindle to your computer.