GUIDE: Finding Ebooks on IRC and loading them onto a kindle directly from your Android phone:
====== SETUP =======
1.) Download and install this IRC app or another one from the Play Store if you prefer.
2.) Install this converter app, because you’ll probably need to convert to .mobi format or something.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.daemon.ebookconverter3.) Make sure the IRC app has Storage permissions so it can download files by long-pressing the IRC app icon, going to App Info > Permissions > Storage > and making sure it’s showing as Allow.
4.) Open the IRC app, and go to the three dots in the upper right (ie. the menu) and choose Settings. Pick a username of your choice, and enter it as the Default Nickname, Default Ident String, and Default Name String. Make sure you choose something unique that no one else would have. Avoid special characters and spaces.
5.) Go back to the main IRC screen and choose “New Server” at the bottom. Enter the following:
Server: irc.irchighway.net
Desc: IRC Highway
Port: 6667
Join Channels (space delimited): #ebooks
Save
This will have setup the proper server (IRCHighway.) There are others (like Undernet) but this one should handle 99% of your needs. If you need to setup Undernet, the channels are #Bookz and #ebooks FYI.
======= FINDING AND DOWNLOADING YOUR EBOOKS =======
1.) From the main menu, click IRC Highway, and wait for it to log you in (bunch of code and crap should go by.) Up a the top you’ll see “(srv)” and “Auth” and then after a couple seconds (assuming login goes ok) you should see a third bit that says “#ebooks.” It should have brought you into that window (the #ebooks window) but if it didn’t go ahead and click on #ebooks up at the top and it’ll take you to that tab. You’ll know you’re in the right place b/c you’ll see a ton of people in the chat doing searches for ebooks.
2.) The way you’re going to search is by issuing commands to the bots that have been setup in this channel. The commands are issued by typing into the text box at the very bottom (directly to the left of the ‘send’ arrow button.) The first command you’ll be using is the Search command. It’s structured as follows:
“@Search <book name or author name>” less the quotes, and replacing the arrow-bracketed stuff with whatever it is you’re searching.
For example, if I want to search for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I’l probably just do @Search Deathly Hallows, because I doubt there are any other books that search would return.
If however I want a book titled “Freedom” or something, I’m obviously going to have to include author info (let’s say the author is Marty McFly) or I’m going to get a crazy amount of results. So for example I’d do @Search Freedom McFly, or something like that.
3.) Once you have your search typed up, hit the send arrow. The result of the search command is that the bots all search their repositories for matches, the results get combined behind the scenes into a zipped text file, and then that text file with all those results is offered to you for download. You’ll need to click “Accept” on the DCC GET notification to download the zipped text file. Don’t wait too long or it’ll time out and you’ll have to run the search again. If you’ve done this completely, you’ll see it marked completed in your notifications bar.
4.) Open your File Browser, like MiXplorer and navigate to the downloaded zip file. Click into the zip file and then open the txt file (choose Text Editor by MiXplorer to open it.)
This list is pretty strange looking, so take a minute and look through it to familiarize yourself with the format. What you’re looking at is a list of commands that will allow you to download the ebooks - each line is a different command referencing a different file, so your job is going to be to pick the file you think you’d like, copy that line, and paste it back into the IRC window.
The command syntax used here is as follows:
“!NameOfTheBot Name Of The Ebook File” less the quotes.
In order to parse the list, I suggest doing a search. What you’re searching for is up to you, but my guess is that files with “retail” in their name are going to be formatted a bit nicer - you’ll probably want to verify that though with a bit of trial and error.
When you initiate a search, you’ll notice the top bar will show you how many results were found, and show you which one you’re on (like 6 / 10 means you’re looking at the 6th instance of whatever the search term is.) There are up and down buttons in the upper right of the screen that will skip up and down through the matches.
Ones with “enhanced” are going to be large file sizes b/c they have additional multimedia, so I’d probably skip those.
You’ll want to look for either epub or mobi format. Mobi files can be sideloaded directly to the kindle without further converting, but mostly you’ll find epubs, and converting isn’t hard, so I wouldn’t let that be the determining factor.
5.) Once you’ve identified what file you want to download, highlight the entire command, starting with the exclamation point and terminating right before the next exclamation point. Once it’s highlighted, hold-press and then choose Copy.
NOTE: Sometimes the file will end with the extension (like .epub or .mobi) but sometimes there’s additional text continuing after the extension like “::INFO:: 6.2MB” for example. You want all of it, regardless of what the final text is – the whole lot of it is part of the file name, oddly enough.
6.) Switch back to your IRC window, and paste the command into the text field, then hit send. You’ll see the command you pasted initiate contact with the bot referenced directly after the exclamation point, and then that bot will try to give you the download for that file. You’ll need to click accept to initiate the download.
7.) Once you’ve downloaded the ebook file, return to MiXplorer, and find the file (it’ll be a .rar and should contain the name of your book. Long-click on it until it’s selected, then from the upper right hand [three dots] menu, choose Extract. You can extract in place, or into a separate folder - it doesn’t really matter. Next go up to the top and click the notepad icon, and then click the Extract Operation to run the extract. FYI the first time you do this, MiXplorer may require you to download a zip file addon to do the extracting. Go ahead and do that if it does.
8.) If the file is already in Kindle-friendly format, you can transfer it to your kindle by USB C cable (see below.) If it isn’t, you’ll need to convert it before transferring.
====== CONVERT YOUR EBOOKS TO A COMPATIBLE FORMAT ======
1.) To convert, open the Ebook Converter app, click the plus button, and then the ‘select file button.’ This should pop up a list of apps you can use to browse your files, so choose MiXplorer and go find and choose the ebook you just extracted (probably an epub file.) Once you see your ebook loaded into the converter app, click over to the Converting tab. NOTE: if you’re doing multiple ebooks, you can load a bunch of them in, and then the converting tab will batch convert for you, which will be faster.
2.) On the Converting tab, make sure your Destination Directory is where you want (you may want to create a new folder for converted ebooks inside the Download directory for example.) Next make sure that you have the proper output file type selected (more on this below.) Finally, click Convert.
NOTE: Mobi format does work with kindle, however it is the oldest format, and there may be better choices. You’ll probably want to compare them when you have some time and see what works best. Here are two discussions on the topic that should shed some light on the matter.
https://www.reddit.com/r/kindle/comment ... &context=3https://www.reddit.com/r/kindle/comment ... _azw3_kfx/To convert the app will (1) upload the file(s) (2) wait for their servers to convert (3) re-download the file(s). This can take anywhere from a couple second to a couple minutes per file, and will depend a bit on your connection speed for uploading and downloading, so you will need to be patient.
====== Sideload your ebooks via USB C ======
1.) When you connect your phone to your kindle you need to know that the Kindle is likely going to being charging off of your phone’s battery, which is going to drain your phone pretty quickly, so make sure you have a good amount of battery.
2.) In order to transfer files, you need the kindle to be recognized by your android device as a storage device. You’ll need to access a hidden Developer Options menu to do this.
On your kindle, Go to Settings > Device Options > About Fire Tablet
Tap your Serial Number seven times.
Return to Device Options.
A new menu appears called "Developer Options."
Find the setting Default USB Configuration, and change it to “File Transfer”
You shouldn’t need to do this again - it should stick
3.) Plug the devices together with a USB cable, then go to MiXplorer on your Android phone. Swipe from the very left side of the screen towards the middle, and you should see the kindle’s storage there, which you can click into and browse.
4.) Go back to that left-side menu and back to your Internal Storage (that’s your phone.) Find the books you’re going to transfer and long press, then select them all one by one, and finally copy them.
5.) Return to the USB storage (which is the kindle) via the left-hand menu, and then paste the files you copied into the Books folder on the Kindle (or the Documents folder?)
6.) Be aware that the transfer process may take a while if they’re large files, and also be aware that it may take the kindle a little while to index everything once the transfer is complete. A reboot of the kindle may help after you see the paste completed.
Save