Adding Amazon

[meandmyhouse]

I am messing around with BookPedia, trying to decide if it can improve on meeting my needs, after using Booxter for many years. Working on several things in checking out imports and such, but today the issue I've been dealing with is adding Amazon. After trying most of the afternoon, I need help, because I'm not figuring it out. I created a new Amazon Web Services account. I already have an Affiliate Account. I created and account at and got the keys at the AWS and then logged into my affiliate account. (Same account log in/email etc.) Got the tracking ID. Put all those into the BP settings. I get the response that I need a Product Advertising API. I've gone in and retraced my steps several times, to try to not do that, but it always comes up.

Is this what I need? I don't understand what it is at all? AND I have no clue what to put in the blank as to why I need this.

Please tell me if I need a Product Advertising API. If so, when registering for it, what I put in the space that says website or application? My website, where I have amazon affiliate links? Just type "for Bookpedia use"?

If I don't want to get his, how do I get it to quit telling me I do need it?

Thanks for your help. Now I'll ignore that aspect while I wait for an answer and try to test out some of the other features of BP.

[Conor]

The easiest is to log into the Product Advertising API. Use your Amazon account to log in, depending on what steps you have already done there might be an intermediate page asking for more information. List your website or Twitter or the final place were you would be using your affiliate links that Bookpedia can help create (Amazon is looking to promote their products so they want a public destination). Once logged in Amazon does not list all the information in one place, you need to follow a few links. First the "Manage Your Account" link, follow it and then follow the "Access Identifiers" link to view your access key and secret key. Copy those over to Bookpedia Amazon settings. (Be careful with double clicking to select the secret key as any '+' signs in the key will break the selection.)

The third bit of information is your tracking-ID from your Affiliate Account. Follow this link and once logged in it appears on the left hand side. It's usually in the form of your ID and a number appended, e.g. "bruji-18".

Hope that helps, if you run into any issues do send me your keys (via email to keep them private) and screenshots of where you copied the information so that I can better help you out and make sure it's the right bits of information that you need.

[meandmyhouse]

Thank you. That did it fine. I just didn't know if that was a required step. I been using amazon affiliate on my website for years and never had to do the product api before. Still don't understand what it is.

Follow up question. I had read somewhere here in the forum that Kindle books could be added by just dropping onto BP in the dock. That is not working for me. I thought that now that Amazon AWS was needed, that maybe it wasn't working for me because I didn't have Amazon in my BP. But it still doesn't work. Can ebooks not be dragged in?

Are the following 2 ways the only way I can add Kindle or other ebooks? 1) by adding by ASIN number for each book I download - or manually, since most I get don't have any numbers to look up. 2) by adding all Kindle books to Calibre then making a catalog there, exporting it as csv, then importing group to BP?

That all said, I did have success in importing (a few of) my physical from Booxter and my ebooks from Calibre. So far so good.

Thanks again for your answer.

[Conor]

Glad you were able to get it set up. Amazon requires it as they just want to make a connection between the API and the affiliate account as they are on separate systems. The data is part of the Amazon Web Services that offers a ton of options and the affiliate part of the web site, so they had to do these hacks to bring them together.

Bookpedia will import EPUB files but not MOBI format (called AWZ by Amazon with their DRM added) that the Kindle uses. It's a close format that Amazon uses and makes it really hard to read any data of the file. There are bits and pieces on the internet on how to try to read that data, but it means a custom made parser that is a lot of work.

So you will need an in between for most of the importing. If you can get extract a list of ASIN numbers from your Kindle files then you can copy paste them through the add multiple window "Book -> Add Multiple...". Set the search site to Amazon under the magnifying glass and it will go and get all the info based on that unique ID and add the book to your library.

If you want to link to the actual file, you then have to drag and drop that Kindle file over the details view or links tab for the book.

[meandmyhouse]

Thank you.

[FineWine]

Bookpedia will import EPUB files but not MOBI format (called AWZ by Amazon with their DRM added) that the Kindle uses. It's a close format that Amazon uses and makes it really hard to read any data of the file. There are bits and pieces on the internet on how to try to read that data, but it means a custom made parser that is a lot of work.

Is this still a problem with Amazon kindle book formats: azw, apnx & mbp

Cheers

[Conor]

There all still closed formats. AWZ is a variation on the original Mobi file with more support for size changes. The APNX is also closed of and a way to add support for matching page numbers to the original print of the book, so that if someone says go to page 232 of a printed manual, you can then match that on the Kindle version without regard to size and display font. As for MBP it's the first time i hear of it, but seems it's a closed of format for listing bookmarks done on a Kindle file.

The developers and users of Calibre have taken a stab at decoding the formats (APNX, MOBI, MBP) as Calibre is a big academic program and it's useful to be able to read the kindle format. But as you can see from clicking those links it's all kinds of obscure and hard to read the data of the file. SO it would require a lot of work to implement. Not that I mind work, what I do mind is that most of the Kindle files are then DRM on top, making any work done useful only for non-DRM AWZ or Mobi files and those start to be few out there.