In the previous installment of this two-part series, I talked about how I got back into reading fanfiction after a long hiatus. This time, I want to delve into the technological details of how the reading actually happens.
As a diehard techie, you know I had to fiddle around with things until I found the best, most comfortable way to enjoy my fics. Then, of course, I had to come up with an organization and backup system.
Here’s how all of that went.
Picking A Device
Deciding which device to read on was a very trial-and-error endeavor. I went through several options before making a decision, including my phone, Kindle, iPad mini 2, and Nook HD.
Smartphone, Amazon Kindle
Of all the devices I have lying around the house, I decided to try the most obvious candidates for reading my fics, my phone and my Kindle. I only used those devices for a brief amount of time before I knew they weren’t quite right for the job.
I read on my phone at first. I was already logged into my Archive of Our Own (AO3) account on that device since that’s where I had activated my account. I downloaded some fics on there, which I then stored on the phone’s microSD card. After some research, I chose ReadEra, a wonderful ePub-compatible app, to read with.
Everything worked well enough. But let’s face it—phones aren’t meant for serious reading. The screen’s a tad too small for my weak eyesight, my hand began to cramp when I held the device too long, and it beat the crap outta the battery life. I could live with it in a casual situation, but I didn’t want to do it on a regular basis.
Then I considered using my Kindle (4th generation) e-Reader. Its e-Ink screen is literally made for reading, after all. I already had the text set to the font that I prefer and cranked up to the large size that I like, so there was no adjustment period. It was a good experience overall.
However, there were three big downsides: 1) I would have to download the files on another device because this Kindle can’t easily access AO3, 2) I had to convert my ePub files to a Kindle-compatible format whenever I transferred them to the device, and 3) I couldn’t do any late-night reading because my Kindle doesn’t have backlighting.
Next!
iPad mini
Surprisingly, my iPad mini 2 turned out to still have some use left besides playing music. On a whim, I tried to see if I could access AO3 through the Safari browser and read fics that way. It was an iffy move. Due to the device’s age, very few websites work properly in Safari these days. Thankfully, AO3 worked without any issues. Enabling Reader View made for an even better reading experience in the browser. I could adjust the size and font for the text, as well as change the background color.
The only problem with reading on the website was that there was a huge chance that the page would break and reload at some point if the fic was too long—like, ~50,000 words arranged into a single, long chapter. When that happened, I would be forced to endlessly scroll and search for my place in the fic from the beginning. So annoying! I assume this was caused by the presumably small amount of RAM available on the ancient tablet.
That’s when I started downloading fics upfront. Usually, I would only download my favorites and only after I had read them. But I decided that downloading them from the start would work best in most scenarios. It would help in the event that AO3 went into maintenance mode or ran into an emergency situation, which both have happened a few times since I got into the game. I could keep reading without interruptions and I could conserve battery life by disconnecting the tablet from the internet. Win-win!
I went with the Bluefire Reader app for reading the fics. The App Store still allows you to download the last compatible version of apps you once “purchased” even if your device is discontinued. In this case, I re-downloaded Bluefire Reader version 3.1.1 (4.0.6 is the latest iOS version at the time of this writing), which I had previously used. Then I could download the fics from AO3 via Safari and copy them over to the app.
This set-up was great. But over time, Bluefire Reader started behaving somewhat erratically. It often lost track of my place in the file or froze altogether. While some of the issues could be due to bugs within the app itself—remember, this is an old version that I’m using—it was more likely that I was bogging it down with the ever-increasing number of downloads. That’s not to mention the fact that the iPad was running low on storage space in general.
On top of that, the iPad itself wasn’t the easiest to work with. I had to connect it to iTunes to drag the ePub files to my computer, which required me to either fire up my netbook (the home of my iTunes library) or boot up the copy of my library from my external hard drive on my main laptop. It was heavy to hold, too.
Next!
Nook HD
The idea came to me to revive my other old tablet, the Nook HD. Like my iPad mini 2, it has long been discontinued but it’s still fairly functional. It has a seven-inch screen and thick bezels, which keeps its weight low and gives me something to grip for a longer period of time. It has native ePub support, so I didn’t need to find a separate app. I can plug the device directly into my laptop so I can drag/drop the files into the right folders. Plus, I can still download the fics from AO3 through the browser (Google Chrome).
I copied my entire fic folder to the device, dropping it directly into the Nook HD’s My Files folder. All of them showed up in the device’s main Library. To make things even easier, I created what the Nook calls a Shelf. A Shelf lets you group books and documents of your choosing together in one place. I named it “Fanfics.” So far, so good.
Unfortunately, the organizational side of things became more and more complicated as time went on. When I downloaded fics from AO3, the files would go into the Download folder. I would then have to remember to manually add those new fics to the Shelf. It became confusing keeping track of where everything was and which ones I had added or transferred.
Another Nook HD problem I had was entirely physical. The tablet had been sitting in the back of my closet for so long that its rubbery back panel had melted into a sticky mess. No amount of cleaning or chemicals could fix it. The best I could do was put a piece of printer paper over it and cut off the excess around the edges. It looks kinda janky, but I don’t feel the stickiness anymore.
My Device Choice
After spending time with the both the iPad mini and the Nook HD, I decided that the iPad mini was the device I would stick with. It has its downsides, but its downsides were less irritating than the Nook HD’s headaches. I deleted all of the fics out of Bluefire Reader except for a handful of my faves and the most recent downloads. This made the app run far more smoothly.
I think I could be happy using an e-Reader for my fic reading. An updated Kindle or Kobo device might be the perfect thing one day. But not my current Kindle.
Organizing and Backing Up My Files
Besides picking a device to read on, it occurred to me that I needed to figure out how to organize and back up the files too. I was up to nearly 80 fic downloads at this point, and I was having a hard time locating specific ones when I wanted to re-read them. Online research told me that Calibre was the perfect program to use for fanfic organization.
It was disgustingly easy to set up Calibre. I pointed it at the folder of files on my computer and it automatically imported them into the program. I was shocked and awed at the magic that Calibre worked with those files. It used the tags the fic authors had included to their full extent. It showed the summaries, categorized the fics by author, and most importantly, grouped together connected fics (prequels, sequels, extras, etc.). I didn’t have to touch a single thing!
As for backup, I copied all of the fics to my external hard drive. I wish I could put them in a cloud storage service, but I’m not sure if theโฆahemโฆadult nature of some of them violates the terms of service. I don’t want to take that chance. Between the external drive and the internal storage of the Nook HD, however, I shouldn’t ever have to worry about losing anything.
Conclusion
I think I have largely perfected my set-up. My iPad mini 2 and I happily float in fanfic-land together every night before bed. It took a lot of experiments to get to this place, but it was worth the work.
That’s not to say that I will stick with this system forever. I’m willing to try anything new and different if it might lead to a better experience. I can’t enjoy the story if I’m not comfortable and that’s my top priority here: to enjoy the fics. Yes, I’m taking this whole thing that seriously.