Have you ever ever wished an entire checklist of all of the books you acquire on Amazon? Do you wish to know that are bodily books, that are Kindle ebooks, and that are Audible books? Do you wish to slice and cube your Amazon e book assortment by style, date bought, or writer?
My spouse did. She has 1000’s of Kindle books and doubtless as many Audible books. She has been an avid reader since she was just a little lady, and her e book assortment, each bodily and digital, is a delight and pleasure.
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She's additionally very analytical. A couple of months in the past — again once we have been saving her Kindle assortment for obtain to her pc earlier than Amazon's restriction happened — she realized she wished to know extra concerning the metadata of her assortment. She wished simple methods to seek out teams of books, and to grasp what she had.
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The e book checklist downloader extension
So she took to the Google and did a ton of looking out. Her quest landed her on the Chrome Extension web page of the Amazon/Kindle E-book Listing Downloader, which, shockingly sufficient, is an Amazon Kindle e book checklist downloader.
I made a decision to strive it, too. Why not? I'm at all times interested in what goes on contained in the Gewirtz machine.
You’ll be able to set up it, and it offers you a brief checklist of your Amazon property as an illustration. However if you wish to unlock the complete energy of this nifty little device, you'll need to pony up a complete six digital George Washingtons. Yeah, for $6 for limitless makes use of, it's a worthwhile funding. It's at all times good to help modern programmers.
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Putting in the extension asks for the standard scary checklist of approvals. My recommendation is to disable this factor once you're performed utilizing it, and solely allow it for the few instances you're going to obtain a full checklist.
Subsequent, click on the puzzle-piece icon in your Chrome toolbar, then click on the pin to pin the downloader to your toolbar.
You'll see just a little A icon, and once you click on it, you'll get a drop-down menu much like this.
In case you click on the Get Books button, you'll be given directions about the place you should level your browser.
You’ll be able to run this extension on two particular Amazon pages. In case you run it on the primary web page proven, you'll get solely fundamental knowledge, together with ISBN/ASIN, URL, Kind, Origin, Title, and Writer(s). Origin seems to be the place the e book was acquired, however for me each file lists "buy."
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I like to recommend you select the second URL, as a result of that one generates a spreadsheet with a ton extra fascinating data. We'll get to that in a couple of minutes, however first let's do the downloading course of after which transfer on to manipulating the info.
If you are going to buy the extension, you'll wish to put your serial quantity into the code area. I'm not solely certain why the makes use of remaining exhibits "-4/null," but it surely doesn't appear to affect efficiency.
Ensure you're on https://www.amazon.com/yourbooks. Then click on the Get Books button. Please be aware that nothing will occur in case you click on once more. Simply scroll the drop-down just a little bit and also you'll see this comforting little progress indicator.
You'll know you're performed once you get a file-download dialog. Inform the downloader the place you need your spreadsheet, and also you're performed with this section.
Wanting on the spreadsheet
It turns on the market's a ton of knowledge on this spreadsheet.
Knowledge contains the next fields:
- ISBN/ASIN: That is the Amazon ID for the e book.
- Hyperlink: Hyperlink to the gross sales web page for the e book.
- Acquired Date: Once you purchased it.
- RelationshipSubtype: Exhibits whether or not you bought it, are sharing it, it's a part of the Kindle Proprietor's Lending Library (KOLL), and presumably extra.
- RelationshipType: For me, each merchandise was listed as "proprietor."
- Format: The format of the merchandise; we'll look extra into this later.
- Title: The e book's title.
- Pages: The variety of pages.
- Listening Size: For the Audible books.
- Genres: The merchandise's style.
- Subgenres: This had no knowledge for me.
- Collection Place: If a e book is a part of a sequence, which e book it’s in that sequence.
- Collection: Named e book sequence.
- (First) Writer: The primary writer's identify.
- All Authors: All authors listed for the merchandise.
You’ll be able to see how this would possibly get fascinating. You are able to do lots with Excel and its knowledge evaluation instruments.
I did consider utilizing Microsoft's Copilot inside Excel to cut it up, however then I acquired a take a look at the worth. I spend $99 per 12 months for Microsoft 365 Household for all of the apps and 5 customers. However simply to make use of the AI in Excel, I'd need to spend $20 per thirty days — an additional $240 per 12 months for a single added characteristic. That's two and a half instances the price of the entire workplace suite. I'm sorry, however that ain't proper.
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However then once more, there's ChatGPT. I do spend $20 per thirty days for the Plus account, however ChatGPT gives an excessive amount of worth. To not point out my job entails writing about it every single day.
So, let's feed the spreadsheet to ChatGPT and see what magic it might probably produce.
Analyzing Amazon metadata with ChatGPT
Let's begin with a fast ChatGPT trace. ChatGPT will get very confused when the highest row of a spreadsheet doesn't include the names of fields. You’ll be able to cajole ChatGPT to concentrate to the suitable row by telling it the primary worth, however I've discovered issues go a lot simpler in case you simply chop off any pointless high traces and current ChatGPT with header names as the primary row.
And that's what I did. I then proceeded to add the unmodified spreadsheet file as an alternative of the modified file, thereby complicated it. As one does. I began a brand new session with ChatGPT and uploaded the right file.
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I began off taking part in round with the format area. I advised it, "Tabulate the format area. Present me what number of of every is within the file. Make me a pie chart." I acquired again a pleasant pie chart, but it surely was just a little messy.
I requested it to tidy it up a bit by prompting, "Use labels, however give me a legend for something underneath 2%." That turned out to end in a really workable chart.
As anticipated, the majority of my reads are on Kindle. However I didn't understand I had about as many paperbacks as I do audiobooks. Cool.
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Subsequent, we get to the realm I used to be most interested in: genres. I instructed ChatGPT, "Tabulate the genres area. Present me what number of of every is within the file. Draw a pie chart representing style. Use labels, however give me a legend for something underneath 2%." The outcomes have been fascinating.
It was not what I anticipated. First, I’d have sworn that I had vastly extra science fiction than both thriller or literature. However apparently, I purchased much more mysteries. The younger grownup slice is sensible. There are a selection of nice e book sequence, like Tom Swift and plenty of books about steampunk and dirigibles which might be aimed toward youthful readers. I do take pleasure in them.
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I do not know how 3.4% could possibly be romance. It's attainable some e book that appeared fascinating was in that class, my spouse purchased one thing on my account, or I downloaded it from a promotion at no cost in my bit-piggy section. Who is aware of? Nonetheless, it's informative.
There’s extra data I used to be in a position to tease out of that knowledge with ChatGPT. It requested me, "Would you want this visualized or grouped additional by theme or class?" My reply was sure, and I acquired again this.
I wished to see if ChatGPT might give me a special tackle my e book checklist primarily based on the titles themselves, so I requested, "Based mostly on the titles of the books, present me a pie chart of the ten hottest themes." I acquired this again.
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Weirdly, science or science fiction doesn't present up on that in any respect, though science fiction is usually lumped into the thriller or journey classes. Time is sensible as a result of I really like time-travel tales.
And I'm once more stunned by thriller's prominence on this classification. In case you mix thriller, mysteries, homicide, and comfortable, we get 56% of my reads are mystery-related. However I had no concept I had that many. I’d have thought my Star Trek books would have smothered the opposite classes.
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Lastly, I requested ChatGPT, "Wanting on the spreadsheet, what different fascinating data or insights are you able to floor for me?" This was enjoyable.
It's form of fascinating that my first Amazon e book buy dates again to 1998 — nearly 30 years in the past. It's additionally fascinating, since I learn my Kindle books every single day, that my final buy was nearly two years in the past. Apparently, I've been working my means by means of my assortment (which is, actually, factor).
So there you go: a solution to dig by means of all of your Amazon reads and perceive just a little extra about what you're into.
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What about you? Have you ever ever taken a deep dive into your Amazon e book assortment? Had been you stunned by the variety of genres or codecs you've collected through the years? Do instruments like this metadata exporter make you rethink your studying habits or spark new concepts for organizing your digital library? And in case you've tried ChatGPT or comparable instruments to investigate your personal knowledge, how did it go? Tell us within the feedback beneath.
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