Have you ever ever wished a whole checklist of all of the books you obtain 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 guide 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 slightly woman, and her guide assortment, each bodily and digital, is a satisfaction and pleasure.
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She's additionally very analytical. A number of months in the past — again once we have been saving her Kindle assortment for obtain to her pc earlier than Amazon's restriction befell — she realized she wished to know extra in regards to the metadata of her assortment. She wished simple methods to search out teams of books, and to know what she had.
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The guide checklist downloader extension
So she took to the Google and did a ton of looking. Her quest landed her on the Chrome Extension web page of the Amazon/Kindle Ebook Record Downloader, which, shockingly sufficient, is an Amazon Kindle guide checklist downloader.
I made a decision to strive it, too. Why not? I'm all the time interested in what goes on contained in the Gewirtz machine.
You may set up it, and it provides you with a brief checklist of your Amazon belongings as an indication. However if you wish to unlock the total energy of this nifty little software, you'll need to pony up an entire six digital George Washingtons. Yeah, for $6 for limitless makes use of, it's a worthwhile funding. It's all the time good to help revolutionary programmers.
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Putting in the extension asks for the same old scary checklist of approvals. My recommendation is to disable this factor once you're executed 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 slightly A icon, and once you click on it, you'll get a drop-down menu much like this.
If you happen to click on the Get Books button, you'll be given directions about the place it is advisable to level your browser.
You may run this extension on two particular Amazon pages. If you happen to run it on the primary web page proven, you'll get solely fundamental knowledge, together with ISBN/ASIN, URL, Sort, Origin, Title, and Creator(s). Origin seems to be the place the guide was acquired, however for me each document 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 attention-grabbing info. 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 subject. I'm not solely certain why the makes use of remaining reveals "-4/null," however it 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 if you happen to click on once more. Simply scroll the drop-down slightly bit and also you'll see this comforting little progress indicator.
You'll know you're executed once you get a file-download dialog. Inform the downloader the place you need your spreadsheet, and also you're executed with this part.
Trying on the spreadsheet
It turns on the market's a ton of data on this spreadsheet.
Knowledge consists of the next fields:
- ISBN/ASIN: That is the Amazon ID for the guide.
- Hyperlink: Hyperlink to the gross sales web page for the guide.
- Acquired Date: While 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 guide'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.
- Sequence Place: If a guide is a part of a sequence, which guide it’s in that sequence.
- Sequence: Named guide sequence.
- (First) Creator: The principle writer's identify.
- All Authors: All authors listed for the merchandise.
You may see how this would possibly get attention-grabbing. 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 received a take a look at the worth. I spend $99 per yr 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 monthly — an additional $240 per yr for a single added function. 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 monthly for the Plus account, however ChatGPT offers quite a lot of worth. To not point out my job includes writing about it on daily basis.
So, let's feed the spreadsheet to ChatGPT and see what magic it might 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 comprise the names of fields. You may cajole ChatGPT to concentrate to the proper row by telling it the primary worth, however I've discovered issues go a lot simpler if you happen to simply chop off any pointless high strains 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 proper file.
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I began off taking part in round with the format subject. I informed it, "Tabulate the format subject. Present me what number of of every is within the file. Make me a pie chart." I received again a pleasant pie chart, however it was slightly messy.
I requested it to tidy it up a bit by prompting, "Use labels, however give me a legend for something beneath 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 subject. 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 beneath 2%." The outcomes have been attention-grabbing.
It was not what I anticipated. First, I might 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 variety of nice guide sequence, like Tom Swift and plenty of books about steampunk and dirigibles which can be geared 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 doable some guide that appeared attention-grabbing was in that class, my spouse purchased one thing on my account, or I downloaded it from a promotion without cost in my bit-piggy part. Who is aware of? Nonetheless, it's informative.
There may be extra info 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 received again this.
I wished to see if ChatGPT may give me a unique tackle my guide 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 received 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 shocked by thriller's prominence on this classification. If you happen to mix thriller, mysteries, homicide, and comfortable, we get 56% of my reads are mystery-related. However I had no thought I had that many. I might have thought my Star Trek books would have smothered the opposite classes.
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Lastly, I requested ChatGPT, "Trying on the spreadsheet, what different attention-grabbing info or insights are you able to floor for me?" This was enjoyable.
It's sort of attention-grabbing that my first Amazon guide buy dates again to 1998 — nearly 30 years in the past. It's additionally attention-grabbing, since I learn my Kindle books on daily basis, that my final buy was nearly two years in the past. Apparently, I've been working my manner by way of my assortment (which is, actually, an excellent factor).
So there you go: a approach to dig by way of all of your Amazon reads and perceive slightly extra about what you're into.
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What about you? Have you ever ever taken a deep dive into your Amazon guide assortment? Have been you shocked by the variety of genres or codecs you've amassed 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 if you happen to've tried ChatGPT or comparable instruments to research your personal knowledge, how did it go? Tell us within the feedback beneath.
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