#instapaper

If you have an iPhone and are worried about AO3 going down, what you need to do is go to the App Store and get Instapaper.

You can save tons of fics on there to read offline. There's even dark mode, and you can change the font style and size.

Also, there is text-to-speech, you can organize things into folders, and you can save across devices (save something on your iPhone, for example, and you can access it on your computer or iPad).

And it's free. There is a paid version, but it is just for extras - I have never seen an ad of any type on Instapaper, and I have literally had it for over a decade. Actually, I got it from one of those free app cards they used to give away at Starbucks!

You can save pages and articles and recipes and such from all over the place. Even fics from FanFiction.net (the download doesn't show the ads that tend to pop up over there now!). You can even download entire books from Project Gutenberg!

So seriously, check it out.

hey, I made another YouTube video about how I read purposefully and effectively and how I use apps like Readwise, Instapaper, Notion and Goodnotes to keep track of my notes and reading highlights.

My primary fandom has undergone a lot of changes over the last few years and there is nothing that I mourn more than deleted fic.

A few years ago, I started downloading and archiving a good chunk of the fic that I read so that I could preserve it. I’m up to over 8.5k of fic (which I honestly don’t know whether to be impressed or highly disturbed with myself).  Here's some tricks that I've discovered.

Download Calibre. It's a fanfolk's favorite application for organizing and collecting digital works. Here's how my library looks:

Calibre makes organization such a breeze. You can create virtual libraries, so each of your fandoms are separate, which makes searching easier. I've downloaded all of my purchased books from Amazon into Calibre, for example, using a plugin that inserts my DRM into the ebook and therefore makes them portable, and have a separate library for them. Mobi, Amazon, Epub, PDF, HTML are all supported.

There are a few plug-ins for calibre that makes a fanfolk's life a dream. The absolute-must-have is Fanficfare. FanFicFare is a tool for downloading fanfiction and original stories from various supported sites into ebook form (epub, mobi, html, txt). Supported sites include Archive Of Our Own and Fanfiction.net, as well as hundreds of other fandom specific fic sites (mugglenet and scarves&coffee for example). Unfortunately, Tumblr, WattPad, deviantART, and Livejournal are NOT supported. FanFicFare also does not support or create PDF. Fanficfare is extremely easy to use. Simply search for the plugin, download and activate, and follow the directions to configure the default file to convert, save usernames and passwords (helpful for sites which have age restrictions), and click on buttons to tell the program the format to download and how to manage covers and metadata. You can then download stories individually or as an anthology (I have not figured out how to separate an anthology once downloaded, and I decided a few months ago that I much prefer the "series" way of organizing that AO3 uses rather than combining them all). WIPs can be updated and new chapters added with just a simple click. 

The second plugin that I use frequently is Generate Cover which allows me to insert any fanart as the cover for epubs/mobi. For PDFs, the cover is there in calibre but not attached to the file. 

I used to use Epub Merge/Epub Split to join separate chapters downloaded from LJ as epubs, but since I've changed my methods, I don't use it as much. Still, it’s easy to use. 

Of course, Archive Of Our Own has its own download option which makes it one of the easiest sites to preserve stories for personal reading. Simply click on the download button and choose between epub, mobi and PDF formats. I don't actually like the default format look and from what I can see, the metadata (besides name and author) is not preserved on download, so I download epubs using Fanficfare. YMMV.

Downloading ebooks from AO3 or using Fanficfare will probably save 80-90% fic, but you'll probably run into fic on unsupported sites, particularly from livejournal or tumblr. Here's some of my techniques for getting those fic.

My current method is to use Safari as my browser and use "Reader View." I then print to save as a PDF. If there are multiple parts, I then use Preview on my Mac to combine all of the parts into one pdf.

Option 2 uses two chrome extensions: Boom! which removes extra forms - including comments, headers or random graphics, leaving just the text. I then use EasyReader to format it, and then save it as a PDF. I had problems with the italics and bold getting removed from the PDF and couldn't fix it, so I've switched to the Safari method above.

Other methods that may or may not work for you.

Instapaper is a simple tool for grabbing pages of the internet and saving them to an account for online reading. It also allows for downloading multiple pages as one epub. Unfortunately, it can have problems handling LJ and tumblr themes, leading to wonky borders. It's biggest limitation is that you can't rearrange your links, and so therefore must save and move each chapter in order - which can be frustrating for a long story. I'm having an easier time of downloading as a PDF as above and merging.

iReader. Another chrome extension to enhance the readability. When you print it, it added on a footer with the URL and title.  Unfortunately, for me, it has a tendency to split sentences across pages and therefore renders them unreadable, but I know several people who use this plug-in who don't have that issue.

JustRead. Chrome extension. Removes styling, comments and ads. Also adds a date and an author field (which can be helpful when downloading fic from a community). Unfortunately, it also tends to be the buggiest and the most unpredictable in its output.

dotEPUB. Converts any webpage into an epub or mobi format with just a click of the plugin. It's clean and functional, although it tends not to be pretty and the website adds a standard (ugly) cover to every ebook (I hear you can change this; I haven’t figured out how). For multichapter fic, it has to be used with a plug-in like EPubMerge.

I forgot about FicSave.xyz, which is a website where you can enter in the URL and it converts it to ePUB or Text, which I've used several times, but I overall like FanFicFare plugin better. It is slow and tedious with multiple chapters and tends to stall out, but it can be used with livejournal. I've had much less success with tumblr.

Squee!book still works? Most of the time it stalls out for me, but if you can get it to work, it’ll combine multiple pages into one story and you can add cover art. It was designed specifically to work on LJ, so there’s a plus. 

Other tips:

The only method that I've found that works for comment fic (such as kink memes) is the Boom! extension to remove all of the surrounding styling and just a lot of coping/pasting. It's so tedious though.

I love working with epub because of how easy it is to add cover art and how easily it converts to other formats. PDF has a lovely end product in terms of standard readability but is a beast to convert to epub or mobi and it creates a larger file than the epub.