#squeebook

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.

First, what’s up with meeee. I joined @spndystopiabang​ ! Super stoked for that. Brainstorming dystopia+fantastical creatures like last time (I did Moon-kissed last time for this bang) bc for some reason I like that combo. Like yeah this precious super cool magical creature, but everything’s horrible, haha. I’m also getting a lot more active on social media, specifically mastodon and twitter. so idk if anybody would like to find me there, I’m there. 

I’m developing r/spnfanfiction out on reddit. You can request an invite but it’ll go public very soon regardless. I do really wish fans would consider spending time on reddit. The tools to curate your experience are excellent:

Next, some really unfortunate news: a huge loss for fic archivists. Squeebook.net looks like it’s permanently down. It was a site used to create epubs out of fics that were posted to LJ.

In happier news, Goodreads’ Choice Awards of 2020 are out and I’m excited to read a lot of winners. Also I highly recommend the films Love & Monsters starring Dylan O’Brien - it was a surprisingly sentimental and engaging adventure story! Also Greenland starring Morena Baccarin and Gerard Butler was a riveting apocalypse disaster movie imo. I haven’t seen such a good one in a really long time. Seriously, kudos. 

There was a landfall of news the past week. I’m most excited for Charlie Cox to reprise his role as Daredevil for Spider-man 3. And then also this Alien tv series on FX that’s gearing up. “ Set not too far into our future, it’s the first ‘Alien’ story set on Earth—and by blending both the timeless horror of the first ‘Alien’ film with the non-stop action of the second, it’s going to be a scary thrill ride that will blow people back in their seats.” - Variety article. That sounds awesome to me.

Next up, a fic rec! It’s a work that’s been orphaned, and thank you thank you thank you to all those authors who orphan their works and not delete them. You’re the real MVPs.

When the Sun Came Up (You Were Looking at Me) by orphan_account. Rated NC-17, Dean/Sam, 29k words. Summary:  Azazel isn't a demon, the Winchesters don't hunt, and when Sam is taken to Cold Oak, he's turned into an omega. Dean is his alpha. ao3.org/works/4221966 my thoughts: Really liked this fic. The drama between Sam and Dean as a forced omega & alpha pair (by means of evil labs led by azazel) was really well done and then the cure, and the tension between Sam and Dean on how to fix their relationship. Exciting and angsty a/b/o! It’s not an exact fit bc I don’t think they actively turn into animals at any point but I’ve added this rec to my animal transformation reclist bc it’s where I put all my other a/b/o ficrecs 👍

I can’t tell y’all how incredibly grateful I am this website exists. This website is for creating epubs of fanfic that hasn’t been hosted on a fanfic database site like FFnet or AO3 (where you can quickly & easily pluck their epubs for download). This is extremely relevant for me because AO3 didn’t even exist when Supernatural started, and instead at the time many fans used Livejournal, where they posted chapter updates as blog posts with a link to fic’s masterpost containing all the links to the fic as they wrote. 

So for 3 whole years, Sam&Dean and Sam/Dean fic was huge on Livejournal, with many LJ comms & bangs so successful that they’re still thriving today. But 3 years is also enough time for many incredible authors to come & go & never x-post, thereby making it pretty difficult to download those fics (bc even copying & pasting was a disaster : ‘select all’ included an LJ blog’s sidebar content, links, etc. iirc).

Enter squee!Book.net. Lifesaver! ❤️️❤️️❤️️

Hi! I am, and I’m glad it was useful! Unfortunately I’m not sure I actually have the code anymore - even if I do tbh it’s so old it probably won’t be usable.

My new favourite site considering I got an e-reader for christmas :3

This, combined with Sigil and the comics-reader I managed to install on my e-reader will make me really use the thing.