Fictionwise has shut down!

[pdurrant]

Has anyone received a cheque for their Buywise club membership?

I've just sent a question to Fictionwise:

I'm in the UK, and I wondered what was being done about pro-rata refund for my
Buywise Club Membership, which was supposed to run until sometime in 2017.

A cheque in US$ isn't going to be a great deal of use (or rather, the charges for
cashing it will eat up a considerable proportion). I'd much rather get a credit on
my nook UK account.

I went old school and simply downloaded all my books from Fictionwise and then liberated them, well most of them anyway. It took a long time but I was getting no where with the transfer option.

@shanghaichica I managed to convert my PDB books to ePub but for the life of me I cannot remember how I did it! All my tools were on a desktop PC which crashed a week or two after I did the conversions. The crash was unrelated and fortunately I had multiple backups of my books. I do remember using Google to find out how to liberate and convert the PDBs. I had quite a few of them as I started reading eBooks on my Palm PDAs long before eReaders were on the market. I'll try to look at what is left of my crashed hard drive to see if it jogs my memory.

[pdurrant]

Alf's tools and calibre are what you need for PDB ebooks.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Alf's tools and calibre are what you need for PDB ebooks.

And Sigil to fix the awful formatting of the eReader format.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Alf's tools and calibre are what you need for PDB ebooks.

I thought that was probably how I did it, just wasn't 100% sure...

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And Sigil to fix the awful formatting of the eReader format.

Yep. PDB was very simple in a day and time when Palm Pilots still had 160 x 160 px screens. We thought we were in heaven when they started offering 320 x 320 px color screens! PDB was a very simple markup compared to ePub and even compared to mobi. Well actually I think the markup language was called PML (Palm Markup Language) and the file created by same was compiled into a PDB (Palm Database) so it could be viewed on Palm OS devices.

[snarkophilus]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Well actually I think the markup language was called PML (Palm Markup Language)

Or Peanut Markup Language before Palm got involved.

Cheers,
Simon.

[shanghaichica]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I went old school and simply downloaded all my books from Fictionwise and then liberated them, well most of them anyway. It took a long time but I was getting no where with the transfer option.

@shanghaichica I managed to convert my PDB books to ePub but for the life of me I cannot remember how I did it! All my tools were on a desktop PC which crashed a week or two after I did the conversions. The crash was unrelated and fortunately I had multiple backups of my books. I do remember using Google to find out how to liberate and convert the PDBs. I had quite a few of them as I started reading eBooks on my Palm PDAs long before eReaders were on the market. I'll try to look at what is left of my crashed hard drive to see if it jogs my memory.

Thanks. I have another go with alf's tools.

[texasnightowl]

OK, so I admit I ignored this for a while...after all, I have liberated all my fictionwise purchases from the beginning...but I like the idea of having them on my B&N shelf, so back in Dec., I did opt-in...request a code. Which I received on Dec. 18. Well, now the holidays are over I went to try this and all I get is a message that they are having trouble locating my code and to contact cust. serv. Now, I have not done that yet, but was scanning thru this thread and saw a reference to a 3 day limit...were they really stupid enough to put a 3 day limit on the codes? During the holiday time frame?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by texasnightowl

were they really stupid enough to put a 3 day limit on the codes? During the holiday time frame?

Why wouldn't they put a limit? It's perfectly in character.
Why would they want to make it easy?
Hoop, hoops, and more hoops... Now jump!

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by texasnightowl

OK, so I admit I ignored this for a while...after all, I have liberated all my fictionwise purchases from the beginning...but I like the idea of having them on my B&N shelf, so back in Dec., I did opt-in...request a code. Which I received on Dec. 18. Well, now the holidays are over I went to try this and all I get is a message that they are having trouble locating my code and to contact cust. serv. Now, I have not done that yet, but was scanning thru this thread and saw a reference to a 3 day limit...were they really stupid enough to put a 3 day limit on the codes? During the holiday time frame?

Good grief they said they were CLOSING!! Why in the hell when you were actually lucky enough to get a code and then just leave it to whenever you happen to get around to it when everyone else and their brother couldn't even get a damn code! They lived up to their end of the deal, you DIDN'T.

I have zero sympathy for you if you had acted on it when you got it you would be all set.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

I have zero sympathy for you if you had acted on it when you got it you would be all set.

That's a little harsh. I think the main criticism must fall on B&N for such a complex and error-prone transfer mechanism.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

That's a little harsh. I think the main criticism must fall on B&N for such a complex and error-prone transfer mechanism.

Yes B&N should be blamed for their error prone, incompetant blundering of this whole situation to those of us who waited....waited....still waiting for their codes to transfer their books.

But for someone who GOT the code and then just didn't bother using it right away when he knew the whole store is closing is just not smart.

How many people have lost their books because they couldn't be bothered downloading them after purchase and when they went to do so couldn't. Even though ALL the stores recommend you download right away since they can't guarantee the books will always be there.

If he has been on this site long enough he should know all of this by now, or have a bit more common sense.

If I buy something, I want it in MY possession ASAP. Until it is in my possesion, it is not mine whether money is paid or not. And buying ebooks with the ability to download right away can't make it any easier. It usually takes all of 10 seconds to click download, save to where ever you store your ebooks on your computer.

[texasnightowl]

nevermind....not worth it.

[Mims]

When I imported my transferred books into Calibre, I learned that there is something called DTBook Markup and it doesn't play nice with Calibre. I also learned that badly formatted Fictionwise books are now badly formatted epubs. Fortunately these were already nicely converted and resting quietly in Calibre.

I made a library for the transferred books so I could easily compare what I got with what is in my main library. I'll do that as soon as I clean up the authors and titles. Unknown is obviously a favorite author. I am sure I will be re-reading some of his best works Unknown Web Page and ebook template.

I know that many of us who have had our books transferred, did receive some books we had not bought. Just wondering if anyone else got this one, Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life. Maybe they thought I would need it after experiencing their customer service.

Claudia

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Has anyone received a cheque for their Buywise club membership?

I've just sent a question to Fictionwise:

And only got back a pointer to the FAQ. I don't suppose there are many people on the Fictionwise customer service desk now!