Parable Books will stop selling ebooks.

[Difflugia]

I just got an email from Parable saying that they won't be selling ebooks anymore.

Dear eBook Customer,

We have recognized you as a Parable.com eBook customer. As of October 31, 2014, Parable.com will no longer be offering eBooks and we wish to inform you that if you have not yet downloaded your eBook or need to download it again, please complete the download via the email link you received on the original date of your purchase. After October 31, 2014, all eBooks that have not been downloaded will no longer be accessible.

If you have questions related to your past eBook purchases, please send your inquiry to customerservice@parable.com.

As always, we appreciate your patronage.

Sincerely,
Customer Service
Parable.com
800-366-6031x4

[HarryT]

Never heard of them. What do (did?) they sell?

[pidgeon92]

Looks like a Christian bookstore, which explains why I hadn't heard of them either.

[tubemonkey]

They're giving you less than a day's notice?

[ShimSham]

Nice of them, to give their users advanced warning.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

Looks like a Christian bookstore, which explains why I hadn't heard of them either.

Yes. They're actually a small brick-and-mortar chain that started selling ebooks something like two years ago. I liked them because each local store has its own webpage and if you bought ebooks through that page, they'd give the local store a cut.

I just felt kind of bad because I used to give the local store quite a bit of business before I switched to ebook. I guess their experiment with ebooks wasn't a success.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

They're giving you less than a day's notice?

Originally Posted by ShimSham

Nice of them, to give their users advanced warning.

The email was dated Oct. 29, but it didn't arrive until sometime after yesterday morning (when I'd last checked my email). Even giving them the benefit of the doubt, though, that's still only two days.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

Yes. They're actually a small brick-and-mortar chain that started selling ebooks something like two years ago. I liked them because each local store has its own webpage and if you bought ebooks through that page, they'd give the local store a cut.

I just felt kind of bad because I used to give the local store quite a bit of business before I switched to ebook. I guess their experiment with ebooks wasn't a success.

That's too bad. How many Christian bookstores sell ebooks - many or just a few?

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

That's too bad. How many Christian bookstores sell ebooks - many or just a few?

Just a few that I know of. Christianbook is a reasonably big one that I know of that's still in business. I don't think it has any physical stores, but the catalogs they send me don't even mention ebooks. Lifeway sells ebooks and is a relatively big chain (and is the retail arm of B&H Publishing), but its ebooks only work with its own apps.

A lot of Christian publishers sell their own ebooks directly, though (Crossway, Ignatius Press, New Leaf Publishing) and just about every "ministry" with an online presence has an ebook store.

[disconnected]

It also seems inconvenient to have to use links from your original purchases to find the books to download.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Nick61

they should have given some more days to download eBooks before they take them down, with less than a day warning, many may lose their eBooks

It just goes to reinforce what I've been saying for years: that you CAN'T rely on a bookstore to keep your books for you. Download and store safely the INSTANT you buy.

[John F]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It just goes to reinforce what I've been saying for years: that you CAN'T rely on a bookstore to keep your books for you. Download and store safely the INSTANT you buy.

And by "store safely" you mean strip the DRM (if it has any)?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by John F

And by "store safely" you mean strip the DRM (if it has any)?

Yes, exactly.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, exactly.

Preach on, brother, preach on!

(note, after I buy a book, the first thing I do is download it and put it in Calibre (while de-DRMing it). That way, I have all my ebooks in one place for easy backup (I copy the calibre directory to a drobo) and easy format shifting)

[Apache]

I do this also.
Apache

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It just goes to reinforce what I've been saying for years: that you CAN'T rely on a bookstore to keep your books for you. Download and store safely the INSTANT you buy.

Originally Posted by John F

And by "store safely" you mean strip the DRM (if it has any)?

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, exactly.

When I bought (and then sold) my first e-reader in 2007, I only read some free books. (And some illegal ones too, scanned/OCR'd versions, as no official ones were available at that time...) Then I went back to paper, disillusioned with availability and quality of both legal and illegal options.

In 2010, there was an e-book boom, making every title I ever wanted available, Calibre had matured greatly, and there was a way to remove DRM. When the Touch appeared, I got an e-reader again. It only got better and better since then.

If DRM could not be removed, I would not have restarted e-reading again, and because of this, I'm getting and buying every book I think I'd like to read someday in the next 50 years, as I can strip DRM and use the book in any way I want to. B&N, with removing download options, and Kindle Unlimited are already pointing to where e-reading is going to go: streaming. As with movies and games, I would only accept that for one-time use products, not for products I want to own.