Books removed from fictionwise?

[Bob Butler]

Originally Posted by shadowcat1017

Based on that figure, they claim to have had 7,500,000 books for sale. I question that number

I'm sure they meant the number of copies sold, not individual titles.

Since B&N owns Fictionwise, one would think that FW could offer agency titles if they were willing to accept the same terms B&N does. I assume the reason they haven't has to do their inability to honor the Buywise club or use Micropay rebates with agency pricing. Hopefully they are trying to work it out.

[shadowcat1017]

Originally Posted by Bob Butler

I'm sure they meant the number of copies sold, not individual titles.

Ah yes, that would make more sense, wouldn't it? And now I feel stupid.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler

Since B&N owns Fictionwise, one would think that FW could offer agency titles if they were willing to accept the same terms B&N does. I assume the reason they haven't has to do their inability to honor the Buywise club or use Micropay rebates with agency pricing. Hopefully they are trying to work it out.

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping too. I have to say that Fictionwise's Buywise club and micropay rebates have been one of the biggest reasons that I've bought my books almost exclusively from Fictionwise over the last five years. I don't necessarily mind buying an ebook at the same price that the hardcopy sells for, but I balk at paying more for an electronic copy than a paper copy. And even the brick and mortar stores all have some form of rewards program to promote store loyalty, or at least the major chains do -- Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble, etc. It seems vastly unfair to me that ebook sellers are having to discontinue the electronic version of an established practice. I can only hope it will all work out in the end.

[Marcy]

Three ebooks I bought in the days just before this agency nonsense are not downloadable for me. I didn't realize I wouldn't have access to them less than 2 days after purchasing them, so don't have any copies. I wrote to Fictionwise about it today and am confident I will get my Micropay refunded. But I am so pissed that a publisher would yank access to a book that was *already paid for* that I just visited the darknet and got copies of them all. I'll be damned if I'm going to beg someone to take my money. I've already given it to them once and that is enough in my book.

-Marcy

[lene1949]

Originally Posted by Marcy

Three ebooks I bought in the days just before this agency nonsense are not downloadable for me. I didn't realize I wouldn't have access to them less than 2 days after purchasing them, so don't have any copies. I wrote to Fictionwise about it today and am confident I will get my Micropay refunded. But I am so pissed that a publisher would yank access to a book that was *already paid for* that I just visited the darknet and got copies of them all. I'll be damned if I'm going to beg someone to take my money. I've already given it to them once and that is enough in my book.

-Marcy

I agree... 40% of the books I have bought are not available..

PS - I also wrote to Fictionwise..

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by lene1949

I agree... 40% of the books I have bought are not available..

PS - I also wrote to Fictionwise..

I'm sure lots of the other hundreds of books I bought at Fictionwise aren't available, but at least I already downloaded them and backed them up. I bought a couple of titles that I didn't download, assuming I would get them a few days later. Well a few days later they weren't downloadable. Totally bogus. While I don't agree with it, I can at least see not letting a retailer sell them anymore. But removing access for that retailer's customers that have *already paid for the books* is just bullfeces.

-Marcy

[langshipley]

Originally Posted by shadowcat1017

I just did a quick search for Nora Roberts (as a very popular author with a large catalog for comparison), and Fictionwise, Books on Board, Diesel Books, and Mobipocket.com each only had 7 - 10 of her books available, but Amazon's Kindle store, Sony's reader store, and Barnes & Noble.com all seem to have pretty much her entire catalog of ebooks available. Is it all about the power of the big names (Amazon, Sony, B&N) vs. the little guys? Do we think that Fictionwise and the rest will ever recover? Since B&N.com seems not to be having any problems, and since they own Fictionwise now, it seems likely to me that Fictionwise will just be phased out.

Thanks for this. I went onto B&N to look for the eBook version of a book that is due to release soon and found that it was listed for sale and was pleased to see it is available in eBook.

I signed up for it (but haven't bought yet).

Downloaded the app to my iPhone and tried to purchase an eBook from B&N but got stopped because it wanted an US address for purchasing. Grrr .... it's an eBook for goodness sakes. Don't they know that the term "electronic" automatically bypasses geography?

Also noticed that eBook purchases get delivered only 1 hour after purchase rather than immediately. You take my money immediately and you don't let me have what I bought immediately?

Hmmmm ... okay that was 2 rants there.

[langshipley]

The other problem with the B&N eBooks is that is looks like it needs to be delivered only via Wifi (Nook?) and 3G (iPhone or iPod Touch or Blackberry?) and I have not figured out how to download and backup purchases to the PC, what format the books are delivered in (eReader? Mobi? etc.). Cant tell from the iPhone when I logged on and downloaded a bunch of free books they were offering.

[suecsi]

Hopefully if Fictionwise are nearly sorted in the case of downloads, BooksOnBoard won't be far behind. I still can't download the copy of Stalin's Ghost I bought on the 31st March (and unfortunately left to the following Monday to download - which I haven't be able to do yet).

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

The same is true for my secure eReader and Microsoft Reader ebooks. It's only a handful of my secure ePub ebooks that have a download link are not downloadable.

Were any of the MS Reader books you tried from Penguin Putnam?

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by Marcy

Three ebooks I bought in the days just before this agency nonsense are not downloadable for me. I didn't realize I wouldn't have access to them less than 2 days after purchasing them, so don't have any copies. I wrote to Fictionwise about it today and am confident I will get my Micropay refunded. But I am so pissed that a publisher would yank access to a book that was *already paid for* that I just visited the darknet and got copies of them all. I'll be damned if I'm going to beg someone to take my money. I've already given it to them once and that is enough in my book.

-Marcy

According to FW's customer service (not that I believe them, but it's what they say) FW had no notice that the books were being pulled. Since they don't store the books themselves in all cases (IIRC they do store eReader & multiformat on their own servers) your ability to download them is dependent not only on FW's services but also on the services of the company from which the download actually comes. Per FW's customer service, that company (or companies) simply stopped honoring download requests with no warning or explanation given.

Assuming that's true, then it's not FW's fault. That doesn't mean they shouldn't refund your money-they should, but it's still not their fault. Hopefully they'll provide more information about the nefarious companies that are defrauding FW's customers, but probably not. Particularly since they seem to have worked out most of the problems. Sad-if they were more publicly active about pursuing these scoundrels they might have kept me as a customer. As it is, I have about 2 1/2 years left on my club membership, assuming FW lasts that long, I'll be out of there when that ends. And once my micropay is gone (down from $200 to $35 over the past 2 weeks, so it won't be long) I won't be a very active customer even while I'm still a member. So basically, they lost me.

As the retailer, it's my opinion that FW should represent the customers to the 'hidden' suppliers on whom the customers are actually dependent. They should *not* be cooperating with those suppliers to the detriment of the customers. Assuming they don't want to 'get involved' they should at least publish the names & contact info so the customers can complain directly.

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

According to FW's customer service (not that I believe them, but it's what they say) FW had no notice that the books were being pulled. Since they don't store the books themselves in all cases (IIRC they do store eReader & multiformat on their own servers) your ability to download them is dependent not only on FW's services but also on the services of the company from which the download actually comes. Per FW's customer service, that company (or companies) simply stopped honoring download requests with no warning or explanation given.

Assuming that's true, then it's not FW's fault. That doesn't mean they shouldn't refund your money-they should, but it's still not their fault. Hopefully they'll provide more information about the nefarious companies that are defrauding FW's customers, but probably not. Particularly since they seem to have worked out most of the problems. Sad-if they were more publicly active about pursuing these scoundrels they might have kept me as a customer. As it is, I have about 2 1/2 years left on my club membership, assuming FW lasts that long, I'll be out of there when that ends. And once my micropay is gone (down from $200 to $35 over the past 2 weeks, so it won't be long) I won't be a very active customer even while I'm still a member. So basically, they lost me.

As the retailer, it's my opinion that FW should represent the customers to the 'hidden' suppliers on whom the customers are actually dependent. They should *not* be cooperating with those suppliers to the detriment of the customers. Assuming they don't want to 'get involved' they should at least publish the names & contact info so the customers can complain directly.

Oh, I don't blame FW. I think they had every right to expect the publishers would keep access for books their customers had already paid for. It's the publishers and/or their distributers that I blame. Yanking access to already paid for books is just not cool.

That's why I made my journey to the darknet. If the publisher can't honor a contract -- and I feel that my paying for a book is a contract for them to provide it -- then I feel no guilt about turning to an alternate source for the book.

I'll be sad if this nonsense destroys FW. It is my second-favorite place to get ebooks, after Baen. And their selection is (or at least was) much wider than Baen.

-Marcy

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Marcy

That's why I made my journey to the darknet. If the publisher can't honor a contract -- and I feel that my paying for a book is a contract for them to provide it -- then I feel no guilt about turning to an alternate source for the book.

With respect, Marcy, it's not their fault if you don't download the book, is it? Doesn't their purchase e-mail ask you to download it within the hour?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

With respect, Marcy, it's not their fault if you don't download the book, is it? Doesn't their purchase e-mail ask you to download it within the hour?

I have to disagree with you here. Marcy has paid for the ebook. Marcy doesn't have (and has never had) the ebook. To my mind that means she should get a refund.

If they're not willing to refund, I think she's morally OK getting the book some other way.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I have to disagree with you here. Marcy has paid for the ebook. Marcy doesn't have (and has never had) the ebook. To my mind that means she should get a refund.

Will the distributor refund FW because Marcy didn't download the book, do you think? I'm sorry, but it's really not FW's fault or responsbility to ensure that the customer downloads what they've bought.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Will the distributor refund FW because Marcy didn't download the book, do you think? I'm sorry, but it's really not FW's fault or responsbility to ensure that the customer downloads what they've bought.

Even if you were correct in your assumption that Fictionwise have paid the distributor, I think good customer service would require a refund.

But I suspect that Fictionwise don't pay the distributor until the file is downloaded - they do not cache encrypted files from the distributors when a sale is made (or else there wouldn't be this problem).

Of course, I don't actually know what the arrangements are between fictionwise and its distributors. But I'd be surprised if fictionwise has agreed to pay distributors for files it never receives.