Fictionwise has shut down!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Yes, but what he's hoping is that the books will live on as ePub's at B&N.

Exactly correct.

I've not yet read all of them and if I can get them in ePub, I won't have to convert.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

Me too. In fact, FW closing is a bit of a blow, because I don't think there is anyway to get Asimov's now in the UK, unless you have a Kindle reader. It is not carried by Kobo UK who I normally use for epubs. Amazon UK will only supply it for the Kindle ereader, and not for Kindle PC, so you cannot download it to your PC and then format convert. I may contact the Asimov's editor and see what she thinks, because she's keen on supporting ereaders. Obviously from her point of view it will affect sales outside the USA.

I am not buying a Kindle just for Asimov's, especially as I have just got a Kobo Glo! There is more to ebooks than Amazon!

You may or may not be in luck. If Asimov's via Amazon are in AZW3 (KF8) then you are most likely good to go.

If you can strip the DRM from Amazon eBooks in Calibre, you do so and use the Mobi_Unpack plugin to shift the AZW3 code over to ePub. You then take the ePub, run it through Flightcrew and fix any errors that come up. Once done, you have it in ePub with little fuss and no Mobipocket in the mix.

[Marseille]

Long time ereader/palmdigitialmedia/peanutpress user here. I will miss the sales. They combined my love of books with my love of bargains in a way no one else ever has... until Steve Jobs' war with Amazon left them lying dead in the streets as collateral damage.

After December 21, 2012, your eReader.com Bookshelf will no longer be accessible via the eReader.com website.

The mayans... were right.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Jon, FW started going downhill long before the agency debacle took place. FW stopped selling agency books before any of us ever heard of it taking place. B&N didn't want the competition from FW especially since FW prices were a lot better than B&N.

It wasn't long before. And yes, it was the agency model that caused Fictionwise's downfall. Sure, they could have sold agency ebooks, but they would have been nothing special. Their business model that they had was different and it worked very well.

[hwlester]

Originally Posted by gbm

Do not know--but since you need Nook for PC or a NOOK then they most likely are. Not going to boot up in windows and download Nook for PC to check.


bernie

Originally Posted by lfeuln

Nook does use DRM but since Adobe Digital Editions now supports it I would think it'd be possible to side load onto Kobos and Sonys? I don't have any with which to check though unfortunately.

The reason for my questions are that the newer Nooks and the PC app support books that are not pure epub and that Apprentice Alf tools can't strip DRM from. I have a Grimm (TV show) book that I have to use Nook Study to open. It looks like a PDF with BN's propriety DRM. Perhaps future versions of Apprentice Alf tools will de-DRM it...

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Graham

My Google-fu seems to be failing me this morning. I don't have a B&N account, and am in the UK, but I can't find a UK version of the site. Are those of you who are talking about having UK accounts for B&N doing it with a UK address on the main .com site?

Graham

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, exactly that.

There didn't used to be a UK B&N site, but there is now. Except it's not a B&N site, it's a nook site.

http://uk.nook.com/

If you have a UK Fictionwise account, I think you'll only be able to transfer to a UK nook account, not a US B&N account.

They haven't sent out emails to UK Fictionwise accounts yet, so I don't know whether you'll need an account at the UK nook site before transferring. I suspect that it'll be possible to transfer and get an account at the same time, so I'm not creating one until I hear from Fictionwise.

[rleguillow]

FWIW, I just got an email from B&N:
"Thank you for opting to transfer your Fictionwise or eReader Bookshelf to a NOOK Library.

We are continuing the transfer process which is ongoing during the week of November 19, 2012. If you have more titles that are eligible for transfer, we will deliver those titles to your new NOOK Library. You do not need to do anything more in this process as any transferrable remaining titles will appear automatically in your NOOK Library."

Maybe there will be more than the few that have transferred so far. Actually kind of makes sense, given the numbers of accounts and books to transfer.

One of the previous posters was asking about buying books from B&N without a Nook. I don't know about current experience, because now I do have one, but before I bought it I had a Sony reader and I had some Nook ebooks purchased then that I read on it, after liberating them. YMMV. When the Sony died I bought the Nook Glow, which came out around then. Now I'm looking at the Kobo with the light, whatever it is called, kind of wistfully, so this is a question of interest to me also!

[ballfresno]

@MovieBird and @bernie: thanks for your replies.

I emailed Analog yesterday to see what they are going to do to support their non-US non-{Kindle, Nook, iPad} readers. I hope they demonstrate some interest in their wider audience...

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by rleguillow

FWIW, I just got an email from B&N:
"Thank you for opting to transfer your Fictionwise or eReader Bookshelf to a NOOK Library. We are continuing the transfer process which is ongoing during the week of November 19, 2012. If you have more titles that are eligible for transfer, we will deliver those titles to your new NOOK Library. You do not need to do anything more in this process as any transferrable remaining titles will appear automatically in your NOOK Library."

I have a feeling they didn't expect so many people to do this all at the same time. When I first say this thread, I went in and updated my profiles on the three so-called Fictionwise sites (Fictionwise, eReader, and eBookwise). The sites were running a bit slow then.

They're crawling now.

I think I'm going to wait a couple of weeks before I try to opt in and see if they get the bugs worked out and the servers aren't so overwhelmed.

Oh, and for those who are getting the "wrong email address" message - do you have open accounts at more than one of the three sites? Perhaps your email address isn't correct on one of them, but okay on the one you got the email from. (I only got an "eReader" email, although I have books at all three).

One more thing - for those with eReader books purchased with old credit cards. The credit card number used for the DRM is used for just that. All you have to do is provide a new credit card number, and you should be able to download the books and unlock them with that new code. It was never intended to keep you from re-downloading them if your card number changed.

[Leilani]

Originally Posted by Tarana

The worst thing is that I missed the 15th cutoff to buy books with that 50% off coupon. I figured, oh well, next month.

Me two. And looks like no code today. I would have loved to have a good code to clear my wishlist one last time.

[TallMomof2]

I'm sure I'm not the only one in the US not to hear from Fictionwise and eReader. Between the two websites I have over 3000 books. I know that at least a couple of dozen have disappeared over the years as servers were shutdown. Thankfully, I've downloaded all the books and removed the DRM when needed. I'm torn over actually setting up a B&N account. Hopefully, there will be a privacy setting for no email.

The last of my magazine subscriptions expired last summer but I do have 7 years left in the Buywise club but I bought that when they were giving a lot of Micropay in return so I have no idea if I'm owed any money. Used to love Fictionwise and am sad at their demise.

[lfeuln]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

I'm sure I'm not the only one in the US not to hear from Fictionwise and eReader. Between the two websites I have over 3000 books. I know that at least a couple of dozen have disappeared over the years as servers were shutdown. Thankfully, I've downloaded all the books and removed the DRM when needed. I'm torn over actually setting up a B&N account. Hopefully, there will be a privacy setting for no email.

The last of my magazine subscriptions expired last summer but I do have 7 years left in the Buywise club but I bought that when they were giving a lot of Micropay in return so I have no idea if I'm owed any money. Used to love Fictionwise and am sad at their demise.

Nothing from eReader yet here...

I'm sorry for those who used Fictionwise a lot. It's not a loss for me personally (I've pretty much turned to my public library on Overdrive for reading material with the occasional Nook purchase), but I remember how Amazon screwed those who had an extensive Mobipocket DRM'd library from Palm days - they never so much as got an iOS app to read those books on. I was so grateful I only had a couple Mobi books with the majority being from eReader. It's a shame that B&N ended up doing something similar too, albeit at least with a transfer offer.

[cromag]

I haven't gotten an email yet. No matter, I don't think I'll transfer. I've got several back-ups, on different media, of all my books.

I'll miss FW. For the past year or more they've gotten the largest portion of my purchases. Baen comes in second, with B&N a distant third and Amazon just barely on the list. When I clean a B&N file I get a perfect copy, but when I clean an Amazon file I almost always get some words lost here and there. It's an annoyance. A DRM-free ebook is a pleasure.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by cromag

When I clean a B&N file I get a perfect copy, but when I clean an Amazon file I almost always get some words lost here and there. It's an annoyance. A DRM-free ebook is a pleasure.

How do you find out there are occasional words missing??

[aagstn]

I got the email stating the rest of my books should show up next week. I found Peanut Press in 1999 and Fictionwise a year later. I will miss both of these sites as I read many books on my Palm OS devices from them. Now the public library takes care of the majority of my reading and its rare I buy a book and add it to my Calibre library, but maybe if the Humble Bundle thing keeps happening that will change. I went from buying 50 to 60 books a year to buying 2 or 3 thanks to Agency pricing.