When Barnes & Noble announced the closure of Fictionwise a few weeks back, they promised that we’d be able to transfer whatever ebooks we’d bought at Fictionwise to an account in the Nook Store.
I didn’t believe B&N at the time at the time they made that promise, and after the process stalled with only a few dozen titles transferred I assumed that that was the best they could do.
It looks like I’m going to be eating a lot of crow tonight.
I’ve just checked my account at the Nook Store, and so far as I can tell they managed to transfer nearly everything. Not only did B&N get all the DRM-free titles, they also managed to transfer the ebooks in Mobipocket, eReader, and Epub.
Perhaps it would be better to say that they transferred the licenses, because B&N also transferred the many MSReader ebooks I had purchased. Given that Microsoft’s DRM servers have long since given up the ghost, that tells us that the actual files were not transferred; just the rights to the files.
In any case, I’m thrilled. I have over 400 ebooks in my Nook account, and that is far more than I ever expected.
How many ebooks did you get?
If you’re having trouble accessing the Nook Store, you’re not alone. This transfer process looks to be stressing B&N’s servers. That should come as no surprise; the transfer is probably increasing the number of transactions in the Nook Store by a significant multiple and there’s little you can do except wait for the situation to settle down.
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You’re fortunate as I’ve never received even the first email. Multiple emails to Fictionwise (and eReader) support have yielded no results. I have all my library backed up locally but B&N has lost me as a customer.
Soooo…. score one for B&N. Eat that crow.
I got 418 out of 440 and I’m pretty sure the missing ones are old freebie shorts from back when they gave away nominees for an award (the Hugo maybe?) years ago, no biggie to me.
You might be eating a bit of crow, but there are still folks out there who either haven’t received the initial email or got an email with a non-working link or got the email, but are waiting for a code.
Looks like they goofed a little bit. At least two of us that had the Lord of the Rings omnibus in our FW libraries got copies of the Two Towers instead of the omnibus edition.
So far precisely none, but then neither of the two emails they’ve sent me with links to transfer my library has actually worked.
I got 11. Out of more than 300. And that was just from Fictionwise. I had about 50 on eReader, and I was supposed to get an email “the week of the 19th of Nov” to transfer those books. Still waiting on that email. Like others, I’d already backed up the ones I’d cared about, but I was looking forward to ePub versions of some of the books.
I have…had over 1800 books at FW. I received the first email, the link worked, but that is the last I have heard. Exactly zero books have transferred.
While I backed everything up, I am still unhappy with the process.
Just received the code.
Small B&N mistake: Code on the page is lower case and will not work. Put in the upper case version from the e-mail.
Some 1100 of my 1300 books have already been transferred.
I got about 20 the first time and then nothing for a couple of weeks, but I just received an email and they’ve transferred about 300 out of 500+ combined in my Fictionwise and eReader accounts. They may not be done, or the rest may be ones they don’t have rights to anymore. But some of the ones I couldn’t download myself came through, so that was a nice surprise.
Like a lot of people I opted in then nothing. No code or further email. Checked with support and got be patient. Last night a huge number showed up. 1436 out of 1578. (989 Fw &589sweater ereader.com)
Same email on all accounts
Just to follow up – I’m only actually missing about 48 books. They didn’t always transfer an additional copy of something I had on BN (sometimes they did), or even (for a couple of things) I had an fictionwise copy, an ereader copy, and BN copy. I had about 50 public domain books, (Mark Twain, etc) that didn’t transfer, but the couple I checked there is a free epub copy available. I had some “extended excerpts” that didn’t transfer (although one did).
Of the 48, I know in a couple of cases the authors have reverted the rights. CJ Cherryh’s Chanur books. Plus nothing from Black Lace which I think was defunct, although I believe someone recently revived the imprint. Particularly Emma Holly’s Black Lace books which were sold to another publisher.
Still, I’m pretty satisfied.
I’ve been wrestling with B&N/Fictionwise support for going on two months now. With each call, I’m always told that something will be happening soon, but nothing ever does. The last I was told last week was that the whole ‘email with a code’ thing wasn’t going so well for them that they’d be migrating peoples’ libraries automatically. I asked when this would happen, and was told ‘by the end of this month’.
Here we are at January 29, and my library contains exactly three books: all samples from B&N’s own digital library. Not a single one of my eReader.com books has been transferred to my Nook account. I’ve just about had it with B&N. If it doesn’t happen by the end of this month, I’m probably going to involve my attorney.
I have precisely 0 books transferred. I have tweeted customer care who gave me a phone number. I tried emailing but they also gave me a phone number.
Spent 16 mins on the phone, spoke to 3 different people, each time requiring my details. Transferred twice, cut off twice, really difficult to hear anything the people on the other end are saying.
And still nothing.
I too have precisely 0 books transferred despite multiple emails and phone calls all promising that I would receive the transfer codes “within one week”. I have been waiting “one week” and calling every week since December 21 2012. I have several hundred books at both ereader and fictionwise that I can no longer access on my primary device. This situation is beyond frustrating. Has anyone had any luck contacting the VP of Digital Media or the President of Barnes & Noble? There is no way I will purchase anything further at B&N until the books are transferred to my satisfaction.
I’ve got my entire library saved in original eReader pdb format… but the problem is that the version of eReader software I use doesn’t support sideloading… so even though I’ve got every version of the software downloaded along with my complete library downloaded, once my existing hardware dies or gets replaced I’ll permanently loose some of my books.
I had a nightmare getting my eReader.com library x-fered to the Nook. It took MANY emails and phone calls as to why despite the fact that I opt’d in the very first week that I hadn’t gotten my transition code yet (finally got it last week). Now that I got it, I too had the issue with the single volume Lord of the Rings x-fering in as book 2 only on the Nook.
Today, spent an hour on live chat before finally being told to call the toll free number.
Good news – B&N is aware of the issue regarding Lord of the Rings… and based on my experience they will get it fixed… Bad news… based on my experience it will take extensive nagging from us the customers to them the company to make it happen.
Yes… I’m replying to my own comment because I had one final point to make… once all is said and done if we hold B&N’s feet the the fire, we’ll have ePub copies of all our books!!! Too me this is worth the hassle and the pain – and. yes, B&N – given that you had YEARS to work out the details this has been a piss poor transition.
I still have not had my fictionwise books transferred.
Forget nook and load reader for android from the play store. This picks up all you books automatically.
It looks like to me B&N are full of B.S.
Opted in, no code received. Sent many emails, no response at all! Over 300 books on fictionwise so pretty peed off right now! I will continue to mail and tweet them until I get my books!!
Becky: don’t bother emailing B&N Customer Service. Their email service is a low-priority FAQ service. You need to call them on the phone: 1-800-843-2665. Not that this will guarantee you any satisfaction, but there’s zero hope of satisfaction through the email route.
Oh, and if you’re on Twitter, you can try tweeting to @BN_care or @NOOK_care. Or @BNBuzz. Or maybe @NookBN.
Thanks Doug have thought about calling but I’m in the uk so worried about cost as someone mentioned they were on the phone two hours! I’ve been speaking to someone on BN twitter and they gave me a direct email but not had one response from him yet. Customer service seems non existent, I won’t give up though!
Just wanted to let you know I now have all my books!! Dan@barnesandnoble.com came through for me! I have my library back:-)
Just read this on the B&N forum:
”
For those of you still waiting for the code, don’t bother. I just got off the phone with customer service and they said no codes were being used now and the books should just be in my account. I checked my library, and they are there!!! They actually went into my library on 2/7/2013 — only 2 plus months after opting in for the offer. YEA!!! So check your Nook library for your books, hopefully you’ll be as pleasantly surprised as I was. I’m just glad it’s finally over and I don’t have to keep calling. It took a long time, but it was still a great offer for them to transfer the books and I’m grateful. Thanks Barnes and Noble!
.”
I’m still waiting for any of my fictionwise books to be transferred. Nothing has appeared so far. I’ve been in touch and all that customer services offer are platitudes like “we know where you’re coming from”