Harlequin has announces that they are changing ebook fulfillment providers in mid-November. If you’ve purchased books directly from Harlequin Books in the past, you may need to act quickly in order to download your titles, especially if you have an older device or one that is not web enabled.It seems after the provider changeover, old titles will no longer be able to be side.

According to Harlequin’s help page:

• Currently, you can continue to download your ebooks to the OverDrive app on your device or access them through the Read Now option as usual.

• Once the new ereading experience launches, you will be able to read your ebooks through your Mac or PC web browser, iPhone, iPad, Android OS smartphones and tablets, Nook HD+, as well as the Kindle Fire HD line of tablets. The free reading app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play Stores respectively.

      *Requires Android 4.0.3 and above. *iOS 8.0 and above are only iOS versions supported.

• It important to note that while the new ebook reading experience does support offline reading through the web browser and app, you will not be able to download files and transfer them to older devices that are not web enabled. If you would like to keep copies of the files for this use, please download them prior to November 12th, 2018.

• When the new ereading experience launches, you’ll be notified and provided with instructions on how to access your ebooks in the new app.

Past purchases from the the Harlequin store are protect with Digital Rights Management from Adobe Digital Editions (ADE). These past purchases must be downloaded into the ADE software in order to be side-loaded into an e-ink e-reader. New purchases

This ONLY affects books purchased directly from Harlequin Books. Titles purchased through retailers like Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, etc. are not affected.

There are several interesting discussions on the topic on the MobileRead site that you can find here (starting at post #1662) and an entire thread dedicated to discussing the topic here. There is a lot of speculation about whether Harlequin is doing this as a cost-cutting measure and how this will play out as publishers are attempting to establish direct to consumer sales.

Harlequin stopped providing audiobooks direct to its customers in October 2018.

Halrlequin’s actions reinforce the concept that when you buy digital content, you do not own it. You are merely purchasing a license to use the content. The publisher can take the content away or alter your ability to access it. It also really emphasizes the down side of buying  books protected by DRM.

Remember, you have until November 12, 2018 to download any purchased books!

Harlequin Announcements