AFF blocked a third party downloader that grabs and converts fanfics to pdf, epub, mobi and any other format because it is wrong to copy another person's story without permission, even if it's for personal reading. So don't even think of distributing copies.

 Numbah eight in our Terms of Use (TOU) states that: 

The Service will provide you with the ability to upload, submit, disclose, distribute or otherwise post (hereafter, “posting”) content such as stories, photos, videos, links to third-party sites, messages, comments and communications, to the Services (“User Posts”). By posting to the Site or otherwise through the Service, you represent and warrant that:

- your User Post and related communication meets the Content Guidelines and does not otherwise violate these Terms of Use;
- you own or otherwise control, or have the license to all rights to use such User Posts and that disclosure and use of such User Posts by ASIANFANFICS via the License (described below) will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party, including without limitation any intellectual property, privacy, publicity, contract or other rights of any person or entity;

^ It simply means that we can only post or share content if we have the rights to do so (if we are the original author of the story or blog post) or we are allowed to do it (i.e. sharing links to sites, except illegal downloading sites and ehem, p***) 

Only the author owns all the rights to his/her stories. If he/she didn't convert his/her stories to any downloadable format and distribute them and if he/she didn't give permission to do so, then his/her readers should not illegally obtain copies of his/her stories and distribute them.

It doesn't matter if we only wanted to read the story in our own time without going online or we are saving it just in case the author hides or deletes the story or deactivates. We have no right to make that copy. We have no right to share that copy.

If the author decides to hide/delete/deactivate, then it means the author didn't want his/her stories to be read.

Accept that.

Respect that.

If the author wanted readers to access her stories, he/she would have made it possible for readers to access them. Let us not go against his/her decisions. Never go behind his/her back just because we want to read his/her stories.

What I would do (given that the author's reason for leaving had nothing to do with plagiarism or moving on from his/her stories), is ask the author if he/she could leave his/her stories up. And I would accept and respect his/her decision, even if author tells me no.

Tips:

1. Subscribe to your favorite authors' blogs now so that you will be alerted if ever he/she is leaving ^-^

2. I wouldn't even allow him/her to leave until the story is finished lol But I would be subtle about it. Chat him/her up. Always leave a comment. (I have actually done this purely for personal gains. Muahahaha! But there's also some benefit having me as a friend though ^^")

3. If you really want to have your own copy of a fanfic, go to Archives of Our Own.  The download button is one of the features of AO3. Authors who post their stories there allow their readers to download their fanfics and put it in their e-readers.

I was supposed to post a different blog. Heh. It's 2015. I shouldn't be writing another version of this topic (2013, 2014). But just in case you aren't informed, yeah, it's wrong to make personal copies of a story without the author's permission. I thought that was kinda obvious ^^