Lorem Ipsum Books provided space for shows over the years, including this 2011 show with Hear Hums.

Lorem Ipsum Books, an Inman Square store open since 2004, is out of business, founder Matt Mankins said today.

All the books are off the shelves, and the furniture is for sale, Mankins said. He telegraphed the closing in an Oct. 18 status update on Facebook:

Thank you for all of your support throughout the years. We hope to open again, maybe in another form, but for now need the rest. We will miss all of our customers and fans. Thank you for your support.

The 1299 Cambridge St. store has had its struggles over the years despite the innovations of Mankins, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab alum who wrote his own pricing software, moved location, tried a variety of pricing models (including “word of the day” sales and rainy-day sales), experimented with crowdsourcing solutions for the store and in late 2012 looked for a buyer, saying “We tried many things, but were unable to get the store from red to black.”

Difficulty paying rent forced Mankins to try crowdfunding last year, but ultimately it was landlord Frank Pierce, of Pierce Holdings in Newburyport, who relented on a payment deadline and allowed Lorem Ipsum to stay in place. The extra time didn’t lead to increased revenue, though, and Mankins kept looking for better ideas.

The Papercut Zine Library, which shared space at the bookstore since late 2011, moved out in July, with a worker saying the store hoped to make room for a schoolroom-style setting for children – an idea that was never implemented. On Saturday, organizers posted its eulogy for the store: “We are sad and sorry,” they said. “We were grateful to be part of such a rad space in the time we were there.”

Mankins wasn’t able to comment immediately about what’s next for him and the store.

John Summers, editor in chief of the Cambridge-based journal The Baffler, said he was present for the start and end of Lorem Ipsum.

“It’s full circle for me, as I had sold him 700 books out of my Harvard office a decade ago, and he’d used my collection as a foundation,” Summers said. “Now it’s all gone and I’m back buying the shelves that held the books for the Baffler office.”

“Maybe one day I’ll resell the shelves to Matt in another capacity,” Summers said.

This post was updated Nov. 17, 2014, to add John Summers’ comments.