Fictionwise, owned by

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across the United States. Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its B ...

since 2009, was one of the largest

electronic book An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. A ...

sellers in North America with an estimated 1.5 million ebook content units sold in 2008. Fictionwise sold both DRM- encrypted and unencrypted (DRM-free) ebooks in various formats (including

ePub EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for ''electronic publication'' and is sometimes stylized as ''ePUB''. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smart ...

, eReader, and Mobipocket) that were compatible with computers as well as a wide range of eBook devices, PDAs, and

Smartphones A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as mult ...

. In November 2012, almost four years after being acquired by Barnes & Noble, the company announced that it was "winding down its business".

History

The website Fictionwise.com was launched on June 5, 2000, as a partnership between J. Stephen Pendergrast and Mindwise Media, LLC, which is owned by the latter's brother R. Scott Pendergrast. The success of Fictionwise led to its being spun out of Mindwise Media into a separate company in October 2000. On January 1, 2008, Fictionwise acquired the eReader business unit of Motricity, Inc. EReader, one of the oldest ebook sellers, originated under the name Peanut Press (which was founded in 1998) and was later renamed Palm Reader, a division of Palm Digital Media, when acquired by Palm, Inc. By acquiring eReader, Fictionwise nearly doubled in revenue. After the eReader acquisition, Fictionwise immediately began expanding platform coverage of the eReader

eBook An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. A ...

format to include the three most recent versions of the

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS ...

operating system, the newer

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

operating system, and the

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

and

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a po ...

platforms. They also made the "Pro" versions of eReader software free and developed the first mobile-friendly version of the eReader.com commerce site. In December 2008, Fictionwise licensed the eReader format to Lexcycle, which integrated it into their

Stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...

ebook reader for iPhone. Fictionwise indicated that additional licensing deals were in progress; the company released a

BlackBerry BlackBerry is a discontinued brand of handheld devices and related mobile services, originally developed and maintained by the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM, later known as BlackBerry Limited) until 2016. The first BlackBerry device ...

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

version of eReader on March 11, 2009 and developed an Android version of eReader. On March 5, 2009,

acquired Fictionwise for $15.7 million in cash (plus the potential for earn-outs). Barnes & Noble said it planned to use Fictionwise as part of its overall digital strategy, which included the launch of an e-Bookstore later that year. In March 2010, Fictionwise discontinued its "Buywise Club" which, in exchange for a membership fee, had offered discounted pricing for all their ebooks. On November 15, 2012, Fictionwise announced that it would "wind down its operation" on December 4, 2012, and US customers would lose download access to their purchased books on December 21, 2012, non-US customers on January 31, 2013. US and UK customers were offered the option to transfer their customer account, including their purchased e-books, to a user account for Barnes & Noble's NOOK.

References

External links

*
eBookwise website, operated by FictionwiseeReader website, operated by Fictionwise
{{Ebooks American booksellers Barnes & Noble Companies established in 2000 Companies disestablished in 2012 Ebook suppliers

History

See also

References

External links