Fictionwise is celebrating their 8th anniversary, and they're offering big savings on all of the nearly 50,000 eBook titles in their catalog. For a limited time, all MultiFormat eBooks are 25% off and all Secure eBooks offer a 25% Micropay Rebate.

I've been buying eBooks from Fictionwise and eReader for years. Fictionwise bought the eReader Store back in January. eReader is still there and you can get the same anniversary savings with them.

The history of eReader's changing of hands is quite interesting. I wasn't aware of all the changes until I read it over at MobileRead. Alexander Turcic summarizes it well:

eReader has a long history of changing hands. I am not sure if I'll get it all right, but I try. Once upon a time, there was a small publisher named Peanut Press. Peanut Press got bought by a company called NetLibrary (2000). One year later, Palm acquired Peanut Press from NetLibrary and turned it into Palm Digital Media. Then, in 2003, meanwhile Palm's e-book devision was transferred to PalmSource (a former Palm subsidiary), PalmGear (then already a subsidiary of PowerByHand, today known as Motricity) jumped in and acquired the e-book company. One year later, in 2004, Motricity renamed Palm Digital Media into eReader.com.

Hmmm, that reminds me a little of some of the changing of hands at Palm. ;-)

Anyway, this would be a good time to buy some eBooks and load them up on your Treo or Centro. Fictionwise has a crapload of eBooks to choose from! They are the only major eBook retailer to offer a large catalog of unencrypted contemporary content, and the only major retailer to feature quality independent publishers right on their front page. There are so many choices that it boggles the mind. Their website is like a virtual treasure chest to me. I get lost browsing through all the genres and bookmarking the many eBooks that I'd like to get in the future.

I have a Micropay account with Fictionwise. A Micropay account is a place holder for money that you "deposit" every now and then using either credit card or check. Whenever you go to your shopping cart, you can "purchase" micropay account dollars in $5 increments. That money goes into your account at Fictionwise. You can use that money to buy eBooks in the future. I usually have about $20 in my account and it feels good to log in and be able to get a couple of eBooks that I want using the micropay money. And with the current 8th anniversary sale, Micropay users get a 25% Micropay Rebate on all Secure eBooks.

I don't have very much time for reading except for when I'm trying to fall asleep at night. Hmmm, with my insomnia, that should be plenty of time to read, huh? Anyway, I try to keep a few eBooks on all my Palm devices for whenever I get the chance to dive into a good book. I can't even begin to count the number of times that I've read in an eBook while waiting in a doctor's office or some other boring place. Ebooks are a wonderful way to pass the time.

Sometimes I think we take this fantastic technology for granted. I have people who are in awe whenever they find out that I have a complete book on my small Treo device. And of course their jaws always tend to drop when they find out that I have a whole library of books on the Treo. The ability to read Ebooks is by far one of my favorite things about a Palm device. Have you read an eBook lately?