Fictionwise, owned by Barnes & Noble, is one of the largest electronic book sellers in North America with an estimated 1.5 million ebook content units sold in 2008. Fictionwise sells ebooks in various formats. Fictionwise sells both encrypted and unencrypted ebooks.

The website Fictionwise.com was launched on June 5, 2000, as a partnership between Steve Pendergrast and Mindwise Media, LLC, which is owned by Scott Pendergrast. The success of Fictionwise led to it being spun out of Mindwise Media into a separate company in October 2000. Fictionwise was acquired by Barnes & Noble on March 5, 2009, 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.

Most eBooks are viewed on mobile devices like Smartphones, PDAs, and eBook devices (iPhone, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Java ME, BlackBerry, Psion, Kindle and iLiad).

On January 1, 2008, Fictionwise acquired the eReader business unit of Motricity, Inc. eReader was one of the oldest ebook sellers, originally starting under the name Peanut Press and later renamed Palm Reader when owned by Palm, Inc. By acquiring eReader, Fictionwise nearly doubled in revenue.

Paul Levinson (born 1947) is an American author and professor of communications and media studies at Fordham University in New York City. Levinson's novels, short fiction, and non-fiction works have been translated into twelve languages.

As a commentator on media, popular culture, and science fiction Levinson has been interviewed more than 500 times on local, national and international television and radio. He is frequently quoted in newspapers and magazines around the world and his op-eds have appeared in such major papers as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, New York's Newsday, and The New York Sun. He was interviewed in a short weekly spot early Sunday mornings on KNX-AM Radio in Los Angeles, from 2006 to 2008 on media-related news events and popular culture. He hosts four podcasts and maintains several blogs. In April 2009, The Chronicle of Higher Education named him one of Twitter's top ten "High Fliers".

In 1985 he co-founded Connected Education, offering online courses for Masters credit. He served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America from 1998 to 2001.