It looks like another chapter in Fictionwise’s existence has come to a close. Fictionwise is ending its Micropay e-book rebate program.

Until June 2010 Fictionwise had a Micropay System that allowed deposits by members and supported micropay rebate promotions on some ebooks. Rebates and deposits for this system have been discontinued due to eBook industry changes and other factors. If you have an existing balance you may still use it until it is exhausted, but no further deposits may be made and there will be no further Micropay Rebates other than Buywise Large Transaction Rebates.

It’s sad to see it go. Micropay was one of the things that kept me buying e-books from Fictionwise; it often brought the prices down far enough to be affordable. Between this, the missing books, the lack of an iPad eReader, and the end of the Buywise club, it looks like I’m not going to be shopping at Fictionwise very much in the future.

(Found via the MobileRead forum.)

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8 COMMENTS

  1. I loved the Micropay rebate program. When Apple first opened up the iPhone to third-party apps, the Fictionwise eReader was the first app I downloaded. I bought a lot of ebooks from Fictionwise because the rebate program was such a good deal. I’m sad to see it go.

  2. I wonder if this means they will finally be getting some Agency 5 books back. I haven’t bought much at Fictionwise since they stopped getting all the Agency 5 books. The strange thing is that Barnes & Noble has them.

    I still have some Fictionwise micropay, and some buywise club member discounts to use if they have more books that I wish to purchase.

  3. Must admit that I’ve stopped using Fictionwise for anything except my Asimov subscription, originally just due to the geo blocking (which wasn’t exactly their fault), but I just noticed that although they’re still selling the magazine, the option to subscribe has gone entirely, which removes one of their better features for that IMHO

  4. Fictionwise no longer sells magazine subscriptions, either. I could be wrong, but it certainly seems like B&N is positioning to shut down Fictionwise and eReader. I used to spend a lot of money at Fictionwise, but basically haven’t bought anything there since April 1, nor have I been buying Agency 5 ebooks elsewhere.

  5. Will the last feature to leave Fictionwise please turn out the lights?

    This was the last thing left that gave me any reason to buy from FW. I’ve just spent my remaining balance (and my remaining coupon codes from my ill-fated 5-year club membership) on MultiFormat books, which I immediately downloaded in both eReader and ePub formats (so that I’m not stuck with unusable DRM-ed books down the road).

    It’s dead, Jim.

  6. How sad.. I hope the good people there are being absorbed into B&N, as without Fictionwise and their ultimate purchase of EReader from Palm we wouldn’t be where we are today. It has always been a pleasure dealing with them, and buying from them for all my devices all these years (when many people thought the idea of EBooks nuts!). All good things must come to an end, but our support of Fictionwise led to so many others finally catching on to the joy of EBooks.

    They will be missed.. I only hope that B&N merges the libraries with their B&N Ereader for those of us who stuck by all this.. I would hate to lose so many good books that were instantly available without needing a PC to load them anymore. Ah well…

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