Fictionwise Announces 2002 eBook Awards
Author of the Year, eBook of the Year, Best Selling, and Highest Rated eBooks

January 8, 2002 – Chatham, NJ -- Fictionwise.com, the leading independent eBook publisher and distributor, announced today its annual awards for the top selling and highest rated eBooks and authors for 2002.

Best selling science fiction author Lois McMaster Bujold is Fictionwise’s 2002 eBook Author of the Year. The award is based on sales and member ratings of eBooks sold at Fictionwise in 2002. Ms. Bujold is one of the top selling authors at Fictionwise and her works maintained an extremely high average rating from Fictionwise members.

Ms. Bujold’s novel, “The Vor Game,” is Fictionwise’s 2002 eBook of the Year, based on total unit sales multiplied by average member rating.

“We want to congratulate our Author of Year, Lois McMaster Bujold,” said Scott Pendergrast, co-publisher at Fictionwise. “Ms. Bujold’s works dominated our best seller lists and our members rated her works at an extremely high level--a remarkable average of 3.71 out of 4. It’s an honor to sell her works at Fictionwise.”

Ms. Bujold said: “I am delighted with this honor from the most important people at Fictionwise, the readers. I was cautious of the eBook format at first, but foremost among its many advantages has certainly been distribution. It's not just a convenience for folks who like to read on the go from their hand-held devices. Through Fictionwise, my work has been able to reach many new readers formerly excluded by geographic barriers and prohibitive shipping costs from discovering my paper books. Fictionwise has helped bring me a truly world-wide audience.”

Top Selling eBooks of 2002:

1. The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold
2. The Shiva Option by David Weber
3. The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold
4. Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
5. The Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold

Highest Rated eBooks of 2002:

Fictionwise members have submitted over 116,000 ratings on more than 3,700 eBooks.

1. Emperor and Clown by Dave Duncan
2. Magic Casement by Dave Duncan
3. White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey
4. The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
5. The Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold

To see more best selling and highest rated eBooks, go to:
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Fictionwise.com Sets New Sales Record

In 2002, Fictionwise.com maintained its position as one of the top eBook retailers in the world with over 165,000 paid units sold. Revenue in 2002 more than doubled at 240% of 2001 revenue, and the company is breaking even on a cash-flow basis purely from eBook sales. Since launching in June 2000, Fictionwise has consistently set double-digit consecutive-quarter sales records. The fourth quarter of 2002 set the tenth consecutive double-digit quarterly sales record.

“The outlook in 2003 is even stronger,” commented Stephen Pendergrast, co-founder of Fictionwise.com. “Our direct consumer sales are on track to again experience strong growth, and we have recently made inroads to the public library market with our Libwise.com initiative. EBook sales to libraries are already a significant portion of our revenue less than one quarter after our Libwise launch, and our library sales are growing faster than any other segment of our revenue.”

ABOUT FICTIONWISE.COM

Fictionwise.com (http://www.fictionwise.com)--which has over 65,000 registered members and over 8,000 eBooks online--retails award-winning and high-quality eBooks by top authors in popular eBook formats for PCs, Macs and PDAs.