Earlier this week, PowerByHand, one of the largest providers of mobile content and applications, renamed and re-launched Palm Digital Media, an electronic book store it acquired from PalmSource back in the Fall, as eReader.com. With the new name, PowerByHand said it wanted to better reflect its cross platform offerings.

Today at Book Expo America in Chicago, the Open eBook Forum reported that eBook units sold for the first quarter 2004 were up 46% and eBook revenues were up 28% over the same quarter in 2003. A total of 421,955 eBooks were sold during the first quarter compared to 288,440 units during the same period last year.

In terms of revenues, $3,233,220 in sales were logged by retailers, a 28% increase over the same period in 2003 during which time retailers reported $2,516,469 on sales of eBooks. “This quarter eBooks have hit a new high mark for sales,” stated Open eBook Forum President Steve Potash. “eBooks represent the fastest growing segment of the publishing industry,” he added.

Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code topped the Open eBook Forum's bestseller list for May, its third straight month. Kevin Ryan’s Van Helsing, Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction and Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason’s The Rule of Four rounded out the top 5 eBooks on the list.