J.K. Rowling revealed few actual details about Pottermore.com in her video announcement, released this morning. It is not a book, but an “online reading experience unlike any other…which will be built in part by you the reader, based on the books.” It launches in October (but “a lucky few can enter early to help shape the experience” — the Wall Street Journal reports that it will launch for the first million users on July 31, followed by a free site open to everyone in October).

She says she will be joining in, too, sharing additional information she’s been “hoarding for years” about Harry Potter.

She also announces that Pottermore.com will be the exclusive place to purchase digital audio and, for the first time, eBooks. The Bookseller reports from the press conference in London that OverDrive has built the e-bookstore for Pottermore.com. Given that Rowling says the digital products will be available “exclusively” from the Web site, we’re left to conclude that they will not be available to OverDrive’s bookstore and library customers. Thus, Rowling is effectively cutting out all the libraries and bookstores that have supported HP for years. Her publishers, Scholastic in the U.S. and Bloomsbury in the U.K. will get an unspecified “share in the profits,” according to the NYT).

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 23rd, 2011 at 7:17 am and is filed under Childrens and YA, Ebooks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.