Pottermore – Harry Potter's digital adventure

Potter @digitally best!

We've seen him grow from a bespectacled small boy who lived in the cupboard under the stairs to a married father of three, head of the Auror department and conqueror of Lord Voldemort. This autumn, Harry Potter will take the final step to maturity as he waltzes into the digital arena withthe launch of Pottermore, interactive website and home of the Potter ebooks.

I'm a bit old, really, at 32 to be excited about the launch of a website dedicated to a series of children's books, but I appear to have signed myself up for access to Pottermore regardless. I first realised Potter was something special in the summer of 2000, when my cousin spent an entire night obsessively reading his new copy of Goblet of Fire. The next morning, exhausted from sleeping on an airport floor, collapsed in our tent, my brother and I went to sleep but my cousin just kept on reading. Such dedication: I decided I had to check them out, and although I've never actually stayed up all night reading one of them, I will confess to a midnight trip to Asda when the Half-Blood Prince came out, and to locking myself in the bathroom to finish Deathly Hallows: stupid family, distracting me from my books.

It's not something I readily admit to in adult company, but I've not only read all the Harry Potter books, I also reread them on occasion: they're the ultimate comfort read for a bad/sad day. With the final book published four years ago though, and the final film released in July, it was looking like rereads and rewatches were the only thing left for Potter fans. Until Rowling's revelation last month that, just as we'd always suspected, she had written thousands of extra words about the Potterverse, and was going to share them with her fans on her new website.

No longer will we have to wonder about the past lives of Dursleys and McGonagalls, about the secrets of Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin houses or the details of wand wood. I caught a glimpse of a few of the Pottermore pages at the press conference launching the website last month – I was scribbling furiously, but a young Professor McGonagall's love for a Muggle was the only bit I managed to get down on paper – and it looks like the appetite of even the most obsessive of fans will be satisfied by what's going to be on offer.

With 18,000 words already written, and more to come, Pottermore will first be restricted to the world of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, but new material around events, places and characters from all seven books will be added in due course. I think I'm most looking forward to Rowling's detailed explanation of Quidditch. "The number of geeky men who come up to me to argue about Quidditch – well, I'd be a lot richer if I got a quid for every one," she said at the conference. "They just think it's illogical. It's not. I had a speech by Dumbledore in the first book explaining why it's not illogical, but it never made it in. It will do at some point." You show those geeks, JK.

--Guardian, UK

Pottermore Q&A Reveals More about J. K. Rowling's Next Project

Pottermore Q&A Reveals More about J. K. Rowling's Next Project 

The Pottermore Insider has posted a new blog entry answering a number of questions from readers of fan sites across the internet about J. K. Rowling's Pottermore.  The post reads:

Potter fan sites from around the globe helped us with the Pottermore name reveal, and now those same fan sites have been kind enough to tell us what their readers most want to know about the Pottermore experience. 

 
While we can’t give everything away (even though we know you’d like us to!), we’d really love to answer some of your questions... 

 
Will Pottermore be available in multiple languages?
Yes. Initially, Pottermore will be available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. We are aiming to introduce more languages in the future – including Japanese and Korean later this year. You’ll be able to keep track of language availability here on the Insider. 

 
Will Pottermore be free?
Yes, access to Pottermore will be completely free; you won’t have to pay anything to use the site. The Pottermore Shop will have items in it that you’ll be able to buy, but choosing to purchase something – or not – won't affect your progress through the story as the Shop sits outside of the online reading experience. 

 
Can you please explain what you mean by 'online reading experience?' How much will I, as a
Pottermore user, be able to affect the story? After all, hasn't Harry's story already been told? The best way to think of Pottermore is as an interactive, illustrated companion to the books. J.K. Rowling wanted to create a site where her stories could live on and where readers could explore them in a new way. In addition to discovering new material from J.K. Rowling about Harry’s world, you’ll be able to interact with key story Moments (the Sorting Hat sequence, for example) and upload your own comments, thoughts and artwork for all the characters, objects and places that you come across. 

 
So Pottermore isn't a massively multiplayer online role-playing game likeWorld of Warcraft, or a social network game like Farmville?
No. While there will be some simple games you can play (you'll be able to brew potions, for example), Pottermore is very much about the books: being able to experience Harry’s story in a new way and discover all the additional information that J.K. Rowling has written. 

 
Isn't there a House Cup that we compete for by earning points?
Yes, there is. As you progress through the story you'll also be able to earn house points – and once you get to the end of the first book you can carry on earning points to help your house win the House Cup. 

 
Would you say Pottermore is a social network for fans of Harry Potter?
Not really. Pottermore isn’t trying to compete with sites like Facebook or the Harry Potter forums and fan sites that are already out there. Once you’ve signed up to Pottermore you’ll be able to find and invite your Facebook friends (if you're over thirteen) and leave comments in your house common room and the Great Hall, but Pottermore isn't a social networking site where you can share personal information or chat in forums. 

 
I saw the Sony logo at the top of Pottermore.com. What's Sony's involvement with the site?
Sony is the primary partner of Pottermore. They have been consulted and involved in the development of the site experience and will offer a range of products and services to Pottermore users. 

 
Is Pottermore the Harry Potter encyclopedia?
J.K. Rowling has written exclusive new material especially for Pottermore giving unique insights, back stories and additional information about the characters, places and objects in the Harry Potter series. For now, Pottermore is the only place you’ll be able to find new information from J.K. Rowling about Harry’s world, and we'll be releasing this material as each of the seven books appears on the site. 

 
Once I've been sorted, will I be able to change houses?
J.K. Rowling has created a series of questions for the Sorting Hat, and how you answer these questions will determine which of the four houses you’ll be in. Once you've been sorted, you won't be able to change; the Sorting Hat's decision is final! 

 
What formats will the ebooks be available in? Will I be able to read them on my iPad/Sony eReader/Kindle...?
The Pottermore Shop is due to open in October. Our aim is to offer the ebooks in an as many formats as possible. We’ll provide more information closer to the time. 

 
I’ve submitted my email to the Pottermore website – does this mean I’m registered with Pottermore.com?
Not yet. If you’ve submitted your email address to the site, we'll use it to let you know when site registration is open to everyone. In other words, once you’ve received an email from us, you'll be able to visit Pottermore.com and complete the registration process. 

 
Remember, to get into Hogwarts you must have magical ability... 

 
What's going to happen on 31 July?
We don't want to ruin the surprise but something will be happening on Pottermore.com on 31 July. Come back to the site, or keep an eye on thePottermore Insider (http://insider.pottermore.com) and our Pottermore Twitter feed for details. 

- - The Leaky Cauldron

JK Rowling sign 'Harry Potter e-books' deal

Google, JK Rowling sign 'Harry Potter e-books' deal

The Economic Times

Google and British author J.K. Rowling have finalized a deal to launch the series of Harry Potter e-books on Google's platform .


'Pottermore and Google are teaming up to integrate Pottermore with a number of Google products and APIs,' Xinhua quoted Google, as saying in a blog post.


'So, when the series of Harry Potter e-books launches on Pottermore.com in early October, these bestsellers will be available in the US via the open Google e-books platform,' it added.


Pottermore is an upcoming website by Rowling, which will sell e-book and audio-book versions of the seven Harry Potter novels, as well as provide over 18,000 words of additional content including background details and settings.


The website will be launched on July 31 for the first one million fans to complete their registration on the website on that day, and on October 1 for everyone else.


Google, however, will not be allowed to sell the Harry Potter e-books or audio-books on its own site.


Google e-books can be read on most devices with a modern browser, through the Google Books apps for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, and on more than 80 e-readers."

Harry Potter : magic beyond everything else

a never-ending spell...

Harry Potter lovers rejoice as Pottermore, the latest website and the official counterpart of the hugely-popular series is set to launch shortly. And what’s more it has the stamp of approval by none other than the reticent author JK Rowling, who has created a fan furor worldwide with her ‘magical’ characters and seven ‘spellbinding’ books.

Pottermore will also be the first place where readers will be able to buy digital versions of the book, new unpublished materials by the author and also have a direct tête-à-tête with Rowling herself. While the fan site has already garnered a host of followers and likes on micro-blogging and networking sites, it is being touted as a marketing wizardry, by many to keep the spirit of the series alive, what with the final part of the last book hitting the big screens in mid-July this year.

City-based author Anita Nair, who recently set-up an Internet group for her book Malabar Maladies on a networking site, says that recreating an online forum for books previously released does help in keeping the written word alive. “An online community helps the author to keep updating fans and readers as and when something comes up,” she says. The author points out that sometimes it becomes impossible to reply individually to fans, who write in on the website. “This can often hurt sentiments of a reader, when an author doesn’t communicate back. However, with an online forum the interaction is quicker and simpler,” she explains.

Though the excitement about Pottermore is catching up quickly, website and brand experts remain cautious with the euphoria over the site. As one of them has pointed out that maintaining an Internet community in the long run could be a challenge after the initial hype of the e-book sales and launch of the site dies down. Potter fan and entrepreneur Somil Mittal, who has keenly followed the books and movies over the years says that though online forums on Harry Potter are common place, it’s the promise of unpublished works of Rowling on the site that would make him sign up. “Reading on small snippets that never got published, or a different line of imagination, when writing the final draft is what I would look for in the site,” he offers.