Around 4 AM PDT this morning, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling unveiled the latest addition to the massively successful series: a website called Pottermore, which will feature, among other things, Harry Potter eBooks (which have never been legally available to date) and thousands of words of new content describing the characters and world of Harry Potter.
But while the site now features a handful of screenshots, Rowling and the accompanying press material were still pretty vague about what exactly Pottermore is. Fortunately, as a long-time fan myself, I have a few guesses. So let’s try to cast some light on what this all means. Cruci- err, Lumos!
First, the biggest immediate news: this will mark the first time Harry Potter novels will be available in eBook formats. Rowling has indicated that the books will be DRM-free and will be available for all eBook devices including the Kindle and iPad, though it’s a little unclear how exactly this is going to work. Obviously this is a big deal (the books have sold more than 400 million print copies worldwide). I doubt people are going to rebuy the books the way some of them have with Apple’s launch of The Beatles on iTunes, but going forward the electronic editions will undoubtedly prove immensely popular.
But today’s announcement was about more than eBooks. It’s about the future of the Harry Potter brand, which just got a new home.
It’s a little weird to think about, but up until now there’s never been any officially sanctioned home base for Harry Potter fans.
Fan sites like Mugglenet and The Leaky Cauldron have given aficionados a place to get daily news updates and interact on forums. But HarryPotter.com just redirects to a Warner Brothers site about the upcoming Deathly Hallows Part II film. That comes out in less than a month so it’s going to be stale soon, and even if Warner transforms it into a central hub about all of the films, it’s still going to leave fans wanting — especially since many of them care more about the books than the films.
Which brings us to Pottermore. As soon as the midnight showing of Deathly Hallows ends, millions of fans are going to walk out of the theatre with the uneasy feeling that they don’t have anything Harry Potter-related to look forward to — ending a streak that’s gone on for a decade now.
Pottermore is the answer to this.
Here’s how the site is being described in the press release:
(Yes, that bit about keeping the series relevant to new readers is a little depressing — since when do fantastic books require an online supplement? But I digress…)
Looking at the screenshots, I’m reminded of J.K. Rowling’s official site, which she launched while the books were still being written. Through the site Rowling sporadically revealed clues about the upcoming books using basic puzzles (in 2004, for example, she unveiled the title of Book Six). The site is also littered with tidbits of trivia about the characters, as well as FAQs and debunked rumors.
Pottermore sounds like it will share some of the same characteristics. Like Rowling’s official site, Pottermore appears to mix a combination of hand-drawn illustrations and occasional animation, as opposed to a flashy interface. And, like Rowling’s official site, there will be a wealth of new content for fans to discover.
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