Our Gal Rowling's latest project, a HUGE website called Pottermore, will sell eBook versions of all the Harry Potter novels for the first time, bypassing Amazon.com.
"I thought 'who would ever want to know the significance of all the difference wand woods?'," asked Rowling in this morning's press conference in the UK. If the answer to her question is YOU, "Now you can go and see," she says.
She's been working on this megasite Pottermore.com for more than two years. It will officially have some usability on July 31st, 2011 (Harry's birthday), but most of the content won't be available until October, 2011.
While fans of the series may be excited (or not), the REAL story here is Rowling's decision to self-publish her novels in digital form from now on.
Olivia Solon, writes in the Telegraph that Rowling's decision “represents a significant landmark for digital publishing.” Like Radiohead.
Both Digital audiobooks and Ebooks will be available for sale only on the site in October, 2011. "It is my view that you can't hold back progress," says Rowling. "Ebooks are here to stay. Personally I love print and paper. [but] very very recently for the first time I downloaded an Ebook and it is miraculous, for travel and for children. So I feel great about taking Harry Potter into this new medium... We knew there was a big demand for Ebooks but if it was going to be done we wanted it to be more than that ... I wanted to pull it back to reading, to the literary experience, the story experience, and this is what emerged."
Digital editions will ONLY be sold on the Pottermore site, leaving booksellers, like Amazon, totally out of the picture. "It means we can guarantee people everywhere are getting the same experience," said Rowling. "[I am] lucky to have the resources to do it myself and am therefore able to do it right. It's a fantastic and unique experience which I could afford in every sense. There was really no other way to do it...This site is a fantastic way for fan creativity to continue. It's amazing for me to be creative in this medium, which didn't exist back in 1990."
But what other stuff will be on the site?
Well, apparently, users will be able to register with a magical British name (I prefer Imogen, myself), then you get to shop for magical stuff, get sorted into a House, and move through the entire novel series! Part RPG, part storytelling, it sounds like the server fees will be astronomical.
"I had more than half of the new material already written or in note form. I literally dug some out of boxes... I generated more material than ever appeared in the books... I wanted to give something back to the fans that have followed Harry so devotedly over the years, and to bring the stories to a new generation," Rowling revealed. "I hope fans and those new to Harry will have as much fun helping to shape Pottermore as I have. Just as I have contributed to the website, everyone else will be able to join in by submitting their own comments, drawings and other content in a safe and friendly environment. Pottermore has been designed as a place to share the stories with your friends as you journey through the site."
So, details of the game?
"If you are not sorted into Gryffindor, if you go into one of the other three houses, you will effectively get an extra quarter of a chapter. You will go off into your own common room, meet your own prefect, and find out what the true nature of the house is. In the main novel you only see the houses through the eyes of the heroes. So it's not a terrible thing to be in Slytherin,"
And can we play 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. "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."
Our Gal Rowling's latest project, a HUGE website called 
