JK Rowling announced today, Pottermore, a “digital online reading experience.” We had all wondered where Harry Potter was in the eBook world. The answer will apparently be fully under JK Rowling’s control. Harry Potter books will be available in electronic form solely through this new site. I assume that they can be read across many devices but by bypassing all digital book selling platforms, JK Rowling is doing something interesting. It is the sort of thing Apple would do: avoid dealing with platforms unless you really have to.

There is more to all of this. Rowling had, to the chagrin of many, prevented Potter fan fiction enforcing copyright. But here it seems is the reason why: she wants it all to happen on her own platform — in the interests of ‘safety.’ This is also very Jobs like in its reasoning. It seems like fan fiction and contributions and discussions and perhaps wikis will be allowed but all through this site.

This is a very interesting move but we won’t really see what it looks like until October.