Sales of Harry Potter Books May Be Delayed

[6charlong]

A message on the Pottermore Insider Blog warns that Pottermore, the site sponsored by JK Rowling where the eBooks were to have been published, will remain in beta testing at least through the end of October. It is expected to be open to the general plublic beginning in November.

The Blog posted this additiional news:

Finally, the Pottermore Shop, which will sell the Harry Potter eBooks and digital audio books, will now open in the first half of 2012, in order to allow us to focus on our first priority: opening Pottermore to as many people as possible and making the experience as good as it can be.

The full text is available here: http://insider.pottermore.com/

[HarryT]

Fair enough. Better to delay it and get it right than to rush things.

[pdurrant]

I wonder whether they'll do the eBooks with the UK text or the US text. Or perhaps give customers a choice?

[ucfgrad93]

Well, I've waited this long I guess a few more months won't kill me.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I wonder whether they'll do the eBooks with the UK text or the US text. Or perhaps give customers a choice?

I want the UK version.

It's a bummer... Oh, well.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I wonder whether they'll do the eBooks with the UK text or the US text. Or perhaps give customers a choice?

I want the UK text. Anyone that can't deal with the concept of Philosopher's shouldn't be on this planet.

[ProfCrash]

oh for gods sake. This is getting silly. Put the Pottermore store on a different server and let people by the damn books.

[monkeyluis]

I don't understand why it's taken so long for her to put the books on sale in digital. I don't know that I'll support her when they finally do come out.

[RainingLemur]

I hope they wind up using the UK version of the text when it does launch.

[SensualPoet]

I understand wanting to make Pottermore.com rock solid. But pushing the sales of the ebooks to "first half of 2012"? Really? As vague as that? I wonder where the rumoured Potterised Sony ereader device fits into all this.

[Suzanna]

I'm not surprised that the opening of Pottermore to the general public is being delayed. My daughters just got their beta invites this week (they qualified for an invite on the last day of Rowling's 7 day qualification thing) and the site is constantly going down because of server overload. If Pottermore can't even handle the beta testers, I shudder to think what will happen when it's open to everyone. Hopefully they'll use the extra time to beef up the servers!

And I, too, hope they use the UK version of the books, which is what we have here in Canada.

[elemenoP]

Anybody who sells things knows it's a disaster to miss Christmas!

I, too, wonder what the ebooks and the Pottermore site have to do with each other.

eP

[Daveoc64]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

I, too, wonder what the ebooks and the Pottermore site have to do with each other.

eP

It does sound very odd.

Relatively speaking, getting the ebooks up and on sale is the least difficult part of what they're doing.

[ProfCrash]

It won't be a disaster to miss Christmas because it is Harry Potter and the people waiting for the books will buy them when they become available.

I am tired of the delays and the excuses. It is one big game and I am sick of how JKR is treating her fans. I am reaching an irrational level of anger and starting to question why I should bother to buy the books.

I would argue that it is ethically and morally correct but then I tend to feel that paying for crappy service is a bad idea. The regular leaks that the books were going to be released then they wouldn't be. Then they will be but on her terms on October. Now they will be on her terms sometime in 2012.

If her team was so out of it to not realize how many people were going to want to access Pottermore that it cannot handle the number of Beta testers then they should be fired for plain incompotence (sp). All you have to do is look at the ticket sales, game sales, and book sales to know that the number of folks wanting to participate was going to be insanely high and prepare for that. They could control the number of beta testers and have still managed to screw it up.

I am sorry, but this type of gross incompentence pisses me off. Open the store on a different server and let people buy the books or sell them through regular channels but stop jerking people around.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I would argue that it is ethically and morally correct but then I tend to feel that paying for crappy service is a bad idea.

You haven't paid for anything, have you? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but "Pottermore" is a free site, is it not? It may be a little irksome to have to wait another few months for the eBooks, but it's not going to cost you anything to do so.