New survey for Harry Potter books on Pottermore Insider

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I don't trust JKR's intentions..

"Ego, perhaps? " Lemur

"Way to insult your customers... "vxf

Oh, please, do get real.....

Her intentions ? I don't care - her intentions, whatever they are, don't worry me a bit, because I know a little of just how much money, work and support she gives to medical research and children's charities, as well as a lot of influence and "words in people's ears". Unlike those upright figures of probity and good intentions, the luminaries of the banking world.

Ego ? Well, when you've created probably one of the most appreciated, consumed, intelligent and well crafted works of "childrens" fiction of all time (so far), I think there's not a lot of ego-massaging required. And she has considerably more achievements than most to deserve her own ego, I reckon.

Insult customers ? "Screwing around with this" ? I shouldn't think she's got much to do with the insulting, or screwing around (!) side, frankly - she always stated her opposition to ebooking HP was due to the financial and scarcity problem regarding ereaders, a perfectly reasonable opinion I thought,and now she has restated that position. Delays etc.. are almost certainly down to the suits and technical luvvy side of things.
And the amount of fairly petty cash she'll make from the exercise probably isn't of much concern to someone with her wealth who gives lumps of it away anyway. Do you really think JKR is worrying about the massive (joke) amounts in sight from the mighty ebook market ?
Don't forget, the films were and are hugely profitable, and they were commenced relatively early on in the canon, and good luck to her.

It always seems to me that a lot of people are very content to insult JKR through all manner of conspiracy theories, bad intentions, having the nerve to be very successful, and actually (horror ! ) enjoying her self-made wealth, but are extremely quick to accuse her of "insulting" them, by not doing what they want her do with her own creation. (Which, presumably, they enjoyed at one time, but have probably now burnt 'cos she, in their eyes , is so evil and conniving.)

I'm sorry, but can we get real ? Ms Rowling is not sitting in one of her mansions plotting how to really put one over on a bunch of poor, unappreciated, disadvantaged, unfairly treated ereaders, some of whom may actually benefit from research directly funded by her.

Rant over
(For now, probably....)

[tubemonkey]

I did the survey and said I wouldn't buy them because they'll be priced too high.

[Kevin2960]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

"Ego, perhaps? " Lemur

"Way to insult your customers... "vxf

Oh, please, do get real.....

Her intentions ? I don't care - her intentions, whatever they are, don't worry me a bit, because I know a little of just how much money, work and support she gives to medical research and children's charities, as well as a lot of influence and "words in people's ears". Unlike those upright figures of probity and good intentions, the luminaries of the banking world.

I'm sorry, but can we get real ? Ms Rowling is not sitting in one of her mansions plotting how to really put one over on a bunch of poor, unappreciated, disadvantaged, unfairly treated ereaders, some of whom may actually benefit from research directly funded by her.

Rant over
(For now, probably....)

Drastically cut down quote - Sorry _ Space and all That !

100 % Agree with your whole post - Why do so many eBook Buyers on here expect the Whole World on Demand - and Free of Charge at that - Get Real !

[elemenoP]

Hey! Hey! Remember when Pottermore was in the works (right before it was opened up to beta testers) and they promised ONE ebook format that would work on any reader??? What happened to that? Maybe they discovered it's harder than they thought, even with all the money and might of Potter behind them? I guess that was the DRM scheme described below:

>>The DRM scheme proposed was the least obnoxious form. It allows you to move eBooks you buy to a new device without having to depend on the DRM servers of a particular bookseller or having to remember what credit card number you used back when you bought the books. It simply puts your name on the books you buy.<<

But I just took the survey, and I don't see anything about such a DRM scheme. I only see questions about what bookstores I buy from and so on. So they are DECIDING ON FORMAT/BOOKSTORE after all.

And a question about "social DRM/watermarking:" how is that going to help you move your book from a Kindle to a Nook?

Anyway, I think the survey is really really stupid. The Potter books are so widely read, that I imagine the results will resemble a plain old market study (eg, what are the most popular ebookstores overall).

eP

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Kevin2960

Drastically cut down quote - Sorry _ Space and all That !

100 % Agree with your whole post - Why do so many eBook Buyers on here expect the Whole World on Demand - and Free of Charge at that - Get Real !

YES. Because if there is ONE THING everyone in this thread has been in agreement on, it's that we want Rowling to hand-deliver a free HP Sony T1 to our door, and maybe some fresh cookies.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

YES. Because if there is ONE THING everyone in this thread has been in agreement on, it's that we want Rowling to hand-deliver a free HP Sony T1 to our door, and maybe some fresh cookies.

I just want the cookies

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I just want the cookies

My choice would be the M&M kind where the cookie has M&M candies instead of chocolate chips. You?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

My choice would be the M&M kind where the cookie has M&M candies instead of chocolate chips. You?

Snickerdoodles

[ProfCrash]

I want milk as well.

I am sorry but JKR has made some moves that are annoying to a lot of folks. She owns the rights to her books and can choose how they are distributed but that also means that she gets to hear from fans who are angry with her decisions.

She could have chosen to release the e-books many years ago and greatly diminished the number of pirated books out there. Instead she sat on them for a number of reasons, one being that she was worried about them being pirated.

When she finally decides to release the e-books she could have chosen to sell them through the regular vendors. Instead she chooses to sell them on Pottermore with a special DRM on October. I could care less about the DRM, I am going to have to deal with that one way or another. I would prefer to buy them through Amazon, it is easier for me that way, but would have bought them at Pottermore. I was not going to be worried about the price because I am fortunate enough not to have to. Instead the release date is pushed back indefinitely because the web design team cannot get the servers to stop crashing.

They cannot be bothered to open a separate site to sell the merchandise, including the e-books, after setting a release date. They are just going to wait until they get things fixed.

If she had set a release date for the hard copy of Book7 and said that the book wasn't ready and it was going to be released sometime in the next 6 months maybe a year people would have been up in arms. So I don't get why people think that folks who are upset with JKR for making decisions that delay even further the e-book release are some how demanding free e-books with cookies and a free e-reader.

She finally set the date and she missed the date and has not bothered to let people know when they might be able to buy the e-books. She choose a non-traditional route for selling her books. In doing so, she accepts even more of blame for missing the date that she set.

It is stuff like this that keeps me from buy GRR Martin's books and authors who play similar games. They get to make these decisions. As a consumer I have every right to think that they are bad decisions and say so. Silly me, I want to buy their product and am annoyed when they string me along.

And no matter who much good JKR has done in this area she has strung me and many others along. I don't think she is doing it for laughs but she is doing it.

And it pisses me off.

[jersysman]

^
+1

Agreed!

[astra]

Originally Posted by jersysman

^
+1

Agreed!

I second to it.

[miguel1626]

Originally Posted by Kevin2960

100 % Agree with your whole post - Why do so many eBook Buyers on here expect the Whole World on Demand - and Free of Charge at that - Get Real !

People are actually asking to be able to pay for their Harry Potter ebooks. If they wanted it for free, its just a matter of going to your friendly neighborhood torrent tracker.

As customers we've the right to demand a product to be sold in a certain format. The author is free to ignore such demands, of course, and live with its consequences.

All the books are written already. Book 7 came out 4 years ago! This is not rocket science (and neither is HP).

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

YES. Because if there is ONE THING everyone in this thread has been in agreement on, it's that we want Rowling to hand-deliver a free HP Sony T1 to our door, and maybe some fresh cookies.

It's the fresh that's important........

Stale ones end up in my Junk tray.

[citac]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I saw a news article that said Pottermore yanked the release back because the website was "too busy" (the wand dueling game was mentioned) and that they were focusing on fixing the site up. There was... a surprising amount of fan-blaming in the article, but that may have been added by the article writer, not the Pottermore people.

I think the whole thing is so ridiculous, and isn't it all going to charity supposedly? So all the delays are really that much worse in my mind.

I did take the survey though. No idea what it will accomplish -- are they open to being sold at Amazon et al. now? Because I would be in favor of that, but I'd thought that was 'off the table' because Pottermore wanted their Special Snowflake DRM on the books.

Do you have a link to that article? I'd like to read it.

[citac]

Originally Posted by teh603

I gotta disagree; all of my PDFs from DriveThruRPG are watermarked and I have no problems with it. Watermarking is the least intrusive and least damaging form of DRM.

Its not that its "business as usual," or "running of the site." This is the Insider blog. The only window that people on the outside have to what Pottermore might be, IF they get off their butts and open it to the public.

So instead of saying how long it might be or how things are going with getting the servers running, or bugs they've stomped, or talking about the stuff the artists are doing; they go and post some horrible fanarts the beta testers posted, with absolutely no freaking context.

The least they could've done is used it in a demo of the fanart gallery, instead of just randomly posting it.

Plus I hear from artists friends who are on Pottermore that people sometimes simply take their fanart from say DeviantArt and post on Potermore as their own. People are complaining that the report notifications are broken and there's no way to address this issue.