[stonetools]

I think what's happening here is that Pottermore is negotiating individually with all the major booksellers to present the Harry Potter books in each individual format at Pottermore and in their own store. Since Google Books are one of the smallest of the major booksellers and are the channel for independent booksellers, Pottermore did Google Books first. I expect agreements with all the individual booksellers over the next couple of months. Since Amazon and Apple are the biggest fish, their negotiations will take the longest, but they will fall into place eventually. Now agreements with the Big Six booksellers (Amazon, Apple, B&N, Google, Kobo and Sony) may not fulfill some abstract ideal of " all devices" but it will be close enough for most consumers.

As for DRM, Ms. Rowling is on record as truly fearing electronic piracy. I'm going to call this early. I am about 90 percent certain that there will be some form of DRM and 75 per cent certain that Pottermore will allow each bookseller to apply their own DRM, earlier statements notwithstanding . People say lots of things, but when it comes to action, they generally act in their financial self interest. Yeah, I know DRM doesn't stop piracy, blah blah blah, but that argument works for geeks, not for major league authors and booksellers, and we're talking about the biggest pot of money in ebook publication history.