I saw articles on Mashable and The Guardian in the past few days speculating what 'Pottermore' was all about, there were rumours of a fake leak that it was a game, with wands hidden in the real world for fans to find. They all said to look out for the announcement on the 23rd.
The mystery is now revealed!
JK herself stars in a video released today announcing that it is part game, part online community that fans can contribute to, and a place where for the first time people can buy the Harry Potter ebooks.
I still can't imagine what it's actually going to do, but the concept sounds very exciting, and at the very least fans will be drawn to it because JK will be putting up hidden content she has been "hoarding for years" about the Harry Potter world.
This is due to launch in October, though a lucky few can participate early. She ends with a mysterious call to "follow the owl" if you want a chance of being one of the founding contributors.
The middle of the video is particularly beautiful, using cutout animation recreating images from the book using the actual text of the book. This is clearly a nod to the wildly successful book trailer produced in New Zealand in 2009 for Maurice Gee's 'Going West,' which I wrote about in 2009 here, and has now achieved almost a million views which makes it the most successful book trailer ever.
Here are some of my questions:
Will this result in a spike of new sales?
How far will the site tie in with the film?
How much will it be an ecommerce site flogging Harry Potter merchandise, or will it offfer something genuinely exciting and original to fans?
Will the new content be publishing in book form one day? Who will own the rights if so?
What the Harry Potter fan fic community think?
I love the way it all links together - the author, a video, the text, the ideas, the text itself, a game and a fan fiction community. It's a beautiful example of transmedia, where the digital meets fiction and the fans meet the author, and it will all end up in ebooks and the excitement around Harry Potter living on beyond the final film.
Very exciting times for publishing!
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