Comments on: J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter, ebooks, and the definition of irony

By: 3 Unintended Consequences Of SOPA/PIPA | Brad's Reader

3 Unintended Consequences Of SOPA/PIPA | Brad's Reader — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:30:01 +0000

[...] high demand, people will find alternated sources to get that content. For example, for a long time JK Rowling refused to release her Harry Potter novels in ebook format because she was afraid of them being [...]

By: Dan Everyman

Dan Everyman — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 06:45:00 +0000

Well, I for one am part of this so-called generation that loves ebooks, and I cannot stand them. They are a product of our zero-attention-span society. Going to a bookstore, browsing the hundreds of volumes, conversing with other shoppers, then going home and reading a tactile book whose pages you can actually turn is one of the simplest joys in life. You can’t buy an ebook as a gift, you can’t buy a hardcover ebook, you can’t look back on the ebook that your mom gave you when you were sick that one year (the one she wrote the beautiful message in on the inside cover).

When you buy something digitally, you don’t own an object, you own data. Fuck data.

By: Penny Stinkard

Penny Stinkard — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 22:32:25 +0000

I don’t think print is dead, but it’s definitely becoming a niche category, rather than the primary outlet for books.

People will buy hardcovers and hardcover sets of books they’ve already read, greatly love, and want to adorn their office/living room with.

But for casual reading or first time encounters with authors, it’s now digital. So what does she want, to only make money during the holidays when hardcover sets are bought as gifts? Seems a rather small market to me.

By: Potterfan

Potterfan — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 23:51:23 +0000

Well, don’t try going to Pottermore to get them – I went there thinking I would buy the series. I figure she’ll be charging full hardback prices for them, so they’ll probably go for about 35 dollars a book – so it’s an expensive venture if you’re thinking about buying them. Anyway, all I got was some absurd message that I was supposed to take a survey and be sorted into a house. The English version of the survey is closed and they don’t know when it will be open again. In other words, for the privilege of paying a lot of money to read the books you have to wait and take a test when it becomes available – if it becomes available. I think the success of her series has gone to her head. Both the movies and the books from this series are over – unless she pulls another rabbit out of her hat and invents another Harry Potter people will loose patience and move on. There are plenty of other authors who are equally talented and not as greedy.

By: LariHere

LariHere — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:49:56 +0000

If you don’t give people what they want legally, they WILL get it by other means. Get with the program, seriously. I haven’t bought the books in print because I don’t wanna carry big books around + all my kids stuff (I have 2 babies)… I love my Kindle, and unless the books are sold in Kindle format, I just will NOT buy them. There. However, if I come across a pirated version, I will buy that. I want them in the Kindle, so I suggest you make them available soon Rowling lol

By: Potterfan

Potterfan — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:54:40 +0000

I think she doesn’t want to go digital because both Amazon and Barnes and Nobel take a percentage of the books sold. So she wouldn’t earn as much off her books if they were sold on one of these sites as she does in paperback format. The excuse she gives ( besides the pirated one ) is that she wants them read in print because she wants them to be experienced as she wrote them – which would be logical if she hadn’t made a huge amount of money turning them into movies. No, at the end of the day, like everything else, I think it just comes down to greed.

By: MrCrabs

MrCrabs — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 01:38:29 +0000

I think JK Rowling has made a huge mistake in refusing to release her books in eBook form. Print is dead, and its only a matter of time before eBooks start outselling print books.