Rowling teased fans last week with the promise of a new Pottermore.com project but provided no hints to its nature. There was speculation it might have been a previously discussed encyclopedia, a video game or a website.
It will be a combination: part social-networking forum, part computer game in a website containing additional encyclopedic-like details. It will allow fans to continue interacting with their favourite books, but more importantly, it will make the series relevant to a new “digital generation” of readers who may not have been as prepared to read printed books in future.
On her Pottermore launch video, JK Rowling promises a new interactive reading experience.
In a video posted on the website, Rowling indicated readers will be able to help shape the stories.
“It’s the same story with a few crucial additions. The most important one is you. Just as the experience of reading requires that the imaginations of author and reader work together to create the story, so Pottermore will be built in part by you, the reader.”
She said it would be “an online reading experience unlike any other”.
“I’ll be joining in too because I will be sharing additional information I’ve been holding for years about the world of harry Potter,” she promised.
Speaking at a news conference at the Victoria and Albert Museum in Kensington, central London, Rowling said the site was a place for fans to “share” the books.
“I wanted to give something back to the fans that have followed Harry so devotedly over the years, and to bring the stories to a new digital generation,” she said.
“I hope fans and those new to Harry will have as much fun helping to shape Pottermore as I have.
“Just as I have contributed to the website, everyone else will be able to join in by submitting their own comments, drawings and other content in a safe and friendly environment. Pottermore has been designed as a place to share the stories with your friends as you journey through the site.”
Fans will be able to work their way through the books and follow Harry to Hogwarts where they are sorted into one of the school’s rival houses and become student wizards themselves.
Rowling said the idea partly came because of the demand for eBooks of the novels.
“I wanted to pull it back to reading, I wanted to pull it back to the literary experience, the story experience and this is what emerged.”
She said some of the material for the website had been “literally” dug out of boxes.
“The world has kind of out-stripped me in the sense that back in 1998 I knew I was generating a lot more material than would ever appear in the books.
“To me at the time I thought ‘Who would ever want to know the significance of all these different wand woods?’
“This was all in my head. So at that time the only way I could imagine ever putting that material out there was in the form of a printed book.”
She added fans might still see the publication of a Harry Potter encyclopedia, with all profits going to charity, but she would not publish another novel.
“This was about the give-back. The technology now existed to do something outside the books and the films for existing fans.”
Fans were told they could register from today, but a notice on the site said overwhelming demand meant email registrations could not be accepted. It asked them to “please be patient” and return on July 31 to join.
The website will open to all in October.
There will also be an online store, the only place where fans can buy eBooks and digital audio books of the teenage wizard’s adventures.
