Harry Potter gets a new interactive website

Author J.K. Rowling this morning announced the creation of an interactive website for Harry Potter fans and publication of her seven novels as electronic books.

Harry, Hermione and Ron can't get into the new Pottermore website until October. Neither can you, unless you follow the owl.
Harry, Hermione and Ron can't get into the new Pottermore website until October. Neither can you, unless you follow the owl.

Author J.K. Rowling this morning announced the creation of an interactive website for Harry Potter fans and publication of her seven novels as electronic books.

In a video on YouTube at the stroke of 7 a.m. Toronto time, Rowling revealed her much-anticipated new plans for the spectacularly popular boy wizard.

“I will be joining in” on the website www.pottermore.com, she said. “I will be sharing additional information I’ve been hoarding for years.”

The e-books will be available from October, she said. But eager fans who have made each novel an international bestselling phenomenon, can get a jump on the experience.

“Follow the owl,” she advised.

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Rowling thanks the legions of readers who have made her one of the richest women in the world. The seven Harry Potter novels have sold more than 450 million copies.

“No author could have asked for a more wonderful, diverse and loyal readership.”

Rowling has written 18,000 words of new Potter material for the interactive site, which promises to immerse users in her world of wizards, combining elements of computer games, social networking and an online store.

"Pottermore" has been the subject of intense speculation among Potter fans since it appeared on the Internet with the words "coming soon."

The project unveiled in London lets Potter fans delve into the world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Sections let users shop for wands in Diagon Alley, travel to Hogwarts from the imaginary Platform 9 3/4 at London's King's Cross train station and be sorted into Hogwarts school houses by the perceptive Sorting Hat.

The site goes live July 31, when 1 million registered users will be chosen to help flesh out the online world. It will be open to all users from October, in languages including English, French, German and Spanish.

"(It's) a way I can be creative in a medium that didn't exist when I started the books back in 1990," Rowling told reporters, a way to incorporate the thousands of "stories, drawings, ideas, suggestions" she still receives from fans, four years after the last Potter book was published.

Harry Potter fans who have been sharing enthusiasm and stories online for years should be delighted by the new digital world. But Rowling said she wanted to keep the emphasis of the site firmly on the written word.

"We've had a lot of requests for online games," she said. "I wanted to pull it back to reading."

The last book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," was published in 2007, and Rowling said she still has no plans to write an eighth.

With files from The Associated Press
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