The Harry Potter ebooks have finally gone on sale at the Pottermore shop!!! US prices are $7.99 each for the first three books, $9.99 for the remaining four, or $57.99 for the entire set. That’s in line with the paperback prices. The books are currently available only in English, but according to the website, French, German, Italian, and Spanish versions will be released later. They’ve been released for all the major e-readers, including Kindle, Nook, Sony, Kobo, iPad, as well as Android devices, iPhone, and iPod Touch. You can see a more complete list of compatible devices here.
The US site (linked above) shows the US covers and uses the “Sorcerer’s Stone” title. I haven’t purchased one yet to see whether the book is the American version or the British version. The first few American print releases Americanized the language as well as the spelling — “Mum” to “Mom” and “jumper” to “sweater”, for instance. I was really hoping for the British text, but the fact that they’re using the Scholastic covers makes me suspect that the US page is selling the US versions.
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sony Reader Store all have links on their home pages allowing you to click through to the Pottermore store. Kobo and Apple were the odd ones out; I couldn’t find a link at either site. (Kobo didn’t surprise me; they sometime lags behind the other sites in updating their website and adding new releases or newly-discounted titles.)
According to The Digital Shift, Overdrive will begin allowing checkouts on Thursday, March 29.
Update (3/28/2012): There has been a flood of posts about the Harry Potter ebooks, how the purchasing process works, and the watermark-vs.-DRM issue.
To clarify the latter: The HP books are watermarked, rather than having DRM. Watermarking places a unique identifier in each copy sold. If the book turns up on a torrent site with that identifier, presumably Rowling can then sue the original purchaser for copyright infringement. Of course, that does assume that the pirated copy or copies were made with the purchaser’s knowledge and agreement — a very big assumption, given how easy it is for hackers to get into a personal computer via a worm or virus. Another thing purchasers should know is that if you add the book(s) to your Kindle or Nook account, Amazon or Barnes & Noble will add their own DRM when you download to your device. If you want the book(s) without DRM, I understand that you need to download an ePub file directly to your computer, then use something like Calibre to convert it if necessary and then add it to your device.
You should also be aware that the Pottermore site only allows 8 downloads (or addition of the book to your Kindle/Nook/Sony/Google account) of each title; if you want to download from the store more times than that, you have to purchase the book again. And of course, if the site goes out of business, you lose any unused downloads. (If you sent the book to your Kindle/Nook/Sony/Google account, it should remain there even if Pottermore were to close, but that’s not guaranteed.)
Below are links to some of the more interesting blog posts I’ve found:
On the purchasing process:
From Books on the Knob, advice and a walk-through on how to purchase & download the books, and further information here.
From PaidContent, what you need to know to buy the books
On watermarks and DRM:
From Futurebooks, a detailed explanation of why some retailers will apply their own DRM, as well as some questions for J. K. Rowling
From The Digital Reader, a bad experience regarding the Kindle version and DRM
On the sales model:
From TechDirt, an article on the problems of bypassing the middleman
And finally, on the launch of the books generally:
Futurebooks talks about the launch, Pottermore’s (lack of) relationship with Apple, forthcoming enhanced versions of the ebooks, and more.
