Yesterday the digital e-book version of all seven books of the Harry Potter series finally became available for sale, as discussed by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg in a recent Wall Street Journal article. Harry Potter fans can purchase these e-books directly from the bookstore feature of J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore website, a website that was launched last summer to give fans a virtual, interactive reading experience. These digital books can be accessed on e-readers, tablets, mobile phones and computing devices, and are offered through Sony, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble’s online bookstores (which all direct you straight to Pottermore’s bookstore). However, the Harry Potter e-books are not available on Apple’s iBookstore, and Apple owners can access them through other retailer applications. She is selling the first three books of the series for only $7.99 each and the last four books, which are longer, for $9.99 each. By launching these e-books, J.K. Rowling is trying to target children from ages eight to eleven who haven’t yet read the books, as well as teens and older readers.
While it was inevitable that Harry Potter would be in the digital book market sooner or later, I think that this was a smart move for J.K. Rowling to not only keep her strong fan base, but to gain more fans for this series. Rowling, especially after introducing her series into the digital book market, is the perfect example of successfully changing her strategy over time to adapt to the changing demands of her customers, as Harry Potter started as a simple paperback book and has grown to so much more than that. After the first book became so popular, in order to satisfy her customers’ demands, she wrote six more books and turned it into a series. In addition to completing the series, movies were made, which not only enticed people to read the books for the first time, but also gave current fans a reason to keep coming back for more. Now, with the increased use of technology, especially for reading, Rowling had to find a way to incorporate it into her strategy. I think that by launching Pottermore, and offering her e-books through this site, she can successfully keep up with the rapid pace of technology as well with as with the changing preferences of her customers. In addition, these e-books are extremely inexpensive, which will be attractive to both new readers and those who already own hard copies.
J.K. Rowling, over the past thirteen years since the launch of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, has really proven to keep her focus on her fans, and always continued to change her strategy based on the changing preferences of her customers, which has helped her to be so successful. While I’m not sure that these e-books will get me to read the series, I am excited to see what will come next.
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