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By David Rothman

Harry Potter Harry to go digital with the magic of Amazon’s eBook is the enticing headline in the Independent. Would that Tony Glover’s actual article be as certain! Here’s the lowdown from the Indy:

“Harry Potter and his wizarding chums may be about to make a digital publishing leap. Online bookseller Amazon has plans to unveil a wireless electronic book reader, a kind of literary iPod, which already has UK publishers scrambling to digitise their entire range of titles…

“Jeremy Ettinghausen, digital director of Penguin, said: ‘With Amazon and Sony both reported to be planning electronic book reader launches in the UK, we are highly positive about the market for digital books.’

“A source close to Bloomsbury, the publisher of the Harry Potter novels, said the company was also keen to adapt literary works to the new technology.”

J.K. Rowling can make all the noises she wants about the holiness of the printed page, but in the end, as I see matters, it boils down to dollars and pounds and the rest of the world’s currencies. Get enough buyers out there, and J.K. will gladly succumb. Maybe Amazon’s e-reader will be a tipping point, especially if a gargantuan e-related advance greases the way.

Reminder: Authorized digital audio books of Potter are already out there—along with illegal e-books galore. If I ran a publishers group, I’d aggressively lean on Bloomsbury to go E with Potter, all the way, lest Rowing fans begin to accustom themselves to unauthorized e-books. The longer Bloomsbury waits, the more customers and downloaders of the unauthorized editions made from scans of the paper books.

 
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