Ever since 2000 I have read all the Harry Potter books at least once a year. Most years twice. In the spring of 2009 I realised that it was no longer feasable to do anything heavier than Prisoner of Azkaban, and I had to look elsewhere for my mental comfort food. That wasn’t entirely bad, especially since Casey and Jason shoved me into the world of George R.R. Martin and nm-the-unnicknameable provided me with a lengthy and intriguing reading list to reintroduce me to sci-fi that didnt depend on misogyny and fantasy that didnt depend on retellings of some dude’s AD&D games.
But now, today, comes the news I have not only been waiting for but for which I’ve actively campaigned.
Starting in October, the Harry Potter series will be available in digitally-watermarked DRM-free e-book for-m. (sorry…got carried away with the hyphens.) That means that anyone, whether they use a Nook, an iPad, the Kindle (my personal favourite)…and even the six people who use the Hailmary e-reader Borders finally started selling can read the books in the much more accessable digital format.
Okay. More accessable to me, atleast.
It’s been three years of me sending emails and letters to various functionaries at Scholastic and Bloomsbury, three years of me begging them to sell me a product. Now at last I can again have access to Little Whinging and beyond.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
Didn’t you guess that’s what this was going to be? I would never play poker against you. You are too good at discerning tells.
A) I never play poker with friends anymore. It gets ugly.
B) It’s half of what I guessed. Gawker was going with smart-phone and I went with smart-phone too because I figured she’d do DRM-free and piggy back the smart-phone onto that. I didn’t think there was any way she’d do anything other than DRM-free because the market is so fractured right now and only going to fracture more.
My big hope now is that this turns the trend more toward DRM-free in general. I wish everybody would be more secure. I’ll still buy from Amazon because of ease but I would like to have the option to get the occasional thing from b&n that amazon doesn’t have…that sort of thing. Also, DRM just bugs me.
I instantly thought of you when the news came out. Welcome back. 🙂
I am so glad to be back it isn’t even funny. I’m even more psyched about this reported “extra content” that’ll be on the site.
Harry Potter+Extra Content=Majornirvanasquee
Yay! I thought of you immediately when I heard the news.
“Maybe now Coble will stop whining about not being able to read Harry Potter this October.”
🙂
I’ve got to admit I’m a little excited. I’ve wanted to read the books for a while, mainly because of peer pressure (ha), but no way was I going to buy and cart around those huge-ass tomes. I’m short on bookshelf space as it is.
You haven’t read them yet?
Ohhh, I’m so excited to hear what you think. 🙂
I also thought of you. I’m glad for you.