Okay, that’s the cynical take on Pottermore, the new website announced by the Harry Potter author. It won’t officially debut until October 31st, a high holy day for the wizarding world, but there will be previews before then. You’ll be able to get a wizardy name and then navigate through an online game that reveals new material from Rowling. She is said to have written 18,000 words of bonus features, this despite the later Harry books being about as long as a Manhattan phone book. Apparently she cast a spell to ward off editors. The other wrinkle here is that Pottermore will be the only place you can buy Harry Potter e-books, a format Rowling has previously eschewed. It’s hard to imagine this ruining Amazon exactly but it’s interesting to see an author go direct like this.

I wonder if at the end of the website a bunch of character are killed unnecessarily. Probably.