Books may never be the same again after J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore

Pottermore is a pretty big deal for the publishing world. First, the seven Harry Potter books will finally be coming out as e-books, but sold only through Pottermore.com. J.K. Rowling is bypassing her publisher, Amazon.com, the iBooks store and other popular e-book stores to control and deliver e-books as she wants them (and to avoid paying middlemen).

But that’s only part of it. Next, Pottermore will deliver new details about the Harry Potter world. A book and world as big as the one in Harry Potter could definitely use an encyclopedia. Pottermore will function as an interactive and social encyclopedia for readers.

Pottermore has also been hinted at as an online community/world where readers can read the books together, experience the Harry Potter world, play games, etc. We’ll know more in a month when more details and screenshots are released.

The potential for this is amazing. In my wildest dreams, I imagine an iPad app that is a beautiful 3D game (think The Sims or World of Warcraft), where users walk around the Harry Potter world, interact with other people around the world, form groups, read the books together, play games and more. The iPad and tablets would be perfect for this because they can do beautiful 3D games and provide a strong reading experience for books.

If books are to become electronic, why stop at e-books that try to merely mimic print?