Harry Potter

J.K. Rowling will publish a hardcover Hogwarts Library Box Set with Bloomsbury later this year. The publisher mentioned the boxed set in its financial results for the year, an extra bonus for Harry Potter fans. 

The publisher shared these photos on Twitter: “THE HOGWARTS LIBRARY BOXED SET will contain beautiful hardback editions of the 3 Harry Potter school books!”

As you can see by the picture, the set will include Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them and Quidditch Through the Ages (both published as a set in 2001). The set will also include a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a book first published in 2007.

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Sony has launched a Harry Potter eBook giveaway to promote the Sony eReader.

AppNewser has the story: “For a limited time, customers that buy the $129 Wi-Fi eReader from the online Sony Store can get a free copy of the eBook Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

Here’s more from the Sony blog: “With Reader Wi-Fi’s super long battery life, ultra-light form factor and glare-free touchscreen display, you’ll be able to enjoy the world of Harry Potter anytime and anywhere. Also if you haven’t yet, don’t forget to sign up for Pottermore to discover moments from the books as well as new writing from J.K. Rowling.Now the only question is, will you get a black, red or white Reader?”

Author J.K. Rowling revealed on her website that she has begun working on a Harry Potter encyclopedia.

She wrote: “For a long time I have been promising an encyclopaedia of Harry’s world, and I have started work on this – some of it forms the new content in Pottermore. It is likely to be a time-consuming job, but when finished I shall donate all royalties to charity.”

In past interviews, she has estimated that this project could take ten years to complete. When Rowling first began talking about this project, she envisioned a book that will include some of her unpublished writing notes, the histories of minor characters and more details about the wizarding world in a post-Voldemort era.

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The Harry Potter website Pottermore.com, an interactive experience dedicated to the J.K. Rowling book series, has finally launched publicly.

Here is more from the Pottermore blog: “Over the coming days, we’ll be inviting new users onto Pottermore.com. We’re expecting to be really busy to start with and plan to activate new registrations in a steady stream. This means that you may not get access to Pottermore immediately after you sign up but we will get you exploring the site as quickly possible.”

The site includes exclusive new writing from J.K. Rowling, as well as an eBook store. While the site was supposed to launch in October 2011, the beta test lasted longer expected after beta user feedback led to a completely revamped platform. (Via The Huffington Post)

Digital copies of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series are now available at thousands of libraries thanks to a new partnership between Pottermore.com and OverDrive.

The library partnership comes just days after the books were released digitally by Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

eBookNewser has more details: “The seven book series can be checked out from more than 18,000 libraries and schools in more than 20 countries. The books are available in EPUB and Kindle in the U.S. in English. French, Italian, German and Spanish readers will have versions available soon.”

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Pottermore.com, the online destination site based on J.K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter book series, will open to the public in April 2012.

In a YouTube video last June, Rowling said the site would feature interactive games, new story lines and eBook editions of the series. Since then, select fans have been able to use it in a beta form. While the site was supposed to launch in October 2011, the beta test lasted longer than they had expected.

Pottermore.com explained the delays: “We gathered some incredibly useful feedback from our Beta users, and it became clear that our original platform wouldn’t be suitable when millions more users came on to the site. So we made a big decision: to move Pottermore to an entirely different platform set up. This ‘invisible’ change has involved a lot of work behind the scenes but it will enable our users to get the best from Pottermore as it grows and develops.” Read more

Today HarperCollins acquired most of Newmarket Press‘ catalog and its name. New Market founder Esther Margolis will now serve as an executive editor at the publisher’s It Books imprint.

Margolis opened New Market in 1981, specializing in official tie-in books for films like as Milk, The Matrix, Gladiator,  Moulin Rouge and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The company has published more than 300 books in many different genres.

It Books publisher Cal Morgan explained the purchase, in the release:  “For years, Newmarket Press has been the industry’s leading publisher of film-related books. Its list of screenplays, making-of books, tie-ins, and other titles on cinema is second to none. Esther Margolis is a highly respected veteran of both the publishing and the film industries, with unparalleled relationships with countless studios and filmmakers. Her wealth of knowledge and experience in publishing to this audience will be an invaluable asset to the growing It Books list.”

 

The movies and the books may have concluded, but Harry Potter will live on inside a sprawling Warner Brothers studio in England.

The latest edition to the Potter franchise is the Harry Potter Studio Tour. Opening just outside of London next year, the studio tour will give fans a behind-the-scenes look at the sets where the movies were filmed (pictured, via).

Time’s NewsFeed has more: “Highlights on a tour expected to take around three hours to complete will include Hogwarts’ Great Hall, Dumbledore’s office, the Gryffindor common room and Hagrid’s hut. You’ll also get to sneak a peek at the series’ animatronics (the likes of Buckbeak the Hippogriff, Aragog the giant spider, Fawkes the phoenix and the Basilisk head) in the Creature Effects workshop.”

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow – Part 2 has crossed the $1 billion mark at the box office in worldwide ticket sales, the first movie in the franchise to reach this milestone.

The film exceeded expectations at the box office on its opening weekend in July with the best worldwide opening of all time, grossing $481.5 million.

The film also has an app called Harry Potter Film Wizardry that has done very well in iTunes, including holding to Top Grossing app spot. Mozilla Firefox is letting users decorate their browsers with themes from the film. (Via Publisher’s Weekly)

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 exceeded expectations at the box office this weekend. The film had the best worldwide opening of all time, grossing $481.5 million.

The Hollywood Reporter has more: “The movie grossed $312.3 million at the international box office, $5 million more than Sunday’s projections. In North America, Deathly Hallows Part 2’s actual gross came in at $169.2 million, compared to Sunday’s estimate of $168.6 million.”

The film has a new app in Apple’s App Store that gives a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film. Not surprisingly, Harry Potter Film Wizardry is currently the top grossing app in the books category of iTunes.