Public libraries are about to experience something truly unprecedented when it comes to ebooks. The legendary Harry Potter ebooks will be available at public libraries before they are available at stores or at Amazon.
OverDrive announced today that Pottermore has agreed to make OverDrive the exclusive distributor of Harry Potter ebooks and audiobooks to public and school libraries.
Pottermore is a website that J.K. Rowling has chosen to be the only place where the Harry Potter ebooks will be sold.
So you will be able to borrow Harry Potter ebooks at local libraries, but you won’t be able to buy them at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. If you want to buy them you have to go to Pottermore.
The tables are turned on the book retailers. For once, Amazon and Barnes & Noble will get to experience what libraries have been going through with ebooks. They will have to listen to massive customer demand for Harry Potter ebooks and will have to cope with the fact that they will not be able to offer them because of a publisher’s an author’s decision.
This is an enormous victory for public libraries. Way to go Pottermore, OverDrive, and J.K. Rowling for seeing the value of libraries and making this deal happen.