QUICK NOTE for now. More
Here's the new Harry Potter page at Amazon (Link: amzn.to/pottermorepage).
To purchase a book shown, you'll need to also create an account at the Pottermore store to buy a book, (Link to Pottermore's Help page: amzn.to/pottermoresite).
They seem reasonably priced at $7.99 for the most part, considering what we've been used to with other larger publishers. But I'm getting this out right away and will add the usual details in a short while.
When actually buying a book from Amazon for the Kindle, you'll click the usual button but will be taken to the Pottermore store.
Update, 3/27/12 - Here's the detailed Amazon Help page for Harry Potter books on Kindle (Link: amzn.to/kpotter)
Update 2, 3/28/12 - More details
A discount is given if you buy a full set of 7 books at the same time. $57.54, about a 10% savings. This includes taxes.
A DRM-free ePub copy can be one of the 8-allowed downloads from Pottermore site.
Below is what is fairly common language now for Terms and Conditions of e-book purchases, but some may be interested in what Rowling's attorneys decided to use:
From Pottermore Terms and Conditions - Section 12 Use and Limitation of Use of Books
Excerpts from 12.1, What a purchaser can and can't do:
'
12.1 When you buy a downloadable book from us, what you are buying is the right to use that book in the way we explain below for your own personal, non-commercial use only:
§ You may download one (1) copy of each book you purchase for storage and use on your reading/listening system, which could be your computer, your tablet, your MP3 player, your mobile phone, your eBook reader or any other compatible electronic device, or any compatible reading/listening service linked with the Pottermore Shop ("System").
You may also download up to seven (7) further copies of the book for storage and use in the same ways but this is subject to the continued availability of the book via the Pottermore Shop...
...
12.3 You may not and may not permit others to do any of the following things in relation to any book or extract:
sell, distribute, loan, share, give or lend the book or extract to any other person including to your friends (except in the limited circumstances explained at 12.1 above)...
However, there are various upsides, including the reasonable pricing relative to other in-demand e-books today, the number of times (8) that you can download a purchased copy while being able to take advantage of a Kindle copy being automatically sent to up to 6 of your Kindle-compatible devices while it is counted by Pottermore as only one copy downloaded, etc.
And with the Kindle copy served by Amazon, you can redownload that as often as necessary.
Here are some tips exchanged from the experience yesterday of Kindle forum members -- one focus is on being able to get the original English version of the books when you live in the U.S. and use a U.S. credit card with Amazon.com US:
Thomas Palmer
"Warning (or note) to everyone. When you send a HP book to your Kindle account, it is also automatically sent to every device and app you have registered on your account, up to 6 of them."
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Jolie Griffin mentions the "availability of the last book as a digital audio production, which even itunes didn't get!"
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Fanny V. Darling says:
"you link your Pottermore account and your amazon account, then the books show on your MYK [ManageYourKindle] page"
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CBRetriever says [in order to get the Great Britain or original English versions of the Potter books vs the US English versions)
"When I signed up, I set my language to GB english"
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Thomas Palmer says
"I just did a test. If you set your country of residence on your account to be one where the GB version is available you can put it in your cart. But if you enter in a US CC when checking out then the system will automatically change it to the US version and send you back to the start of the checkout process."
Thomas Palmer adds:
"OK. I was able to figure out how to buy the UK version of the HP books when you have a US account. You will need 2 Pottermore Store accounts. You will need your main US one to buy the book and a second UK one to get the books. So you will need 2 e-mail addresses.
1) Set up your main US account. This one will be where you buy the GB version.
2) Change the Book Language to English(GB). Not the site language, the book language.
3) You won't be able to use the buy button. Use the gift link just below the buy button.
4) Send the gift to yourself at a different e-mail address. Use UK as that gift recipients country.
5) You can now check out as normal using your US credit card.
6) Set up a second Pottermore Store account with the other email address, but this time select UK as the country of residence.
7) You will get the gift code in that email account you set when you bought the gift. Use that code to accept the gift in your second Pottermore account.
8) You will now have the UK version of the book. :) Go ahead and link your Amazon account and send it off to your Kindle. Even though it's a US Amazon account it works just fine. You will get Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. YAY!!! :) In fact I now have both in my account with no problems..."
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H. kendall says:
"Thanks Thomas Palmer! I now have the UK version which I wanted. It really was easy to follow your instuctions."
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Thomas Palmer says:
'"CLS10 says: "Can you tell me how to unlink my amazon account? I don't see any options to do so."
When you are logged in on the Pottermore Store page, click on "My shop account" at the top of the page. You will see a bunch of big icons for all the different account settings sections. Click on Linked Accounts. It will show you the accounts that are linked. Click on "Remove linked account" on the right side of the account you want to unlink from the Pottermore Shop account.'
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Satellite Girl says:
'This is actually better than "real" kindle books because you can get multiple versions for different countries regardless of where you live and you can download up to 8 versions which means you can get versions for different devices in different formats without rebuying it. So having purchased it once you can get it for Nook, Google, Kindle etc. All having purchased it once. This basically gives you all the advantages of having purchased it from Amazon but unlocks it so you don't have to read it in Kindle format or be bound by the restrictions.'
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Stephanie Wheeler says:
"...SO happy to see that the artwork is still there in the ebook version. I loved all the little drawings! "
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CBP the bookworm says:
"...it doesn't work if you've already bought the books - you can only do the gift option at checkout."
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AmeliaAT says [re full-set discount, for 7 individual books]
"It's the very last option, right next to the Deathly Hallows book, and it has a little "10%" sticker-thingy over it. So if you want all 7 and want to buy them all at once, you can save 10% over buying them individually."
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ProfCrash says:
"Password wise, use at least one capitol letter and two numbers and you are good to go.
As for the 8 downloads, I sent it to my Kindle account and it counted as one download even though it went to 4 devices (k1, K3, and 2 DXGs). My second download was to my computer, I saved the EPUBs on my hard drive just to be safe. I have 6 downloads left. So if I wanted to, or needed to, I could send it to a IPad, Nook and a Sony and still have 3 downloads left..."
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Robert Berryman says:
"Thanks to Thomas for his instructions; I'm in the US and now have the UK
version. One thing I discovered is that you don't need two Pottermore
accts, just two email addresses which I already had. Use the same email
you use for Amazon and gift it to the other email, telling Pottermore
that the send-to address is UK. Worked great! Thanks again, Tom."
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CLS10 says:
"Here's a site that notes the differences between the US and UK versions
of the first book:
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/ps/differences-ps.html
I'm good with the American version. That's what I always read. plus, in
this instance only, i don't want to have to figure out that 'comprehensive' means public school."
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Paxton says:
"I was interested to find that, at least with the first book, text-to-speech is enabled. TTS is turned off by publishers on so many books that this was a pleasant surprise."
Kindle Touch 3G, US-only Kindle Touch WiFi (US) Kindle Touch WiFi-Only, outside US
Kindle Keybd 3G (UK: Kindle Keybd 3G) K3 Special Offers K3-3G Special Offers DX
Check often: Temporarily-free recently published ones
Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources. Top 100 free bestsellers. Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.
*Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE. Or click on the web browser's BACK button
Wonder what happened with the 'special edition' Sony PRS-T1 that was to have come pre-loaded with the HP books? Sony.com just points to pottermore, where the Sony logo is displayed, but that seems to be it.
ReplyDelete"subject to the continued availability of the book via the Pottermore Shop" is kind of a strange phrase. Does it mean they might decide to abandon this exclusive at some point?
Noticeably missing from the 'compatible reading services' are Apple and Kobo.
I'll probably purchase at least one of these just to see how it all works. Then download one DRM-free for me, one for Amazon, one for B&N, one for Sony, one for Google (I have accounts with all of them). Just hesitating because I might want to get the whole set (but would I read them again? hmm).
I do hope this builds some momentum for DRM-free ebooks. I think Amazon should offer ebook 'watermarking' as an alternative to DRM (and buy the Dutch company that does this for the Pottermore books).
I purchased the first book in the series, and linked to my Amazon, B&N, Google, and Sony accounts. It worked quite smoothly, and despite the inconvenience of having to set up Yet Another account, definitely sets a standard for other publishers to take note of.
DeleteHowever, I quickly discovered that Kindle editions has some (relatively minor) formatting issues: KF8 has drop caps that are out of position (as Len Edgerly noted on last week's TKC); also the Mobi version has issues with the incorrect alignment of the images at the start of the chapter and first paragraph style for first 5 chapters). Minor, but hard to miss as it is the first thing you see when opening the book. The Kindle edition is 'personalized' as well, which seems like overkill since it does have DRM applied (and the ePubs that download from other stores are not personalized. For the most part the ePub file renders correctly on the various reading systems I tried it with.
I did some experimentation: I ran the personalized (DRM free) ePub Pottermore lets you download through kindlegen, and it shows exactly the same formatting problems. Eventually I was able to patch up the ePub so that kindlegen generated good Kindle files without the formatting issues. But of course I can't change the copy that is in my Kindle library.
I was disappointed that such obvious problems eluded whatever quality control Pottermore had in place, and which such a high-profile ebook release should merit (particularly given the generous resources at their disposal). I sent this feedback to Pottermore (reminding them that 'it will detract from the reading experience of millions of Kindle users') and much to their credit, received a prompt reply. They said they'd 'escalate to their technical department'. I actually believe they will fix it, but it is not clear how they can update the thousands if not millions of 'personalized' copies that have already been delivered to Amazon.
Oh and I saw on the Sony site that they apparently still plan to offer a coupon for one of the HP books ('when available') with purchase of PRS-T1. So, not the entire collection as in "the Harry Potter edition of Sony Reader', which would have represented a $57 value.
DeleteTom. really interesting what you've found about even the ePub copy (!) Shouldn't be hard to distribute it except to not count it as an additional download if one is downloading it to the same device choices due to the ocpy being fixed. People download it after they just put it or the various formatted versions into place. The personalization must be ultra autoautomated.
DeleteYes, people were dubious they'd get the entire collection with a coupon.
I think they had early rights more than anything.
I am disappointed also that US customers cannot purchase HP in its UK English due to 'regional restrictions'. I was hoping to read it in the language actually used by the author, without resorting to a translation guide as you link to above. I want it, why can't I buy it? Silly. Does Pottermore have worldwide digital rights, or don't they?
ReplyDeleteTom,
DeleteTranslation guide? The "differences" guide? The last orange box details a workaround to just get the set and this is working well, as people are finding it easy to do, to get the original English set. Unlike some workarounds for other Kindle things, this one seems to 'take' right away and people at the forum have been happy with it. If you quote a few words between quotation marks at the forum search box, you can find the thread as they keep adding experiences and detail to it. I neglected to put the link in.
How do I use my kindle fire to buy a Harry potter book (kindle edition) as a gift for my granddaughter's fire?
ReplyDelete