Pottermore Site Goes Live - Promptly Crashes and Burns

I just happened to be up early this morning when the big Pottermore.com announcement was made. Besides the fact that JK's finally jumping on the ebook bandwagon, not much else was clear. Is Pottermore an online encyclopedia, is it a MMO game, is it some sort of hybrid, or perhaps it's just another way to cash in on the Harry Potter brand?

I only bring up that last possibility because the site seems so ill thought out. When I tried to sign up for the beta trail the site loaded fine, but I couldn't click on the link to submit my e-mail. I tried a different browser and got the same thing. Finally, I was able to get the e-mail submittal window to open up by right clicking on the link and opening it in a new window. But alas, by the time I figured out that stupid, blurry recaptcha thing, the site had crashed, returning only a text error message. The site now seems to be fluctuating between being completely down and just not being able to accept e-mails (see screenshot to the left).

Maybe I'm being a little sarcastic, but in all the meetings--both management and technical--that must have been going on to get this setup, didn't someone think to suggest, "umm, this website might be really popular...I'm talking really popular." I mean, I can understand technical difficulties, but the site had only been up for a few minutes and half the country was still asleep!

This outage isn't the only reason I'm concerned; if you're lucky enough to get the first page to come up, you will not be impressed. The background image looks like it was drawn by a high school student offering $25 fan art via his Deviant Art account (not to knock all DA artists, some of them our great). The only reason you can tell it''s even supposed to be a scene from Harry Potter is the owl. Without it, it just looks like a poorly lit stone room with no decorations, & no detail. In fact, there's nothing outside the windows (even clouds or a sky) for that matter.

To me, the saddest part is seeing the words, " By J. K. Rowling" right above the message, "Due to overwhelming demand, we cannot take your email address right now. Please be patient and come back later." It seems to me that the quality of the Harry Potter brand has gone steadily downhill since the ill-fated release of the Harry Potter DVD game. I mean, you can even find Harry Potter junk stuff at your local 99 cent store.

Don't get me wrong, Jo's got every right to cash in on her work--and keep cashing in over, and over, and over. But, it seems to me that the Harry Potter brand is getting a little tarnished.

I just hope Pottermore doesn't come to epitomize this decline. Come on Joe, pull in the reins on the Potter cash cow; you books stood for quality--don't let that slip away!

Win a Free Kindle

Win a Kindle

Several of the MG/YA authors over at Kindleboards.com, myself included, have gotten together to giveaway a Kindle and tons of ebooks. It’s free to enter, just sign up at the Kindle 'Indie'pendence website. Winners will be chosen on (or around) July 4^th (thus the contest name).

You can get extra entries for things like tweeting the contest, linking to it on Facebook, etc.

The most extra entries are given for reviewing one of the organizing author’s books. You get 20 free points for posting a review on a retailer site (Amazon, B&N, SmashWords, Apple Store) and an extra 5 for each site you cross-post it to. So, if you post a review on Amazon, B&N, and SmashWords, then you’ll get 30 entries.

Now, if you are like me, you’ve probably already spent your monthly budget on ebooks, even the 99¢ ones. I know money is tight for practically everyone, so I’m giving free copies of my short story collection: Monster Mashup. At 20,000 works, it’s a quick read and there’s no requirement that you leave a review. But if you do, you can rack up 30 or more entries.

I’ll give away up to10 copies to the first 10 people who post a comment in this post. Either, post your e-mail in the comments, or if you don’t want to do that, then post a comment and e-mail me at: mikejware@gmail.com

Be sure to let me know what format you’d like it in: PDF, ePub or Mobi (for the Kindle). If I get more than 10 requests, it will be the first 10 to post comments. So, post a comment, even if you plan on e-mailing me.

If you aren’t into MG shorts, check out the contest, with 16 authors, you're bound to find another great book! Just remember you have to sign-up to win and you have to send a message to:  kindleindiependence at hotmail .com to get your extra entries (for posting reviews, links on your blog, etc).

Update: We're doing it again this year, but giving out TWO kindles! Enter here (ends 7/7/21).