Amazon announced last week that the seven-part Harry Potter book series will be available in e-book form for free to those with an Amazon Prime account, as part of the Kindle Owners' Lending Library (KOLL), beginning June 19, 2012. Amazon stated in a press release on May 10th that the company purchased an exclusive license from author J.K. Rowling's interactive website for Harry Potter, Pottermore.com, in order to make the addition of the seven titles possible.
The Harry Potter books in e-book format will be available in five languages on Kindle Owners' Lending Library, including English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish. The Lending Library, according to Amazon, already has over 145,000 books available for Prime members to borrow at any time, with no due dates, and for as frequently as once a month, including over 100 titles featured on the New York Times Best Sellers list.
"We're absolutely delighted to have reached this agreement with Pottermore. This is the kind of significant investment in the Kindle ecosystem that we'll continue to make on behalf of Kindle owners," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, in the May 10 press release. "Over a year, borrowing the Harry Potter books, plus a handful of additional titles, can alone be worth more than the $79 cost of Prime or a Kindle. The Kindle Owners' Lending Library also has an innovative feature that's of great benefit for popular titles like Harry Potter - unlimited supply of each title - you never get put on a waiting list."
The Harry Potter books in e-book and audio book format were first released on April 14, 2012 officially through Rowling's Pottermore website, which allows fans of the series to interact with one another online while experiencing the seven-book series once again. The website also features exclusive new information on characters and aspects of the Harry Potter world, written by Rowling for the website, which has a free membership signup. The Pottermore Shop - www.shop.pottermore.com - is the only place where fans of the series can purchase the Harry Potter books in e-book and audiobook format in several languages, including English (U.S. and U.K.), Spanish, German, French, and Italian.
For more information on the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, visit www.amazon.com/kindleownerslendinglibrary.
