Courtesy of Pottermore.comIt's been more than seven years since the release of the final book in the Harry Potter saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and more than three years since the final movie by the same name. And yet, the franchise of the boy wizard refuses to fade.
Today, JK Rowling used Pottermore.com, her all-things-Harry-Potter website, to release new writing about her love-to-hate character Dolores Umbridge, a key villain in the fifth book. To access the writing, readers much create a login and do a couple of simple game-like activities that involve hovering their mouse over illustrated scenes until they find an item to click on that unlocks the content. The writing features backstory about Umbridge that was never revealed in the books, including her twisted rise to power within the wizarding government system, as well as Rowling's personal thoughts about the character.
This is not the first time that Rowling has used Pottermore to impart literary gifts to her devoted fans. In August, Rowling released additional writing about another minor character in the series, singer Celestina Warbeck. In addition to the writing, which took the forms of notes about the songstress, the team behind Pottermore also released an original song attributed to the character called, 'You Stole My Cauldron, But You Can't Have My Heart.' The tune is a bit sugary, perhaps, but a scrap of a beloved childhood mythos nonetheless.
With so many lucrative outlets for her imagined universe, Pottermore is a curiosity. The site doesn't appear to use outside advertising and instead makes revenue selling e-books, keychains and other Harry Potter-related products. The periodically released short stories themselves are free to users who create a login to the site. Then again, with so many other methods of bringing in profits, Pottermore is hardly Rowling's primary source of income.
In June 2014, Forbes reported that Rowling had made $14 million in earnings and is #84 on the list of the World's Most Powerful Celebrities. Apart from the main series of Harry Potter books, Rowling has continued to build out her magical empire (or perhaps just clear out her writer's notebooks) with for-sale companion books to the series such as Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Quidditch Through the Ages, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Recent whisperings of new spin-off movies set in the world of Harry Potter will feature the adventures of fictional magizoologist Newt Scamander, the 'author' of Fantastic Beasts.
Apart from the Harry Potter franchise, Rowling has also been hard at work publishing novels for adults such as The Casual Vacancy, The Cuckoo's Calling and The Silkworm, the latter two having been published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Though these books have sold well and topped various bestsellers lists, they haven't even touched the billions of dollars in revenue that Harry Potter continues to bring in from book, merchandise, video game and theme park sales.
With opportunities to make money from various book, movie and entertainment deals, Pottermore offers a different side of the franchise that isn't matched by other avenues. The site seems to be part gift, part marketing crusade. The content strategy side of Pottermore is run in part by Howard Polskin, a media and communications expert. Polskin and his team declined to be interviewed for this article, but they released an announcement in advance of today's content that hinted that, 'The new exclusive Rowling content provides a rich, 1,700-word backstory about Umbridge's life filled with many new details, as well as Rowling's revealing first-person thoughts and reflections about the character.' The email announcement about it today called it 'a Halloween treat.'
The first Harry Potter book came out when the Internet was in a fledgling stage, and online content had only just begun to stumble into existence. Choosing to harness the power of the Internet today to delight her readers just for the sake of delighting them is a smart move on Rowling's part. By keeping the franchise alive with content straight from the canon, she can keep her key audience interested for years to come.
Posted by Unknown on Friday, October 31, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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