Fans’ fury spells bad news for JK Rowling

The site, which was launched by Sony in partnership with the multi-millionaire author, was due to open to the public last October but is still not available for registration five months on. But the author’s spokesman has only added to the mystery by saying she was not prepared to say what was causing the problem.

At the time of its launch, Rowling, who wrote 18,000 words of extra Harry Potter material for the site, described it as “a really great way to give back to the Harry Potter readership, who made the books such a big success”.

Those signing up to the site, which is free, were promised an interactive experience where they could learn more about the books, access e-books and audio clips and play Harry Potter-related games.

However, the site is still in its “beta”, or testing, phase and while some fans who registered last summer have been given access, the majority are still waiting to get online.

Potter fans have reacted angrily to the delays on Twitter and Facebook, with some of them confronting Rowling directly about the delay.

One tweeted Rowling asking: “@jk_rowling – Not to be rude or anything, but when are you going to open up Pottermore to the general public? You first promised September and now it’s March.”

Another wrote: “Dear @jk_rowling. I know you’re busy with your new book, but pleaaaseeee tell @pottermore to hurry up!”

Pottermore, which announced last week that its e-books would be made available to more than 18,000 public and school libraries worldwide, has said that it still has no date for when the site will be made fully available.

Fans on a website devoted to the project, named Pottermorenews.com, reacted with disappointment.

One contributor, named fplatt, wrote: “This is very very bad advertising for JKR. Is she aware of what is happening? It is frustrating for all the fans, and worst of all is that there is no satisfactory response…

“It seems that the eye is bigger than the belly. Come on JKR – get your finger out and type a response. It is the fans of your writing that put you where you are today!”

Another wrote: “I love HP and have since I was little but I won’t be returning to this site, nor will I buy the e-books.”

Some fans have even started making the site’s delays the butt of jokes, with one tweeting: “I heard the new book by JK Rowling is going to be about why Pottermore fell into the dustbin of history”.

When Pottermore was first launched, a fansite described it as “one of the most amazing, engaging and breathtaking additions to this fandom imaginable. Even though this is not a new book… it is something equally exciting.”

However, when the “beta” testing phase was launched last August, allowing only a certain number of fans access, they found that they could only access one book.

On Facebook, one Pottermore community with more than 82,000 fans has discussed starting a petition to get Pottermore open to the public, while others who had received access through the testing phase said they would be boycotting the site until it was available to all.

“Haven’t been on Pottermore in four months, and until the site is open to everyone, I won’t be on it,” wrote Henri Jonathan Mertens. “The delay of Pottermore is mostly because of Sony, but I wish JK Rowling would at least address the fans.”

Another fan and beta tester, Teresa Gibson, said the site itself was a disappointment. “We’re coming up on seven months since Pottermore open to beta users. By now we’ve all read/did all we can do with what’s there.

“There’s hardly ever any updates from the insider. They aren’t going public any time soon. Would you consider this a failure?”

Tristan Donovan, computer games expert and author of Replay: The History Of Video Games, said online games were notoriously difficult to keep bug-free.

“They are very complex to create and at the testing stage there can be a lot of problems, and you don’t really know until you test it what the problems will be. With Pottermore, it’s likely that technical problems have been uncovered, or something’s not quite right and it’s taking quite a bit of time to fix it. Making an online game a perfect experience for its users is really quite a daunting and ambitious task so it is unsurprising they have had delays.”

Rowling spoke about how much she missed her most famous character last year when she unveiled Pottermore, but she has since been busy on other projects.

On Pottermore, a spokesperson for Rowling told Scotland on Sunday: “We’re not ready to say yet [why there has been a delay]. There is no further information at the moment – but it will be obvious [why there has been a delay] when it is announced.”