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So Pottermore finally started selling the Harry Potter books in ebook format this week. (And they're selling the audiobooks too.) I signed up for an account there a couple of days ago, and I just went in and bought the bundle of all seven books.

Some things I like about this:

1. They offer the books in multiple formats, including DRM-free (but watermarked) ePub.
2. You can link your Pottermore account to your Amazon account, and push the books right out to your Kindle.
3. You can download the books multiple times.
4. The audiobooks are in DRM-free MP3 format.

And some things I don't:

1. Their web site forms are screwy. On most fields, you can't use copy & paste, for some insane reason.
2. Every time you log in, you need to enter a CAPTCHA. I can understand needing to enter one to create an account, but on every login? Overkill.
3. It's easy enough to transfer a book over to your Amazon account, but there's no (obvious) way to transfer all your books at once. You have to do them one at a time.
4. Similarly, when downloading the books in ePub format, you need to download them one at a time, and it takes a few seconds to "prepare" the download. I'm guessing that it's creating a watermarked ePub file on the fly there, but why can't they just have a background process that does that right after purchase, so the files are ready right away?
5. For the audiobooks, they show both the US (Jim Dale) and UK (Stephen Fry) versions, and even show a price if you select the UK version, but you can only buy the US version. (I was hopeful that I'd be able to buy the Stephen Fry versions.)

So, a few quibbles, but nothing that bothers me that much. I actually haven't read any prose fiction at all yet this year, so I think I'm going to sit down with my Kindle and start into the first book. I haven't re-read any of the Potter books since I first read them, with maybe one exception. I feel a little guilty that I'm going to re-read these relatively easy-to-read "YA" books, when I have plenty of unread "adult" novels lying around, but hey, they're great books!

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