No E-Book For Harry Potter

J.K. Rowling Refuses Electronic Editions For Potter Books

(AP) 
"One of the fantasies I had was of kids walking around, without backpacks, and somebody would say, `You have to read "Of Mice and Men" and "The Red Badge of Courage." Here are the e-books.' That fantasy hasn't happened."

Kate Tentler, vice president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Online, said she has had some success with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and other works affiliated with TV shows or other media. But there have been no major breakthroughs, even when free downloads were offered for the popular "Samurai Girl" books.

"It didn't take off quite as much as I'd like to," she says. "The key is getting those books in front of them, and that's what we're trying to figure out."

The e-book market does continue to grow, although it remains a tiny part of the multibillion-dollar publishing industry. According to the Open eBook Forum, a trade organization, net revenues reached $9.6 million in 2004, nearly $4 million higher than in 2002. The number of actual e-books sold annually has more than doubled in that time, to nearly 1.7 million copies, even as the number of e-books published has declined.

No separate statistics are available for children's e-books, but many believe Potter would be a huge hit in the digital format, where even a few thousand copies is considered a best seller.

"I'm sure it would be a very big book very quickly and would probably serve as a terrific marketing vehicle to get people to buy the print book," says Nicholas Bogaty, executive director of the Open eBook Forum.

Industry officials agree that Potter e-books would have great advantages: an enormous fan base; appeal to readers of fantasy novels, which sell relatively well in electronic form; and appeal to adult readers, an asset that helped persuade Random House to release e-books for Christopher Paolini's popular "Eragon" novels.

"There's just not a market for books that don't have appeal to adults, because they're the ones with the devices at this time," says Linda Leonard, associate director of new media marketing for Random House Children's Books. "It is kind of frustrating. Kids are tech savvy, but we can't reach them."