Harry Potter on pre-release through Overdrive for April 30

Harry Potter on pre-release through Overdrive for April 30

I have Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on hold through my public library!

I won’t have to get it, but I will be notified. It took a couple of clicks to find the release date…April 30, 2012.

I knew Overdrive had mentioned that they were going to be handling the books:

Overdrive statement

but I didn’t promote it until I saw it actually available.

While it’s initially listed at my library as an EPUB (meaning I could read it on my Kindle Fire through Overdrive) however, they are clear that it will be available for the Kindle, at least in the USA:

“Readers will have immediate access to eBooks and digital audiobooks on a wide range of popular computers and reading devices including PC, Mac®, eReaders, tablets and smartphones.  Supported devices include Sony® Reader, Kindle® (US only), NOOK™, iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phones and tablets, BlackBerry®, and Windows® Phone.  In addition to the eBook collection, the complete digital audiobooks will be made available for digital borrowing in the MP3 file format on listening devices such as computers, smartphones and iPod®.

To find a participating library or school in the OverDrive network, visit http://search.overdrive.com.  “

We don’t know about text-to-speech on the Kindle yet, and that’s an important question for me. My guess is that they won’t block the access, but we’ll see.

Why am I okay getting on a list for an EPUB before I know? That’s because EPUBs with DRM don’t work with text-to-speech, to my knowledge…so no one is taking an active step to block the access. That’s what I don’t like…not that a format doesn’t support TTS (paperbooks don’t, although there are reader devices that can be used with them), but that somebody chooses to insert a barrier to it. I’m also not sure I’ll get it: I don’t know that I’ll take the time to re-read the series right now.

Another question: why is the Kindle access US only? There are a lot of Kindles outside the US. Well, I think that’s because Overdrive serves the USA on this: I’d be reasonably confident that Jo Rowling’s team will work out some way for them to be available to Kindle users in the UK. 🙂

The end of another thread generator in the Amazon Kindle forum… 😉

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

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