Anyone looking for the new Harry Potter book to come out electronically is going to be disappointed, says Hillel Italie in an Associated Press wire story. “J.K. Rowling has not permitted any of the six Potter books to be released in electronic form, not even during the peak of the e-book craze a few years ago.” But the author’s personal opposition isn’t the only reason there are no Potter e-books, says Italie. ” . . . the greatest problem is the lack of a popular reading device, a handicap that has held back the whole e-book business from the start.” Jason Campbell of HarperCollins tells him, “It’s not like we haven’t tried this market. We’ve done R.L. Stine and (Meg Cabot‘s) `The Princess Diaries’ and it didn’t work. `Princess Diaries’ has been our most successful young adult series in e-books, but it pales in comparison to e-book sales for Michael Crichton.” Says Linda Leonard of Random House Children’s Books, “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. It is kind of frustrating. Kids are tech savvy, but we can’t reach them.”