The one-off 800-word handwritten “storycard” hardly counts as a book, but that won’t stop bidders at Waterstone’s on June 10, when – with the assistance of Sotheby’s – it goes on auction for writers’ charity English PEN and Dyslexia Action. “There is just no telling how high the bidding will go,” Sotheby’s specialist Philip Errington said, and with good reason – one of seven handwritten copies of Rowling’s book of stories The Tales of Beedle the Bard netted 1.95 million for charity in 2007, the highest ever price achieved at auction for a modern literary manuscript.

The storycard finishes with the words “From the prequel I am not working on – but that was fun!” and is signed J. K. Rowling, 2008. It will be sold alongside 12 other storycards, written by A-list authors such as Margaret Atwood and Tom Stoppard. In August a printed postcard book featuring all 13 stories will go on sale, with profits going to English PEN and Dyslexia Action.

What’s Your Story: a glimpse of some of the storycards

Nick Hornby

The bestselling “lad-lit” pioneer calls on his love of pop-culture for this mixture of collage and text, introducing a new superhero called Nightburner.

Michael Rosen

The Children’s laureate delivers an acerbic tale that shows that not only can’t you fight City Hall, you can’t outbid it either.

Doris Lessing

The Nobel laureate’s story celebrates the power of reading.

Tom Stoppard

Nothing gets past Inspector Chamberlain in Tom Stoppard’s theatrical short mystery.

Sebastian Faulks

Desire and obsession lie at the heart of Faulks classically-inspired erotic tale.

Irvine Welsh

A story of a taciturn oil rig worker at odds with his lot, full of earthy language and humour.

Margaret Atwood

The Canadian author will join the auction live from Paris to write her storycard via her LongPen™ machine, which allows her to sign books remotely using a touch sensitive pad and a computer link-up to guide a robotic arm.

Click here for Waterstones storycards site

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