In 2007, during the Edinburgh Book Festival, author Ian Rankin claimed that his wife spotted Rowling "scribbling away" at a detective novel in a café. Rankin later retracted the story, claiming it was a joke, but the rumour persisted, with a report in 2012 in The Guardian speculating that Rowling's next book would be a crime novel. In an interview with Stephen Fry in 2005, Rowling had claimed that she would much prefer to write any subsequent books under a pseudonym, but had previously conceded to Jeremy Paxman in 2003 that if she did, the press would probably "find out in seconds".
Rowling has said it is unlikely she will write any more books in the Harry Potter series. In October 2007, she stated that her future work was unlikely to be in the fantasy genre. On 1 October 2010, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Rowling stated a new book on the saga might happen.
In 2007, Rowling stated that she planned to write an encyclopaedia of Harry Potter's wizarding world consisting of various unpublished material and notes. Any profits from such a book would be given to charity. During a news conference at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre in 2007, Rowling, when asked how the encyclopaedia was coming along, said, "It's not coming along, and I haven't started writing it. I never said it was the next thing I'd do." At the end of 2007, Rowling said that the encyclopaedia could take up to ten years to complete.
On 1 and 2 August 2006, she read alongside Stephen King and John Irving at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Profits from the event were donated to the Haven Foundation, a charity that aids artists and performers left uninsurable and unable to work, and the medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières. In May 2007, Rowling pledged a donation reported as over £250,000 to a reward fund started by the tabloid News of the World for the safe return of a young British girl, Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in Portugal. Rowling, along with Nelson Mandela, Al Gore, and Alan Greenspan, wrote an introduction to a collection of Gordon Brown's speeches, the proceeds of which were donated to the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory. After her exposure as the true author of The Cuckoo's Calling led to a massive increase in sales, Rowling announced she would donate all her royalties to the Army Benevolent Fund, claiming she had always intended to but never expected the book to be a best-seller.
In 2007, Rowling stated that she was the only person in her family who attended church regularly, and that she was an adherent of the Church of England. As a student, she had previously been annoyed at the "smugness of religious people", and had attended less often. Later, she began attending a Church of Scotland congregation around the time she was writing Harry Potter. Her eldest daughter, Jessica, was baptised there.