PotterMania

I feel strongly about HP and JKR. Not all of it good. I pity Bloomsbury Publishers for trying to fill the HP gap.

I read the following article online today and it just blew me away.

Amazon UK nets 250,000 Potter pre-orders

Amazon.co.uk has seen pre-orders of the Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows, reach the quarter of a million mark. The UK pre-orders, at an initial
price of £8.99, make up a quarter of Amazon's worldwide reservations for the
final installment in J K Rowling's series.

"The sales of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in the UK and across the
globe are eclipsing those of the previous Harry Potter books by a considerable
margin," said Christopher North, head of books at Amazon.co.uk. "Although the
children's version remains the bestseller, we have seen a strong uplift in sales
of the adult version compared to previous years, perhaps illustrating that
people who have grown up reading Harry Potter are taking their love of the
series of books into adulthood."

Amazon.com said it was confident that sales would outstrip the 1.5 million
pre-orders for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ahead of its release in
June 2005. It took 174 days after the announcement of the publication date for
the retailer to reach the one million order mark with Half-Blood Prince; with
Deathly Hallows the milestone has been reached in 94 days.

I can't help but wonder if the hype is completely OTT? I've said it before - JKR is not the best writer there is but Bloomsbury got behind her after they realised they were onto something. The books started small, it ran to word of mouth, schools picked it up and voila! the marketing gurus stepped in, foreign rights were sold along with movie rights and the whole circus came to town.

I applaud them for making kids read. Fostering the love for a good book at a young age is fantastic. What I disagree with is how many well-thought-of already established authors there were, LONG LONG before JKR came onto the scene. The circus stole everyone's thunder and suddenly these fantastic children's books were being repackaged to ride on the coat tails of a rather whimpy bespectacled apprentice wizard.

"If you like Harry Potter you will love .... " - what rot.

Like the books for themselves - encourage them to read widely and differently in many genres, across the fields. You'll find duds, but ye gods, teach them to think for themselves and not to become sheep to slavishly follow the three for two promotions, but to think outside the box. Even if it is to fall for that awful Eragon drivel. At least it was written by a teenager.

One more thing: thank the gods of kiddies writing and JKR and her publishers' marketing department - it has thrown open the market for a fantastic opportunity to many authors who are unique and driven to tell their stories. Never before has the children's market been more alive with possibilities. And publishers are vying to find the next big thing. It could be you!