Greedy publishers will miss Harry Potter

By M&C News Jun 2, 2007, 12:54 GMT

Of course they will. Why else would there be to miss a billion dollar industry? Never mind the fact that it took Rowling a while to get a publisher even to look at her first Harry Potter book let alone publish it, all because dumb publishers “didn’t know what to make of it.”

Sounds a bit like Old Walt Whitman with that darn free verse poetry. This, of course, is not to imply Rowling should rank with Old Walt, but you see the pattern here.

So what will a post-Harry Potter world mean for the book business? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling's series, goes on sale July 21. 325 million copies have sold worldwide.

"I don't know if we are ever going to see anything like Harry Potter again in children's or even adult books," says Paul Crichton of Simon & Schuster Children's Books. "Harry will be missed like there is no tomorrow. But publishers have to forge ahead and move on. What Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling have done is incredible. To lose something that strong is going to have an impact."

Scholastic is printing a record-setting 12 million copies of Deathly Hallows. During a Harry Potter year, sales of the book account for 8% of the company's revenue, says Scholastic's Lisa Holton. Holton says the end of the series doesn't mean the end of Harry Potter. She calls the books a "modern classic" that will join other children's classics as perennial sellers.

Says Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio: "Of course, we all know J.K. Rowling is a young woman. Having completed Harry Potter, we only hope she completes another book or series."

Of course you do, Steve.