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Early on, the books were extremely controversial - and in many ways, they still are But if you are an adult who can imagine reading for more than one reason (the pleasures of story, the joy of immersing yourself in another world), the Harry Potter books become enormously appealing. It’s true that Rowling’s prose is best described as workmanlike and competent if the reason you read is solely to enjoy perfectly balanced and polished sentences, you may be best served elsewhere. It also makes their eventual death (for some) and trauma (for all) deeply affecting. The result is purely pleasurable to read at any age: The puzzlebox mystery plotting keeps the pages turning propulsively forward, the fantastic mythology gives the world scope and magic and joy, and the boarding school structure makes the characters warm and familiar and charming. The Harry Potter books combine the intricate plotting of a mystery with the sweep and scope of epic fantasy and the intimacy and character development of a classic boarding school narrative. But there are plenty of reasons for a grown person to enjoy Harry Potter. In large part, that boom is courtesy of Harry Potter, which became a surprise crossover hit adored by both children and adults, and which made it acceptable for adults to read books that are ostensibly for children.įor some critics, that’s a worrisome development, suggesting that adults are too dull and stupid to appreciate books actually written for adults. Why adults got so obsessed with the Harry Potter booksĪ 2012 study found that 55 percent of YA novels are bought by adults. That’s what pulled Harry Potter out of flash-in-the-pan territory and elevated it into a phenomenon that defined childhood for an entire generation. In short, it gave the book many more resources than are typically afforded to the average debut novel from an unknown author, and that decision paid off.īut none of Scholastic’s efforts would have mattered in the end if the people who picked up the book hadn’t loved it. It arranged for Harry Potter to be displayed on the front tables at bookstores, and for ads to appear in the right newspapers and magazines. So Scholastic invested in a lovely hardcover design for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, with a soon-to-be iconic cover, even though conventional wisdom of the time held that children’s books only made money in paperback. That budget is structured so that elevating the numbers in one category means elevating the numbers in the next category: If you’re going to invest $105,000 just in acquiring a book, you’re also going to pour extra money into marketing, publicity, and production, so that you have a reasonable chance of making that money back. Whenever a publisher acquires a book, it creates a budget for that book. It was a curiosity, and as such, it was a story. Reviewers wanted to know what kind of book would justify that kind of money. The hook came from the press: Newspapers featured articles about the little English book that had garnered such a huge sale. The $105,000 sale granted Harry Potter two things: a built-in publicity hook, and a big budget. The first Harry Potter book wasn’t perfect, but it was magic
But it only started to approach phenomenon levels when Scholastic bought the US publication rights for an astonishing $105,000, about 10 times more than the average foreign rights sale at the time. Harry Potter did fine when it first emerged in the UK 20 years ago, winning a Smarties Award and garnering respectable sales for its publisher, Bloomsbury.
Harry Potter’s US publication made it a bonafide phenomenon Here’s a look back at the way Harry Potter changed and influenced online fandom, millennial culture, and the publishing industry. And it introduced an entire generation to the idea that it’s possible to interact with the pop culture you love - to write about it and with it, to make music and art about it, and to build a business around it. It changed the business model for publishing books for kids. Harry Potter made YA book-to-movie franchises into one of the biggest forces in pop culture. Rowling was an unknown single mom when she first got the idea for her story while stuck on a train the small UK children’s press that ultimately took a chance on it undoubtedly couldn’t have predicted that it would have a measurable effect on everything it touched. But Harry Potter changed the world.Īuthor J.K.
#How many pages are in harry potter book 1 full
Harry Potter has since became such an all-encompassing phenomenon that from this vantage point, it’s hard to see the full scope what it accomplished: It feels as though publishing and fandom and children’s literature and all of pop culture have always been the way we know them today. Almost exactly 20 years ago, on September 1, 1998, Scholastic published Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first US edition of the UK’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
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