August 13, 2007--Voldemort

Though I am one of the few who has not as yet read even one page of a Harry Potter book, I have an interest in how they are doing since I have a friend who has a considerable stake in their publication. And so while driving around out west a few days before and after July 21st, I sent him very informal reports about how The Deathly Hallows was doing.

On the morning of the 22nd, less than ten hours after the book went on sale, at a small guest ranch in remote Wyoming, I spotted 15 copies in the hands of avid readers. I knew exactly how avid by the placement of their bookmark (deep into the bulky volume), and how relatively tattered the dust jackets appeared to be (quite).

The next morning, at Stella’s Kitchen in Billings, Montana there were two in evidence—one in the work-stained hands of a rancher who was on about page 200 and didn’t put the book down while working on his biscuits and gravy; another was being passed around among a group of a dozen mainly Koreans who were at a nearby summer camp for evangelicals.

The day after, when checking into a hotel, there was a decidedly-middle aged woman clutching a copy to her ample bosom. When I asked her how she was enjoying it she said, “I looove it! That is, if it ends the right way.”

And so in my reports I noted that though I had spotted up to two dozen books all were being devoured by adults. When I returned home my friend confirmed that the majority of Harry Potter readers were in fact adults. Thus I was surprised when I got my hands on the the NY Times Sunday Book Review not to find it at the top of the fiction list. I knew Scholastic printed 12 million copies and sold more than 8 million during the first 24 hours. With all due respects to Khaled Hosseini, his Thousand Splendid Suns isn’t selling quite as well.

I did though find Harry Potter on the list of children’s Best Sellers (linked below) under the category Series. Described in this strange, Hogwartian way—

HARRY POTTER by J.K. Rowling (Levine/Scholastic, hardcover and paperback.) Trouble at Hogwarts. (Ages 10 and up)

Over coffee, when I asked my friend about this—Since readers much older than 10 are the majority of Rowling readers, why aren’t her books eligible for adult best seller status?

He smiled in a way that alerted me to the likelihood that I would not like his answer since he knows I am a devotee of the NY Times. He said, if they including Rowling’s books, stressing the plural, all seven of them would appear on the 15-book best sellers list. He suggested that I look at the USA Today list—there, he said, since the first six books continue to sell very well, I would see that all of the Potter books are among the top twelve.

“Why then,” I naively asked, “does the Times do this?”

“Simple,” he said, “many authors have clauses in their contracts that guarantee them a bonus if their books become best sellers, and with only 15 places on the Times list they don’t want to see so many taken up by Harry Potter.”

“But wouldn’t the publishers,” I pressed even more innocently, “be happy about that—they wouldn’t have to pay so many authors extra?”

“Actually, publishers are eager to have more of their authors listed and they are more than happy to pay them bonuses because if one of their books gets onto the best sellers list they get better shelf space at chains such as Barnes & Noble and this in itself leads to more sales. Success breeds success.”

He got up to leave and, smiling, added, “But there’s no need to feel badly for Jo Rowling. Or, for that matter, me.”