Over Hyper Potter
Posted By Kathleen David on July 15, 2005
I want to clear something up that is currently driving me crazy with the media and most of the population of the United States. It has to do with the sale of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Tomorrow is the big day for the sale of the books and I have heard more “news” coverage including the Daily Show about the book being sold early. This includes a judge in Canada issuing an order that the people who got copies early may not disclose the contents of the book until the release date. I have a news flash for all. It is not illegal to sell a book before its release date in the United States.
Let me repeat that, it is not illegal to sell a book before its release date. It is extremely stupid because publishing companies do not have sell their product to anyone they do not wish to do business with. That is not illegal either. By breaking the release date on something like Harry Potter, you could find your bookstore selling next to nothing because the publishers blacklist your store. It is a deterrent and nothing more. It is suppose to level the playing field for everyone who wants to sell the book. This way they can make use that stores far away from the printing presses have the book the same time as the big cities. Amazon could have shipped their copies to their customers 2 weeks ago but they know what will happen if they did. It is the same with CDs and DVDs. The release date is the very strongly suggested date that the material goes on sale nothing more and nothing less. Bottom line is that this is a very un-news story that is getting way too much play.
I had to deal with lay-downs, as they are called in the business, all the time when I was working at Borders. We had an e-mail we got once a week with the updated lay-down titles and their release dates. Sometimes it was a pain to find room in our teeny tiny stock room for the boxes but we managed. The other thing we had to be vigilant about was audio books being mixed in before the release date with the regular shipment. Then on the day of the release I would load up the book cart and we would fulfill the pre-orders and put the book out on the floor for sale.
At Del Rey I had to deal with Star Wars novels finding their way into the hands of fans way early. We finally tracked that problem down to our people in distribution and I believe there was some serious hand slapping and new rules created about books under lay-down leaving the building. Part of it was that we wanted the fans to find out all together what was going to happen next in the NJO (New Jedi Order) and part of it was that the fans who had the books made sure everyone knew that they had them including people at LFL who were not happy with that fact.
So to repeat it is not illegal to sell or buy Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It is just a really stupid business move.
I am grateful that I don’t have to deal with this lay-down.
Wow, fascinating – I had no idea! Thanks for this info, Kath.
I believe that there may be special agreements/conditions on the HP books.
Certainly, if i were the publisher i would try to get such, and the potential sales make it worthwhile for everyone all round to agree.
As a former Borders employee, Kathleen, I feel you. Street dates and lay-downs were some of the most annoying things about it – not to mention the apparently generic fact that all Borders must be big enough to have cafes, but have stockrooms the size of small closets.
Thanks for the info!
I remember when I was at Borders and we had to deal with HP IV. We weren’t even allowed to open the laydown boxes to look at them and all of the pre-order paperwork was handled by a certain manager and no one else.
Best story: When on-sale day came, it was just plain crazy as you would expect. and then, a guy got to the registers and all he was buying was his daily newspaper. I said, “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I think this might have been a good day for you to get that someplace else.”
I’m just starting to get tired of all the hype about the new Harry Potter. It’s a fracking book, people! The sixth volume of the fracking book, for that matter! It’ll still be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the next…
Yes, I know there are people out there who are rabid fans of the series. Well, there are some of us who are rabid fans of Robert Heinlein, and nobody ever spent any time publicizing (outside genre magazines, of course) the release of his last (or first, depending on your point of view) novel. The very last new Heinlein we’ll ever see, and it slipped right under the radar. The sixth (of seven, last I heard) Potter books, and they’re throwing a flipping release party – in the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego, not exactly a child-oriented part of town! (Of course, that’s the same night as Day 2 of Comic-Con, and a sold-out home game for the Padres in the downtown ballpark, and might run into people “preparing” for the opening of the Over-the-Line tournament tomorrow, or maybe the sandcastle competition…)
Okay, rant over. I just had to get that off my chest, after watching the evening news, and having stories about brush fires near houses and the potential indictment of the new acting mayor for violating RICO statutes trumped in the headlines by a fictional wizard…
What amazes me is that any retailer in their right mind would deep discount a sure fire seller like Harry Potter, but all the big stores seem to be doing it.
If they didn’t discount it, people would go to one of the million other places selling it for a discount.
some money > no money.
Hi. I’m a rabid Harry Potter Fan. I was at my local Chapters location in Canada at 11:50pm Friday night to get my copy, along with at least another thousand people. Being Pre-Ordered, it was in my hands by 12:10 and by 12:11 I was reading it in the car as my husband drove us home. If I hadn’t had a commitment on Saturday morning, I would have stayed up all night until I finished reading it. As it was, I only got the first 200 pages in before I made myself go to sleep at 2am. I finished it by 2pm ish Saturday. I’m on Chapter 2 of my second read-through.
I did not get on the Harry Potter bandwagon right away; in fact, I distinctly remember walking by my local bookstore daily when I worked at the mall, and seeing the “Harry Potter is coming!” signs posted everywhere, and thinking, who the (beep) is Harry Potter and why should I care? It was more than a year later when my 40-something year old mother insisted I read the first book. That was when I became hooked.
Harry Potter has become a phenomenon; J.K. Rowling’s HP books have created a new generation of readers, many of whom refused to read unless they were required to; and they have the advantage of appealing to not just young readers, but adults as well.
In my opinion, the extra-long gap between novels (two years between 5 and 6, and three years between 4 and 5) is what increases the hype and makes Harry Potter newsworthy. People are dying (figurativly, not literally) to find out what happens next. That’s why we’re at the bookstore having midnight parties.
For those who have not read the books, they come with my highest recommendation. Harry Potter is for readers of all ages, not just children.
PS Kathleen, I found the book to be amazing and incredible; it answers many questions but also creates new questions. I was saddened by the death that occurs, and I am looking forward to the next midnight party when number 7 is released.