Saturday, June 17, 2000

Hype machine whips fans of Harry Potter into froth

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By Mike Pulfer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        A new children's book due out in three weeks has thousands of Tristate kids more excited about reading than watching Britney Spears or Hulk Hogan.

FRITZ SCHRODER, 10 AWAITS THE FOURTH HARRY POTTER BOOK. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

        Say what?

        Consider this, as the fourth book in the wildly popular Harry Potter series hits bookstores July 8:

        • The book — its title is a secret — will land with a record first printing of 4.8 million copies, double the volume of bestselling author Tom Clancy's upcoming The Bear and The Dragon.

        • The Cincinnati public library lists 886 people itching for 264 copies.

        • Retailers will sell copies at midnight on the book's release date, a first for most local book stores.

        All the hoopla is about the ongoing tale of Harry, a weird orphan wizard who goes to live with his aunt and uncle, who make him sleep in a cupboard while his spoiled brat cousin enjoys two bedrooms and too many toys.

        Not since E.B. White's Charlotte's Web thrilled kids and adults alike in 1952 has a children's book created such a commotion.

        “This is a runaway best seller,” says Scott McKinstry, communications manager at the American Booksellers Association, a New York trade group representing independent book stores. “As far as I can tell, it's like nothing that has happened before.”

SPECIAL EVENTS

Greater Cincinnati book stores are planning extended operating hours and special events around the July 8 release of the new Harry Potter book:     • Borders, Tri-County, will stay open late Friday, July 7, and begin sales of the new release at 12:01 a.m. the following day. The store will close about 12:30 a.m. At 11 a.m. July 8, employees will host a Harry Potter children's breakfast. More than a month in advance of the release date, customers were reserving copies at a 40 percent discount. List price is $25.95.     • Barnes & Noble, Kenwood, invites customers to visit the store after 9 p.m. Friday, July 7, dressed in their favorite Harry Potter character costumes. Staff members will be dressed as professor characters from the series. Customers will compete in Potter trivia contests and fill out coupons to win a trip to London. Potter book sales begin 12:01 a.m. Store closes at 1 a.m.     • Joseph Beth, Norwood, will offer trivia and other games and contests, refreshments and a Harry Potter impersonator, all beginning at 11 p.m. July 7. Customers are encouraged to wear costumes. Books go on sale at midnight with a 20 percent discount. The store closes at 1 a.m. July 8.     • Open Book, Finneytown, is reserving copies for customers and updating a countdown clock in the store for kids. The store will be open late (until after midnight) July 7, with a Harry Potter costume contest. Winner gets a free copy of the book.     • The Blue Marble, Fort Thomas, opens at 6 a.m. July 8 for a kids breakfast of tea and hot cinnamon-and-raisin oatmeal, served from a black cauldron in the garden. Store employees will be in costume. Advance book orders are available with a 20 percent discount.     • The Blue Marble, Oakley, opens at midnight for an hour July 8, then reopens at 6 a.m. for a “Hogwarts breakfast buffet.”     • Books & Co., Kettering, which normally closes at 11 p.m., will stay open until 12:30 a.m. July 8. The store reopens at 7 a.m. (two hours early) and hosts a Harry Potter celebration with a Frederix the Wizard magic show 12:30-1:30 p.m. Kids who perform their own magic tricks get “Wizard in Training” certificates and gifts. Menu includes a “magic-potion punch,” “Dumbledore drop cookies” and multi-flavored jelly beans. Kids are invited to come in costume and compete for a “Harry Potter IV” hat.

        Publishers of the book by British author J.K. Rowling decided the best way to build excitement was to keep its title secret until copies hit bookstore shelves.

        And that's what they did, right after they identified it as Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament, then took the title back and refused to talk about the ploy or the plot.

        Kids seem fascinated by the Harry Potter books' colorful language, fantasy characters and sense of anticipation in the action. The books appeal mostly to pre-teens. But even adults are snapping up copies, hooked by Harry's misadventures at Hogwarts School of Wizardry and the enduring juxtaposition of good vs. evil.

        Across the Tristate, talk is spreading as kids speculate — in book clubs, in school and on the internet — about what might happen next in print.

        “Harry falls in a trap door during class and finds a mediaeval carnival,” suggests Nick Bohlke, 10, of Hyde Park.

        “Harry goes to school and meets a girl named Sylvia,” says Mark Hemberger, 11, of Delhi Township. “He falls deeply in love.”

        “Harry will wake up. All of these (first three) books were just one of his long dreams,” theorizes Ashley Holm, 11, from Amberley Village.

        Ms. Rowling has volunteered little information about the fourth of seven Harry books she has promised, except that it will be longer than previous installments, about 700 pages.

        “This is quite a classic marketing ruse,” says Rita Clifton, chief executive of In terbrand, Newell & Sorrell, a brand consultancy. "It's like launching a new car. There is quite obsessive secrecy. All the news is kept under strict control.

        “It's like learning the whole truth — when Luke Skywalker finds out who his father is in Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, or seeing what happens to Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John in the final television episode of MASH. Sort of.”

        So tight is the secrecy that one retailer says she was instructed not to open any Potter book boxes before the official release date. And if she does?

        “I guess my sales rep wouldn't be my friend anymore,” says Tina Moore, owner and manager at the Blue Marble book store in Fort Thomas.

        Mr. McKinstry says he expects publishers Scholastic (New York) and Bloomsbury (London) to strictly enforce the Potter release rules.

        “This could be the first book with genuine repercussions” for stores that break the embargo, he says. The punishment? “They will not receive the next book” in the series.

        Earlier installments in the Potter series have done well, selling 20.8 million copies in the United States and 7 million elsewhere. This time, the publishers say they are printing 3.8 million books in this country and 1 million in Britain.

        Since Harry's introduction, the first three books in the series have refused to budge from the top-50 list of books at USA Today, where journalists called 1999 “the year of Harry Potter.” Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban were ranked, respectively, 1, 2 and 4 for the year.

        All three have been regulars on the New York Times best-sellers list the past two years. And advance Internet orders on “IV” have kept the book at the top of Amazon.com's recent best-seller lists, updated hourly.

        Joseph Beth Booksellers ordered 600 copies, with 400 more on hold.

        “It's pretty rare that a children's book would be number one on the reserve list” at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, says Becky Shea, collection coordinator. But there it is, right on top of Mary Higgins Clark's bestselling Before I Say Good-Bye and John Grisham's The Brethren.

        Maybe the book will be as exciting as the action local kids have conjured.

        “Harry will meet an enchanting, bewitching and fine girl who appears to be wonderful,” writes Christina Ng, 11, a Summit Country Day School fifth-grader from Hyde Park.

        “I believe that in the fourth Harry Potter, Harry (and friends) Ron (Weasley) and Hermione (Granger) get in very bad trouble at Hogwarts,” says Ellen Sweeney, 10, a fifth-grader from Hyde Park. “Then Professor Snape (gets) mad at them and uses his powers on them.

        “He turns them to animals.”        

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