Potter 7, Bookstores 0

Pottermania is returning. Call me a grumpy old man, but I can’t wait to see the back of this pesky and annoying schoolboy. So hope is at hand with Potter 7, the final installment of these odd and irritating books.

I have taken cursory glances at the Harry Potter books, and found J. K. Rowling’s work not to my taste. I also find the sight of adults reading these works on packed commuter trains bemusing, worrying and, contrary to popular opinion, I feel these books do more harm than good for the book trade. My opinion is shared by many in the world of publishing as The Sunday Telegraph explains:

It will be the biggest publishing event of the millennium so far. At midnight on July 20, pandemonium will engulf bookshops the length and breadth of Britain as cape-wearing kids with owls on their shoulders and scars on their foreheads fight to get their hands on the new Harry Potter book.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final installment of J.K. Rowling’s monstrously successful franchise about the boy wizard and his inquisitive chums, is on track to be the biggest pre-ordered book of all time. It is also expected to become the fastest selling book in history, smashing the record set by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which sold 6.9m copies within 24 hours of being launched in 2005. With two and a half months to go, Amazon.com alone has received more than 1m pre-orders.

Potter 7, as Deathly Hallows is known in the trade, should provide a huge boost to book stores. After all, fat sales should equal fat profits. But Hogwarts is not the gold mine it might seem. Indeed, for all the hype and bluster, the book might as well be retitled Harry Potter and the Damp Squib as far as retailers’ profits are concerned. Due to rampant discounting, few shops selling the book, from Waterstone's to Tesco and Amazon down to small independents, will make any money. Most will break even and many will make a loss.

The only party that stands to make any money from Harry’s escapades is Bloomsbury, the books’ publisher, which is expected to make £7m of profit from the book this year.

I have never understood the mass hysteria of Pottermania, and find it very annoying. At the same time, I’m confused as to the appeal of Potter and company to adults.

My feeling is that many of these adult Potter readers probably only read these books, and rarely explore outside the letter ‘R’ in their bookstore shelves. The idea that the Pottermania creates a “footfall” of non-readers entering bookstores to me sounds like the hollow voice of desperation of an industry besieged by competition from DVD, Playstation, Internet and the pressures of modern life.

The Telegraph seems to agree:

Book insiders say that retailers persist at selling Potter so cheaply because it creates the perception that they are good value. They are also “obsessed” with gaining market share. Some booksellers have cast doubt on claims that the Potter "halo" leads to an increase in overall book sales. One even argues that the opposite is the case: Potter sales lead to a reduction in kids’ book sales as they cannibalise sales of other titles. “If you strip Harry Potter sales out of a so-called Harry Potter year, then the kids’ book market actually shows a decline in sales,” says one executive.

There are other Harry-related factors that could lead to headaches for book retailers this summer.

In keeping with previous practice, Bloomsbury will cap the amount of returns that it will accept from retailers at 10 per cent of their original order. This means that if greedy chains have ordered too many Potters, they are stuck with them. A knock on effect, and one that occurred in 2005, is that other publishers’ titles will be shunted aside as the retailers shift excess Potter stock.

So Potter 7 is being treated with a mixture of excitement and anxiety among book retailers. Excitement because the book will bring people flooding into their stores. But anxiety because retailers fear that the days of no-profit blockbusters could be here to stay.

Among small retailers, this anxiety is exacerbated by potential looming consolidation in the wholesale sector. However Trevor Bish-Jones, Woolworths’ chief executive and the man who wants to bring this consolidation about, is at pains to reassure booksellers that this is not the case. He says that far from raising prices to independent booksellers, he would like to reduce them if the deal goes through. “I want to offer indies the same price that we can offer supermarkets,” he says.

Such a move would level a very bumpy playing field. Whether that happens remains to be seen. One thing is clear though: for most retailers, Harry Potter is a decidedly mixed blessing.

The Telegraph piece is here.