"The enormous scale of the sale of Harry Potter is undoubtedly due to the changed nature and scale of propaganda in the ongoing age of globalization. One might have noticed this in India recently where the newspapers and TV channels seldom care for Indian writers and their works."

On July 21, with the publication of the last item in the Harry Potter series, the publishing business climbed to an unprecedented height. Within twenty-four hours of its release on the market, 42-year-old J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows recorded sales of 8.3 million copies in America alone. Since the total number of copies printed there was 12 million, the first twenty-four hour sale came to more than two-thirds of the total print order. Not only the in US but also in metro cities of India, people, especially the adolescents, had queued up long before the opening of the sale. In New Delhi’s main shopping centre – Connaught Place – the queue formation began at 4.30 in the morning. The bookshop held a ‘Hogwarts Carnival’ and gave between 5 and 25 per cent discount on the printed price of Rs 975 to those who had placed advanced orders. In the nearby Khan Market, buyers were provided breakfast to refresh themselves.

Pre-publication orders for more than two million copies were received from countries other than the USA and Britain. India’s share in this was 240,000. If one keeps school textbooks aside, no Indian publication has ever received pre-publication orders to this extent. Publishers were well aware of the probable dangers posed by piracy and all necessary precautions and measures were taken to tackle it. They had done everything short of mobilizing the navy and air force. A 24-hour anti-piracy hotline, all-night vigil by armed guards, and anti-pilfering measures were provided at all ports and airports shipping the copies. In India, its publishers – Bloomsbury and Penguin India – were able to sell 170,000 copies on the first day. Buyers were mainly from the high-income groups. Notwithstanding all the precautionary steps, pirated copes did appear on the market. Pirates enjoyed a definite price advantage. A pirated copy sold for Rs 350, i.e., slightly more than one-third the price of a genuine copy. At first glance, it was difficult to distinguish pirated and genuine copies because both had almost the same cover design and binding.

Leave aside India, Singapore, Malaysia, etc. where the English-reading population is quite substantial, in Japan and China, too, a large number of people seemed crazy for it. In China, ten days before the book was formally released, fake translations were placed on the market. Not only this, but also a number of local writers placed their own books in Chinese, entitled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! The Beijing Review gleefully remarked: “The popularity of Harry Potter is a sign that China’s youth is embracing global culture.” [1] One would have liked it to enlighten about the character of this global culture.

The extent of the popularity of the last book in the Harry Potter series is indicated by the fact that, two years ago, the sixth book, Harry potter and the Half-blood Prince, sold only 6.9 million copies in the first twenty-four hours. Thus the latest in the series sold 20 percent more copies during the same duration. According to an eye witness: “The excitement, anticipation, and just plain hysteria that came over the entire country this weekend was a bit like the Beatles’ first visit to the U. S.”. [2] If we include the print order for the latest book, the total print order for the entire series only in America comes to 133.5 million. The total sale of the first six books in the series all over the world comes to 325 million.

The Harry Potter series has been translated into as many as 63 languages (including Ancient Greek). This has made Rowling richer than even the British Queen. The Observer has this to say about her popularity: “On today’s literary stock exchange, there’s a bull market in the Rowling shares, though it’s safe to predict that eventually there will be a corrective reaction. Where her reputation ends up is anyone’s guess. There’s no doubt she will be read by juveniles of all ages for the foreseeable future. She remains formidable for her best selling accomplishments, remarkable for her consistency, but vulnerable to the charge that she’s not Pullman, not Tolkien and not C. S. Lewis.” It goes on to add: “… she certainly understands the importance of plot, and exhibits narrative brio with a vigorous, if slightly predictable imagination. Her prose will always lack magic, or charm.” [3]

Thanks to the commercial success of the series, Rowling is worth one billion dollars. There is no writer throughout the globe to equal her in this respect. Forbes, in 2006, named her as the second richest entertainer and ranked her 48th among the 100 most powerful celebrities in the world. She is the 13th richest woman in Britain and occupies the 136th rank among the richest (both men and women together) in Britain.

To come to this position, she had to struggle hard and made compromises. Born on July 31, 1965, in a very ordinary middle class family in Gloucestershire, she went to Portugal in 1991 to work as a teacher of English language. She married Jorge Arantes, a Portuguese TV journalist but the marriage ended in divorce and she returned to Britain with her infant daughter, Jessica. She had to struggle very hard to earn her living. She got a job as a teacher of French in Edinburgh and revived her interest in writing fiction. While in Portugal, she had worked on a story about a ‘wizard’, which she developed into her first novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s – in US) Stone.

It really became an uphill task to get the first novel published. Publishers rejected her manuscript without even bothering to glance through it. Fortunately, Bloomsbury agreed to publish it after the publisher’s 8-year old daughter, Alice Newton, read it and found it very interesting. Rowling was paid $4,000 in a lump sum. She was, however, asked to give up her real name for a pseudonym as author of the book. It is said that the publisher thought that the kind of book she had written could not succeed commercially if a feminine name was given as author. Thus Joanne Kathleen Rowling became J. K. Rowling. Soon after, the book was published in America and became a roaring success. Her second book, The Chamber of Secrets was published in Britain in 1998 and in America in 1999. Rowling became a household name and her books became best sellers. By the summer of 2000, she had earned more than $400 million from her first three books, which were translated into 35 languages and had a turnover of more than 30 million copies. Her fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, had a pre-publication order for over a million copies and had a print order of 5.3 million copies. Films versions of the books have been made, boosting both her revenue as well as popularity.

It is really a great achievement for a person who began publishing at the age of 32 and, within a decade, reached the topmost position. She has not only ample money but also fame. She is more widely known than any other Briton of today. It will be interesting to look into the reasons for this success.

Long ago, Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Sherlock Holmes” series of stories became popular and that popularity survives even now, but it is nowhere near that of the Harry Potter series. Jules Verne’s books are still printed in thousands of copies and the youth read them, but he cannot equal Rowling in popularity.

Her self-professed leftist inclination is surely not a factor in her popularity. No expert till now has discovered lasting literary value in her books. She has not written anything significant besides the Harry Potter series nor has she expressed her plan to try her hand at literary works in the future. Bob Hoover recently wrote in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Her strength as a writer lies in her ability to create a large collection of memorable and cleverly named characters, a variety of fantastical places and situations and even darker and more threatening plots.” [4] All these skills, however, cannot place her among literary masters whose fame has been durable. Lisa Dennis, a specialist in children’s literature at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, concurs with Hoover. She maintains that the Harry Potter series is not likely to be a classic though it is not simply a trend of ephemeral nature. In her own words, “I don’t think [Ms Rowling’s] writings will stand the test of time. The series will have long life because … the original readers will share it with their children, a family favorite for a very long time.” [5]

British journalist, Will Hutton, asks: “Is Harry Potter so good and author J. K. Rowling so brilliant that these books deserve their status as, cumulatively, the best-selling ever?” And goes on to answer: “The strict answer is, obviously no. They are great stories, synthesizing with enormous narrative skill the best of C. S. Lewis, Tolkien and Jill Murphy’s Worst Witch books – not to mention some Greek myths – along with some old-fashioned black magic.” [6]

The enormous scale of the sale is undoubtedly due to the changed nature and scale of propaganda in the ongoing age of globalization. Both the print and electronic media are pressed to become a part of the propaganda blitzkrieg by dint of channeling huge advertisement revenue in their coffers. One might have noticed this in India recently where the newspapers and TV channels seldom care for Indian writers and their works devoting substantial space and time to highlight its reader worthiness.

Will Hutton has explained its enormous success as follows: “The key to its global success has been the US, where more than one in four Americans over 12 claim to have seen a Potter movie. … No global cultural hit is possible without prior success in the US – which means it had to be first created in English. Had Rowling been French or German, she would never have been worth her estimated £545m.”

In countries like India, a “band wagon effect” was obviously evident. Among the English educated youth there is an irresistible urge to imitate the American way life and values. Henry Kissinger and Thomas L. Friedman may construe it as a solid piece of evidence of American cultural hegemony in the ongoing era of globalization.

Dr.Girish Mishra has written extensively for all leading Indian dailies and periodicals including The Times Of India, Hindu, Indian Express and Dainik Jagran. He has, in the past, also written for The People's Press. He has written a formidable list of books on topics related to Economy and Economic History. He lives in New Delhi, India. More of his articles can be viewed at www.girishmishra.com.

Endnotes

1. The Beijing Review, July 6, 2007.

2. The New York Times, July 23, 2007.

3. The Observer, July 29, 2007.

4. Bob Hoover, ‘Will the Harry Potter series become a classic?’, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 18, 2007.

5. Quoted in: Hoover, ‘Will the Harry Potter series become a classic?’.

6. Will Hutton, The Observer, July 22, 2007.