CNN Reports Scholastic Corp. said Wednesday it plans a marketing push to lure more adult readers to its record-setting “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” title.
You can take a peak at 2 of the ads, Here, and Here.
Meanwhile, Scholastic Just Reported a first-quarter revenue increase of 55% to $475.4 million. Thank you, Harry Potter.
Since J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released on June 21, Scholastic has sold 11 million copies. Within the first 24 hours, the book sold a record 5 million!
With the latest, Harry Potter books added $170 million in revenue to the latest quarter. By comparison, the young Potter accounted for a mere $15 million in last year’s quarter.
Ack!
Is it just me, or are those ads horrific? They seem to cheapen things that seem so magical in the books. In the books, you escape from the real world. I never thought to myself “Ooh! An invisibility cloak! How _stylish!_” I would hope readers like the books for themselves, not because a trend-obsessed herd mentality told them to like them.
Re:Ack!
Crass commercialism. It’s a matter of: Oh! we can’t get by with just a paltry 475 million from raiding kids’ piggy banks any more! Now we have to sucker the grown-ups, too!
My advice to adults who don’t read a great deal and who might want to read more is to start with the juveniles of Robert Heinlein, move to the anthologies of his short stories, and then finally pick up his works for sophisticated readers, such as Stranger In A Strange Land or Time Enough For Love. I also recommend Zelasny, Moorcock’s Elric of Melbinone, Patricia C. Wrede, Jane Yolen, and Pamela C. Dean. I do not recommend the various series of novels based on television shows, but that’s mostly a prejudice.