J.K. Rowling's enchanted money-box is still expanding, and the hype around the new book shows the wizard is still working his magic, reports Rosita Boland.
There are not many things literally worth their weight in gold, but the new Harry Potter book, The Order of the Phoenix, weighing in at 300 grams and 768 pages is one of them. Although publication date is not until June 21st, J.K. Rowling's fifth book in her series about the boy wizard has already become Amazon's bestselling book. Pre-publication online orders on both sides of the Atlantic have topped one million, and are still rising.
The Harry Potter series has become a modern-day Midas; everything it has touched thus far has transmuted into gold. To start with, the four books themselves have sold 192 million copies. Scholastic, which publishes Harry Potter in the US, made 10 per cent of its total 2001 revenue from the last title, Goblet of Fire.
Then there are the two movies, which have taken 1,740 million worldwide at the box office. The spin-off merchandising from the movies has given us everything everything from Harry Potter duvet covers to dolls, chocolate sorting hats, ring-binders, lunchboxes, and most pertinent of all, Harry Potter money-boxes.
As a result, J.K. Rowling is fabulously, staggeringly, fairytale-like, telephone-figures rich. The latest Sunday Times British Rich List estimated her fortune to be £270 million and placed her 122nd on its list. That placing made her richer than Queen Elizabeth, a woman who has never been short of a castle or two. And there are at least two more Harry Potter books to come in the series after The Order of the Phoenix. Filming of the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, is currently under way in Scotland. The Harry Potter phenomenon is not just one cash cow, it's a herd, with no udder left unmilked.
In the world of Harry Potter, "overkill" is probably a word as little uttered as "Voldemort", Harry and Hogwarts School's darkest enemy. The relentless merchandising in particular has removed much of the charm from the characters, leaving little room for readers' imagination to fill in the gaps. There is not much left that is mysterious in the world of Harry Potter.
The public may well relegate the dolls and lunchboxes to the overkill graveyard, but there is ainsatiable appetite for the books themselves. Since Rowling started being read by millions, the publication of each new book has excited a staggering amount of hoopla. The Order of the Phoenix comes three years after The Goblet of Fire; it was half-promised two years ago, and then again a year ago, so Potter punters are literally going to be burning the midnight oil to get the latest update.
To facilitate eager readers, certain bookshops will have special opening hours. Late-night openings rarely happen in the Republic; the last time Waterstone's opened late was for its 24-hour opening in 1997 to celebrate 10 years in Dublin. Eason's on Dublin's O'Connell Street will open at midnight on Friday, June 20th, and stay open until the queue clears. Eason's has ordered 7,000 books, with 3,500 at the O'Connell Street branch.
O'Mahony's in Limerick will also open at midnight for an hour and has ordered 1,000 books. Waterstone's in Dublin and in Cork will open at midnight for an hour, and again at 8 a.m. No cover price has been announced yet, but it is expected to be about 25.
The only real mystery left about The Order of the Phoenix is what's actually in it. Usually, proofs of books or early copies are sent to media outlets before publication dates, so that reviews will appear at the same time as the books arrive in the shops. This won't be happening for Rowling's latest book. Critics will have to go out and queue up to get hold of the book, and then apply themselves to the race for getting out the first reviews; it's virtually certain the first reviews will appear on the Internet.
The warehouses where the books are being held for Bloomsbury, the publisher, have been under 24-hour surveillance in case anyone should have the temerity to pinch a copy and leak details. Luckless fork-lift driver Donald Parfitt stole three chapters of the book from the Suffolk printing company where he worked, which had the contract to print the books. He found them, he said, fluttering in the company's car-park. Parfitt hid them in his lunchbox; it is not reported whether it was a Harry Potter lunchbox. He offered them to the Sun for £40,000, but instead of biting, the paper ratted on him and Parfitt ended up in court, pleading guilty to theft. He has lost his job, and is due to be sentenced on June 7th.
Of course, the books will be stored in the bookshops for some time before they go on sale. But in case any employee should be thinking about sneaking out a copy, Bloomsbury has said that any bookshop misbehaving in this way will forever be banned from selling any Harry Potter books.
So far, it has worked. The public still knows nothing about the book other than what it has been drip-fed. A clue was given when Rowling's scribbled keywords to the plot were auctioned for charity last year, raising £28,000. The words include Ron . . . broom . . . sacked . . . house-elf . . . new . . . teacher . . . dies . . . sorry.
Yup, that's the plot in a nutshell.
The only other teaser the public has been given is the book's opening paragraph, and one other further on in the story.
The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive . . . The only person left outside was a teenage boy who was lying flat on his back in a flowerbed outside number four.
And later on in the novel, Rowling writes:
Dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed Harry through his half-moon glasses. "It is time," he said, "for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Harry. Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything."
Well, let's hope not everything. After all, there are still two more books to go.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Bloomsbury) will be published on June 21st
Financial wizardry Harry's Midas touch
Copies sold of first four books: 192 million
Box-office takings from first two movies: $1,740 million
Number of boys who auditioned for the part of Harry: 16,000
Current market value of signed first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: £10,000
Number of languages the books have been translated into: 40, including Albanian and Zulu
Significance of July 31st: the birthday of Harry Potter,
J.K. Rowling, and actor Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry
Projected number of books in series: seven
Harry's projected age by book seven: 17
Rumoured last word of last book: scars