Monday Harry Potter'ing

Book stores reconsider ordering Potter merchandise

EDITOR'S NOTE: JUST CUZ I UPGRADED MY PICTURE CACHE STORAGE CAPACITY ONLINE, I LIKE TO THROW IN PICS FOR NO REAL REASON. THIS WOULD BE ONE OF THOSE GRATUITOUS PICTURE TOSSINGS.

As bookstores prepare for the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in July, they have become wary about overstocking HP products.

With the release of OOTP, bookstores found themselves overstocked, as much of the merchandise remained on store shelves.

A spokesperson for Border's bookstores commented: "We've got Harry Potter pens and bookmarks, and a few of those types of things. But that's really it. There definitely will not be as much as the last time." EDITOR’S NOTE: DRAT. AND NO MORE STAR WARS STUFF AT BK NOW EITHER. GUESS THERE’S NO POINT IN EVEN SHOPPING, IF THERE’S NO CHANCE FOR RANDOM LITTLE DWEEB ACQUISITIONS.

HALFBLOODPRINCE

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’M NOT GOING TO READ THIS ONE, CAUSE IT SUPPOSEDLY HAS INSIDE SCOOPAGE ON WHO DIES IN BOOK 6. BUT READ AWAY IF SPOILERS AREN’T AN ISSUE FOR YOU.

Still wild about Harry?
Nearly 11 million copies of the sixth Potter book are coming, though spell may miss older teens.
By Scott MartelleTimes Staff WriterJune 25, 2005

When the first two Harry Potter novels came out in the late 1990s, Cinda Webb would sit in the upstairs hallway of her Irvine home and read aloud as her two sons drifted off to sleep, visions of wizards dancing in their heads.Her younger son, Jon, now 14, quickly became entranced and devoured all five books. But her older son, James, now 17, lost interest around the third volume.

So Webb and Jon will join 200 other bleary-eyed Harry fans at Irvine's Whale of a Tale Children's Bookshoppe for the midnight July 16 release of the sixth book, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."James will likely be home, sound asleep."I

t's about a little wizard boy, and when you're a teenager you're just not caring what happens to the guy with the wand," says James, whose diet of nonfiction and the occasional mystery make Harry just so much kid stuff. "I just wasn't caught up with them. I never put on a cape and had a wand myself."

If the publishers of author J.K. Rowling's books have a challenge beyond how to spend the Harry Potter windfall, it is in trying to keep the series compelling for original readers who were 10 to 12 years old when Harry was introduced in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" but who are now heading off to college, jobs or even the war in Iraq.And while Rowling has hit upon a unique formula of aging Harry as the series progresses — he was 11 in the first and is 16 in the new one — it's unclear how interesting he will be to older teens on the verge of adulthood. With a planned initial printing of 10.8 million copies — up from 8.5 million for the fifth book — Harry's American publisher, Scholastic Books, is investing in its optimism that people like James Webb are rare.

"Of course, we've lost some, but I don't believe we've lost [a lot of] readers," says Barbara Marcus, executive vice president of Scholastic in charge of children's book publishing. "I believe we have expanded to parents, aunts and uncles and grandparents. And then we have the new readers. The beauty of the children's market is that our readers come into the market and they grow with us. There are new children every year who are ready for Harry Potter."The series has done well for Scholastic, which bought the American rights for $105,000 before the first book was published in England.

There are more than 103 million books now in print in the U.S., and when a new Harry book comes out it accounts for about 10% of Scholastic's annual $2.2 billion in revenues.The first book is the series' top-seller, and the number in print decreases for each succeeding title even as the initial print runs have increased. Rather than signaling a tail-off in interest, Scholastic says the numbers reflect the amount of time each book has been available, and the high number of young readers growing into the series.

Pre-orders for "The Half-Blood Prince" are at a record pace at Barnes & Noble stores and its website, with more than 750,000 books sold as of early this week, which the retailer said was far ahead of the pace for the last book. As of Friday there are 634,000 books pre-ordered through Amazon.com, but the online bookseller said it did not have comparable data for the last book.Both retailers were likely aided by the deeply discounted $17.99 sale price against a list price of $29.99, helping make "The Half-Blood Prince" their top seller almost continuously since pre-orders were accepted in December.

"We're just starting to see things take off from a customer-anticipation standpoint," says Amazon.com spokeswoman Kristin Mariani. "If you're a fan of the series and you've read all five books, you have to see what happens next."

To help build anticipation — and boost marketing — stores are banned from selling the books before midnight July 16, and won't receive the books until a day or two before. Most orders through Amazon.com will be delivered on July 16, Mariani says.Rowling's only U.S. media appearances will be a taped interview on NBC's "Today" show and an interview with Time magazine.

For the release, Rowling will do a midnight reading at Scotland's Edinburgh Castle in front of 70 young fans selected by newspapers in England and several other countries (but not the U.S.).

The fans will be given books and will act as journalists for a kids-only press conference with Rowling.Tight security over the book's release has led to some attempts to bust the embargo. London tabloid the Sun reported that thieves offered to sell it a purloined copy of the book three weeks ago, and that when its reporter arrived gunfire broke out. Two men were arrested. The Sun said it had planned to turn the book over to authorities, and Rowling has since obtained a legal injunction barring anyone from violating the embargo in England. Earlier, British bookmakers suspended bets on which character would be killed off in the new book after they noticed a flurry of bets on professor Dumbledore from gamblers in Bungay in Suffolk, where the book is being printed, suggesting details had leaked out.

From the start, Rowling has planned a series that would become more complex as it went on. Harry has matured from unloved orphan to wizard-in-training, and the tone has evolved from light fantasy to dark suspense, with death and the fight between good and evil becoming dominant themes.

"It's the kind of depth and sophistication that can be appreciated by an older age group as well as a very clear and compelling plot line that draws in the younger children," says Arthur A. Levine, the Scholastic editor who signed the series. "It's never been a book for very young children. In the early stages we thought it would be mostly 10- to 14-year-olds. The unusual qualities of the book were that even though there's sophisticated wordplay and humor and political satire that is appreciated by older readers, the younger readers are going for the more direct issues of character."

As it is, Harry has sparked massive changes in children's publishing, proving that kids will lay aside their GameBoys and Xboxes for novels that rival "Anna Karenina" for length.

"Hardcover Harry Potter books have brought kids to a new dimension of reading," says Alex Uhl, owner of A Whale of a Tale and a director of the American Booksellers for Children. "They've brought to publishers an interest in making and publishing better books. The bar has been set pretty high for kids in that age group. They're pretty sophisticated readers. They love rich language."

In fact, Harry's success has spilled over onto others, such as T.A. Barron's "Merlin" and "Avalon" series, and the planned "Inheritance Trilogy" by Christopher Paolini, 19, who began writing the first installment, "Eragon," when he was 15. C.S. Lewis' classic, "The Chronicles of Narnia," has also seen a resurgence, driven in part by a movie version scheduled for December release that is already being promoted in theaters.

Yet so far, some bookstore owners and young readers say the advance buzz for the new Potter book isn't as intense as it was for the last one, perhaps because the release date is still three weeks away."I'm just not feeling the urgency," Uhl said. "The anticipation is there but it's not with the older readers as much as it is with the younger readers."Still, the 200 people who signed up for her midnight Harry Potter party is about the same as for the last book release. At Long Beach's Once Upon a Story, about 100 people have pre-ordered the new book, about half of whom will pick it up at midnight — again similar to the last book, said store owner Julee Morris."Harry created an interest in literature and reading that was waning a bit, I think," particularly among 10- to 12-year-old boys, Morris says. Even her 15-year-old daughter is caught up in the series. "It parallels their lives a little bit, the school issue and the demons to fight."Brooklin Frye, 19, was so taken with Harry Potter that she sought out a job at the San Marino Toy and Book Shoppe last September to be closer to the action. She's become the shop's resident Harry expert, part clerk and part apostle for the books. Frye, who lives in San Gabriel, just finished her freshman year at Glendora's Citrus College, where she says her love for the books puts her at odds with most other students."A few of the people that I've met in college do read Harry Potter and those who don't just laugh at me and say it's for younger kids," Frye says.But she thinks the non-fantasy parts have universal appeal."Harry and his friends are going through things that kids right now in real life are experiencing — just with his friends sticking with him and sometime his friends don't agree with him," Frye says. "Half of it is, like, real fake, but his character, to me, is very real."

END SPOILER ALERT

EDITOR’S NOTE: THE AUDIO BOOKS ROCK! (MY SOAP BOX. READ THE BOOK THE FIRST TIME ROUND. BUT BUY THE TAPES….UNABRIDGED, NATCH…AND LISTEN A SECOND TIME. IT’S A WHOLE DIFFERENT AND WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE OF THE HARRY POTTER STORY).
Meet the man who gives voices to Harry Potter and his pals

BY JANIS CAMPBELLKnight Ridder Newspapers

(KRT) - We can't wait to hear the next Harry Potter book.

Yes, we said "hear." When the sixth book in the super-hot series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," hits bookstores July 16, the audiobook will be right there on the shelves with the printed versions.

But while we're waiting to listen to the next installment, we had a chance to listen to Jim Dale, the amazing actor who gives voice to Harry, Ron, Hermione, Professor Dumbledore and all the Potter people, talk about making the audiobooks and his show-business career.

We caught up with Dale by phone from his home in New York. Of course, Dale couldn't spill any of the secrets from the next book - like which important character dies - he can only say one does, reminding us that author J.K. Rowling has herself revealed that news.

Dale says recording the book in advance is very secret business. "I couldn't even tell my wife what happened," he adds. And you can bet plenty of people are testing Dale's secret-keeping ability. "The children and grandchildren of some of my friends are begging me to tell them what happens."

But friends and fans won't get any secret details about the latest Potter plot from Dale - he has to sign a secrecy agreement before he even reads the books. How does it feel to be one of the only people on the planet to know all the juicy details in advance? "It is rather lovely" to sit around knowing just what happens in "Harry and the Half-Blood Prince," he says.

Dale recorded the huge volume (early press reports say the book is 672 pages)EDITOR’S NOTE: NOT THE DELICIOUS AND MARVELOUSLY GLUTTONOUS 900 PAGES OF OOTP. BUT RIGHT UP THERE WITH GOF. YAY! LIFE IS GOOD!!! back in April at Merlin's Studio in New York. "Isn't that the perfect place to record a Harry Potter book?" Dale asked. EDITOR’S NOTE: GIGGLE.

If you've listened to one of the Harry Potter audiobooks, you know the voices cast a magical spell on the listener. EDITOR'S NOTE: YEP.

In fact, Dale has even won a spot as a Guinness World Record holder for "Most Character Voices in an Audio Book." (He's also won a variety of awards for his audio work, including a Grammy in 2000.) Dale says he's created more than 200 voices for characters in the Potter series. He's not sure how many are in Book Six - he hasn't had time to go back and count them yet - but in book five he gave voice to 134 characters total. If you're a Potter fan, you know characters come and go throughout the series.

So how did Dake tackle the big job of recording the audiobook? He did it 100 pages at a time. Because the audiobook has to hit stores when the book is released, Dale had to record the book in a hurry back in April. Dale says he got the book to start reading over a weekend, and on Monday he recorded the first 100 pages. On Monday night, after leaving the studio, he read the next 100 pages and practiced the voices or invented new ones if the section he was working on had new characters. On Tuesday, he was back in the studio, working on the next big section of the book. Dale said he didn't have time to read the book through before he started recording it, so it was fun each day to see how the story was unfolding.

Dale says most days he was in the studio from 9:30 a.m. until 4 or 4:30 p.m., or "as long as my voice held out." As a trained actor, Dale knows how to take care of his voice. One of his tricks for soothing this throat is tea with honey. Dale even raises his own bees at his second home to make honey, which he enjoys, and gives as gifts to friends. EDITOR’S NOTE: UMMM….THE HONEY HE GIVES AS GIFTS, RIGHT? (I MEAN, NOT THE BEES? OH. THANKS EVER SO MUCH FOR THESE, UMM, BEES!)

How did Dale turn reading stories into a career? Well, that's quite a story. "I started life earning money as a stand-up comedian," says Dale, who grew up in the Midlands region of Britain and later lived in London.

The opportunity and fame that have come from giving voice to Harry and the gang have been a wonderful surprise after a long career in show business.

"There are not many 9-year-olds who know what they want to do when they grow-up," said Jim. "But I did. I knew I wanted to make people laugh."

Dale's dad suggested he take dance lessons to help gain confidence and learn how to move. Dale says he thinks six years of dance lessons were a great advantage and would recommend them to any young person who wants to work in show business - even if you want to be a rock star - because "knowing how to move gives you the confidence to walk onto any stage."

By the time Dale was 17 he was confident and ready to leave home. Dale traveled around Great Britain working as a comedian. In his early 20s, he was a singing star with several hit records. Long before the Beatles, when rock 'n' roll was up and coming, Dale says he got a taste of the pop star life, complete with a "young, screaming audience."

That lifestyle wasn't for him, but after performing on musical TV shows, he found he liked hosting them. Dale spent the next 20 years working in TV in a variety of jobs. He also got married and had four children. He now has five grandchildren, who range in ages from 7 to 21. They think it's cool that he does the voice for the Potter books. He also began working in theater. In 1979, he moved from London to New York, where he continued to work in theater, TV and movies. Jim has packed a lot of experiences into his career.

"You've only got one life," Dale says. "It's not a dress rehearsal." EDITOR’S NOTE: NAG NAG NAG. (MY LIFE OFTEN FEELS MORE LIKE A HIDEOUS AUDITION, EVEN, THAN A REHERSAL).