Journal

Okay… that’s just… wow.

19 Comments

I’m surfing around the Amazon Associates site and looking at the categories in which I can create banner ads (reminder — shop at Amazon using a link at Schlock Mercenary and I get 4% of the purchase price at no additional cost to you)

“Harry Potter” is a category.

I checked, and not ONE of the the other categories was a brand-name, or was otherwise associated with an intellectual property. The other are things like “Software” and “DVD.” There are two store names — Office Depot and Target — but that’s as close as we come to acknowledging any entity other than Harry the Boy Wizard Who Lived and Made Rowling A KaBillionairess.

–Howard

19 thoughts on “Okay… that’s just… wow.”

  1. It’s worth noting that July 16th, the release date for BFS (read: Book Frickin’ Six), was a major event at Amazon, in terms of a large quantity of our developers making preparations in a way that is normally only seen in the months leading up to Christmas.

    That, combined with the utterly huge quantity of merchandise the franchise has spawned, makes this, if not not unusual, at least not entirely surprising.

  2. As far as I can tell, Harry Potter is bigger than Star Wars. Bigger than Star Trek. Bigger than, even, LOTR.

    None of those franchises have been able to tap into kids the way Harry Potter has. I think that Warner and Scholastic (I think it’s Scholastic who is the publisher, right?) are going to be VERY unhappy when Book Seven is published and adapted…

    1. No need at all to be embarrassed. It’s honestly good writing, and, if nothing else, is getting kids to read who wouldn’t otherwise even consider it. I’m not so fanatic as to go stand in line somewhere for book 7 (for starters, I’d have to drive at least an hour to get somewhere where I even could), but you can bet your ass I’ll pre-order it from Amazon.

  8. You don’t seem to grasp the scale here. It’s not just Rowling: the publishing industry cares deeply about this because A new Harry Potter book can _easily_ make the difference between a bookstore losing money and making money for the year.

    http://www.thebookstandard.com/bookstandard/news/retail/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001055521
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/07/14/BUG10DNIGB1.DTL
    http://www.thenewstribune.com/ae/v-printer/story/5014001p-4575925c.html

    And yes this was true back around book 2 or 3. The most recent one kept BookPeople from going under. (It’s a local bookstore, an institution in Austin, that lost a lot of traffic when the Whole Foods they share a building with moved out and everybody driving by thought the empty parking lot and papered-over windows meant bookpeople was closed too.) They were weeks from running out of cash when suddenly, Harry Potter and they had the entire parking lot filled with people in a line that would have gone around the block if it had been straight, and moved _pallets_ of books in one night. It’s like the entire christmas rush crammed into one night, and then there’s more sales of the book _afterwards_.

    I’m not suprised amazon has a category for it. From probably a bigger financial category for them than most of the others.

    1. Wait…Whole Foods has only vacated that spot for a year or so, when the new store across the street opened. (Speaking of: anyone else ever seen a grocery store with underground parking? I mean…whoa.) Book 3 of Harry Potter was, what…2003? And I never heard about BookPeople being on the rocks; would you have a link to your source, by chance?

      1. … Langley said the most recent book is what kept BookPeople from going under, not book 3 … the comment about “book 2 or 3” was an overall “Harry Potter series have had a huge financial impact on stores since book 2 or 3” type of comment. That’s how I read it, at least.

  9. Hey Howard,

    I thought I’d let you know that I sacrificed you to Cthulu back in April. (Don’t believe me? Check my LJ! LOL) Please don’t take it personally. 🙂

    –Trace of Tears

      1. That’s because even Cthulhu is clever enought ot know that if he eats you, he will only have about a month’s worth of Schlock left.

        heck, maybe the Ancient Creepy One will actually keep you alive forever. We all know how he loves the ominous hummmmmmmmmmm.

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