The Last Book Of Harry Potter On July. 21, 2007

I remember being in England and Scotland when the first movie was just
about
to come out in the theaters, and bus shelters and kiosks everywhere
had
posters that said "...& the Philosopher's Stone," and it annoyed me
every
time. In fact, while there, my husband and I decided that we were so
annoyed
at the "US-ization" of the book, that we went into a bookstore in
Glastonbury
and bought trade paperback copies of the existing books in the series
from
Bloomsbury, the British publisher of the books. And, since that
point, we've
replaced each of our US copies with the Brit trade ppbk as soon as
it's
available. (It should be noted that after the success of the first
book,
Rowling had a LOT more editorial control, and there _were_ no more
"US
versions" of the English language copies of the book -- so it's only
the
first book where we missed having trainers for sneakers, jumpers for
sweaters, gaol for jail, etc. etc. But I like to have my copies all
from the
same series, so they match. But look at it from the perspective of the
average American: "Sorcerer's
Stone" sounds like something about magic, so that's at least
understandable,
and it doesn't much matter exactly what it is. "Philosopher's Stone"
sounds
frighteningly like it might have something to do with philosophy
(which =
"boring" to most Americans), and doesn't give any kind of readily
accessible
cue that it's a book about magic. the book already a hit in the UK
when it got to the States? I
would think some smart marketing would have overcome any qualms about
the
dreaded word "philosopher" in the title. Plus, the cover artwork made
it
pretty clear what the book was about. Actually, as I recall, the book
really
took off because of the incredible word of mouth among the kids
reading it. Personally, I didn't get into Harry Potter until the first
movie came out
and I took my niece and nephew to see it (who were already big Harry
Potter
fans). And after seeing the movie, I borrowed my niece's copy of the
first
book! I'm really looking forward to "Deathly Hallows," but also sad.
I'm
worried about how it's all going to end (please, please, please don't
let
Harry or Ron or Hermione die) -- and, of course, sad to think there
will be
no more Harry Potter books. I heard that JKRowling was turned down buy
publisher after publisher
until some one at Scholastic recognized the merits of her book.
Speaking from my distant past career as a book publisher, I can tell
you that
the title is _very_ important, and that not all of your target
audience will
have the cover available to see -- plus, covers vary from country to
country,
too. Having said that, I agree that having "Philosopher's" in the
title
wouldn't have been a deal breaker for many people over the long run,
but
considering it was an unproven young adult novel by an unknown, first-
time
writer who wasn't even an American, I don't think they were being
insanely
overcautious by changing the title for US English speakers. I don't
think
_I_ would have done it, but Scholastic probably didn't want to lose
any
percentage of what was expected to be (based on sales of most novels
by first
time authors in the young adult market) a fairly small market share.
Most
first-time author stories don't turn out like this one! Have you
heard, for
instance, of the Artemis Fowl books, or the Dragon Spawn cycle? LOTS
of
books get written, MOST are read by hardly anybody. And my suspicion
is that
the internet hasn't helped the YA market. They changed dozens of
things
to make them more comprehensible to American children, as if
the vast majority of us didn't grow up learning new words by
the
context. Or, skipping over them and not caring if we didn't
know
what it meant. Or, asking an adult. But then again, I was a
kid
before The Era of Dumbing Down began, thank heavens.

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