Curse Versus Kill etc. (was Re: Harry Potter and God - GOF)

[sistermagpie]

> | Magpie:
> | It's also, I think, just a matter of how marketing works. 
> | Bloomsbury only owns the rights in the UK, and JKR sold 
> | foreign rites in many different countries that are then 
> | published by different publishers. What you're objecting to 
> | is probably changes in the language--that's where kids would 
> | learn. Though it would also just be a case of putting the 
> | book into the standard copy style of the US publisher. Iow, 
> | changing the style of punctuation along with putting out 
> | their own edition re: book design and font styles and all that.
> 
> [Lee]:
> And why they should be allowed to change so much is beyond me!  It would be
> one thing if the books were translated from a non-english language.  But,
> IMHO, the only thing that should have been changed was the name of the
> publisher and that's it.

Magpie:
But publishers don't just take someone else's book and slap their name on it. They're buying the manuscript inside just like the original publisher and creating it into their own book just the way the original publisher did. They don't own the original design or cover art or design--if they just put their name on it they'd be stealing. They're starting from scratch. Along with providing paper, art and design they're of course also going to follow their in-house rules for punctuation and spelling. It's not like the books are even necessarily coming out at different times.

-m