[HPforGrownups] Re: Release Date for OOP: Speculation

[Andrew MacIan]

No: HPFGUIDX 35434

Greetings from Andrew!

Publisher, publisher, who's got the contract?

--- serenadust <jmmears at prodigy.net> wrote:
{snip} of Penney's points in re OotP press date

> In addition to all of Penney's points above, I'd
> like to add that 
> sometime in the last month or so there was a press
> item indicating 
> that JKR had not agreed to formally sign with
> Scholastic to publish 
> book 5. I don't have the exact article at hand but
> I'm sure I read 
> it in the Leaky Cauldron.  The gist of it was that
> Scholastic was 
> quite concerned about continuing their relationship
> with Rowling and 
> finally had to ask if they could "assume" that they
> would be 
> publishing book 5.  They were told (not very
> reassuringly) that for 
> the time being they could continue to assume this,
> but I've not 
> heard anything to indicate that an agreement was
> reached.  It seems 
> to me that the contract between JKR and Scholastic
> would have to be 
> ironed out before any speculation on when book 5
> will appear can be 
> considered valid.

Interesting and potentially a major problem for US
fen.  If we look at how things work for other authors
in SF/F, the US pub rights are either a subsidiary
rights sale, or are negotiated as a separate sale. 
This, of course, depends on the author/agent and first
rights contract.  Also, it is far from unusual to see
a US edition follow an UK edition by some number of
years...not months.  We've been spoiled!

I presume from the context above that Rowling (or her
agent) had a contact with Scholastic for the first US
rights for only the four books that are currently out.
 If this is the case, I think AmazonUK is going to be
flooded with (ahem) foreign currency payments.  Also,
I trust that,no matter who winds up with the US
rights, the text of the novel isn't stupified for US
consumption.

Cheers,

Drieux

=====
ICQ # 76184391

'Each game of chess means there's one less
      Variation left to be played;
 Each day got through means one or two less
      Mistakes remain to be made.'
      --'Chess' by Sir Tim Rice

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games
http://sports.yahoo.com