Release Date for OOP: Speculation

[abigailnus]

No: HPFGUIDX 35445

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Andrew MacIan <andrew_macian at y...> wrote:
> Greetings from Andrew!
> 
> Publisher, publisher, who's got the contract?
> 
> --- serenadust <jmmears at p...> 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 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.  

I attended a book signing by Terry Pratchett in Chicago last May, and someone in the crowd asked him a question very 
much to that effect.  Pratchett's books were notorious for arriving in the States years after being published in the UK, 
but the book the signing was in honor of was being released simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic.  After being 
asked if this meant he was finally entered mainstream American pop culture, Pratchett answered that the reason was 
simply that his publishers had finally realized that delaying US publication puts money directly in Amazon's pocket.  
Pratchett is a bestselling writer in the UK, but there's just no way he's outselling Rowling in the States.  Under no 
circumstances would OotP not be released simultaneously in the UK and the US, if for no other reason that if 
Scholastic are stupid enough to lose the contract, *any* other US publisher would welcome Rowling with open arms.

Myself, I hope she sticks with Scholastic.  As I understand it, landing the HP contract when no other US publisher would 
touch it has kept the company solvent and allowed them to continue their research in school textbooks.  Also, I don't 
believe we'll be seeing any changes in OotP a-la SS/PS (and for heaven's sake, dumbing down?  All that happened was 
that some slang words that American kids wouldn't recognize were changed - and that is the target audience, you 
know - kids) those changes were made because Rowling was in no place to make demands, and in her own words was 
just happy to have found a US publisher.  The situation is very different now.  As I said, any publishing house would fall 
over backwards to have her and make very few demands.

Abigail