Simultaneous Worldwide Publication?

[Doriane]

No: HPFGUIDX 85304

"Steve" <bboy_mn at y...> wrote:

> Currently there is a thread 'What if Harry dies?', and an aspect of
> this has been the speculation that if word got out of Harry's death 
> in the last book, people would refuse to buy it, and the publishers 
> would refuse to print it.
> 
> Readers refuse to buy-
> 
> I don't think that is true. 
(snip) 
> We don't watch for the ending because we know it, we watch for the
> story. 

I couldn't agree more. Let's take the new Star Wars trilogy, for 
example. We all know that by the end of the 3rd episode, Anakin will 
have turned completely to the Dark Side, which in my idea is almost 
worse than being dead. So, even if I personally didn't like the first 
2 episodes that much, I am waiting *very* impatiently for the 3rd 
one, just to know how this is going to happen.

And btw, I wouldn't be overly sad if Harry did die in the end. I 
never truly connected with him, and he annoys me quite often (and, 
well, I really don't like it when I feel forced to have pity or 
compassion on someone). I would be much more bothered with 
Hermione's, Neville's or Remus's death.

> Publishers refuse to publish-
> 
(snip) 
> So, whether they like it or not, the publishers will publish. 

Hum, excuse me, but... LOL ! Now, that would be worth seeing, a 
publisher refusing to publish a Harry Potter book just because they 
don't like the ending :-) I mean, those books are heavenly manna for 
the publishers and the demand for them is outstanding. After all, did 
we hear of any publisher who refused to publish OoP just because 
their favourite character, namely Sirius, died in it ?

> Distribution Dilemma -
> 
> We know all the secrecy that occurred during the release of the 
> latest book. I wonder how JKR is going to handle the release of the 
> seventh book? 
> 
> If she does an English version release before the foreign language
> releases, for a vast majority of the world, the 'secret' will be out
> long before their books are even printed.

Huh, let me guess : you live in an English-speaking country, and you 
always get the Hollywood's movies right when they come out in the 
States, right ? Because if you lived in, say, France (like me, for 
example ;-), you'd know that :
a) unless you look for it, the probability is you won't learn of the 
surprise ending. I remember watching a special premiere of "The Sixth 
Sense" more than a month before it officially came out in France, and 
I felt horrible at the end of it, because I felt it would be nearly 
impossible to hold my tongue about the surprise end. But the truth 
is, nobody cared about the movie until it came out in France. It was 
a big thing in many other parts of the world, but here nobody cared 
about it until we had it too. So what I mean is that unless a French 
HP fan really goes out of his way to find out about the end of the 
7th book, he probably won't find out about it until it is published 
in French (or until he buys an English version ;-)
b) Knowing the end doesn't kill the interest in a book. See above my 
comments about "readers refuse to buy". Many people out here in 
France have heard many things about OoP, but they still can't wait to 
get their hands on it when it comes out in French.

> And what will the level of secrecy be on this last book? It will 
> have to be on the order of magnitude of the governments top defense
> secrets; right up there with the governments knowledge of UFOs.

I personally wouldn't have any problems with knowing beforehand how 
things are going to end. In fact, *hum hum* (embarassed coughs), I 
have the very bad habit of reading the beginning of a book, and then 
jump right at the end of it. I just love to see how much a situation 
has changed, and to wonder as to *how ever* things got from this to 
that ? So I knew quite early on when reading OoP that Sirius was the 
one who was going to die, but it didn't take any interest away from 
reading the whole book.

> Reader's Dilemma -
> 
> If JKR self-publishes and/or the book is released simultaneously in
> all major languages, I can see that addinga year or possibly more to
> the publication time of the book. Book 7 could be 10 year away, I
> don't know if I can hold out for that long.

Oh yes, you can :-) The only thing that might happen is that when the 
last book finally comes out, you'll have dropped out of your HP 
frenzy, and it will become a bore to read it. But considering the 
sheer intrinsic quality of the books, I think it quite unlikely :-)

> The Secret -
> 
> Unless there is a substantial drop in the general popularity of the 
> HP books, the demand to know what happened is going to be 
> hysterically overwhelming. I can't imagine how they are going to 
> keep it a secret.

Bah. Strangely enough, when I finished GoF, I just couldn't wait for 
the next book. But this time I couldn't care less when number 6 will 
come out. So maybe I won't care that much about number 7 either. It 
would take *very* unsettling revelations in book 6 to make me crave 
like mad for book 7. Which I don't put past JKR's talent, of course ;-
)

Del