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Does Harry Potter still have the magic?Some wonder about hype, lag time between books
By Todd Leopold
(CNN) -- The official release date of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is still three days away, and already the backlash has begun. There's a lack of buzz, those killjoy commentators are saying. The original audience may have outgrown the series. The movies have watered down the story. At close to 900 pages, the fifth book in J.K. Rowling's series is too long for young readers. And a J.P. Morgan survey of sixth- and seventh-graders and their parents claims that there has been a "fall-off in the intent to purchase" the new book from previous works. You'd think Harry had lost his magic touch. Balderdash, says Seth Siegel, a New York-based marketing specialist and co-founder and chairman of the licensing division at The Beanstalk Group, a brand licensing and promotional marketing firm. Sure, there hasn't been quite so much hype this time around, but who needs hype when your awareness among consumers approaches 100 percent, as Potter's does? "Why spend money [promoting the book] if you don't need to?" he asks. "If it's a good story, it'll be unstoppable." The way "Phoenix" has been marketed, he adds, shouldn't hurt book sales or the series' popularity. "It will sell millions in a matter of days," he says. "There's no question -- it'll be a tsunami." Strong storyIndeed, if advance orders are any indication, "Phoenix" is guaranteed to be one of the best selling books of all time. It's been No. 1 on Amazon's list since the day the online site started taking reservations; the retailer has already recorded more than 1 million orders at its Web sites worldwide. "It's shattered all our records," says Amazon's Bill Carr, director of books, music, video and DVDs. "With each new incarnation, sales [for all Potter items] grow and grow." And so does the audience, Siegel says. Even if a few adolescents decide they're too old to keep riding the Hogwarts Express, he says the audience for the work now includes more and more adults -- and more and more little kids are climbing aboard, as well. "It's an ever-expanding audience," he says. Noting that the first book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" ("Sorcerer's Stone" in the U.S.) came out in 1998, he says, "There's a whole generation of 10-, 11-, 12-, and 13-year-olds who haven't read the earlier books. [Pottermania] will begin all over again." He expects a boost in sales for the first two books, in particular. John Baldoni, a leadership communications consultant based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, says that youngsters can still turn their parents on to the books. "My daughter, age 14, has been reading Potter since the beginning," he says via e-mail. "Through my daughter I have become acquainted with the charm of the story. And it is the narrative that keeps folks, young and old, interested." Allan Zola Kronzek, co-author with his daughter Elizabeth of "The Sorcerer's Companion: A Guide to the Magical World of Harry Potter" (Broadway), believes that most of the Potter audience will follow Rowling wherever the author wants to go. "Readers who enjoyed 'Philosopher's Stone' may not be interested in keeping up, but diehard readers will continue," he says. "It remains to be seen if older readers stay with it, but I think many will." 'The movies expanded the franchise'The movies -- released in November 2001 and November 2002 -- have helped maintain Potter's high profile, says Siegel. "You can track the release of the movies and [a spike in] book sales," he says. "The movies expanded the franchise." And yet Rowling has, by all accounts, managed to stay true to her own vision. Greg Dean Schmitz, an analyst for Yahoo! Movies and the creator of Upcomingmovies.com, says that she's probably made the books less cinematic, not more. "Since she has the ultimate authority over how the movies are adapted, she's been able to stick to her original plans for the novels," he says via e-mail. "If anything, her books seem increasingly separate from the movies in that she writes so much more material in them than could ever be adapted as a single movie each." Rumor has it that the fourth book may become two movies. What could hurt the Potter series? Only bad word of mouth, says Siegel, a completely dreadful work. And he doubts that, given Rowling's talents, "Phoenix" will be anywhere near bad. Kronzek, a professional stage magician, admires Rowling's use of mythology and expects more bits from Greco-Roman and medieval stories as the battle between good (Potter) and evil (Lord Voldemort) intensifies. He finds it unfathomable that Rowling's works lead library lists of challenged books and have been criticized from church pulpits for their magical and mythical elements. "The values in the books are [traditional] religious values," he says. As for the release of "Phoenix," he can't wait. "I'm as eager as everybody else to see what's in it," he says.
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