Wednesday, July 20, 2005
The Harry Potter Phenomenon
When I was a kid, I collected sea shells. When I got bored of that I collected coins. Then, for some bizarre reason, I started collecting rose petals and storing them between the pages of very heavy books. Do you know what happens to a rose petal left inside the pages of The Reader’s Digest Family Health Guide, between page 846 and 847 for six years? It becomes soft, and almost translucent. Natural frail skin with dark, thin veins, like a small section of an anatomical map in my biology class.
All my life, I’ve collected things.
The problem is, I’ve constantly changed my mind about what I like to collect.
Consequently, I have lots of small collections.
One constant over the past decade, however, have been my modern first edition books. For those unaware, there’s a passionate bevy of such first edition collectors. It might not surprise you to know that a good copy of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in The Rye, first US edition, with dustjacket, would currently fetch in the neighborhood of $15,000. Or that a stellar first edition copy of Joseph Heller’s seminal Catch 22 can fetch as much as $8,000 at auction. And it certainly shouldn’t surprise you to know that a good copy of Dr. Seuss’ Cat in The Hat, true first edition, will fetch between $12,000 and $14,000.
However, the first edition business can sometimes catch newcomers unawares. For example, a mint signed copy of John Grisham’s first book, A Time to Kill, published not by Doubleday, but by Wynwood Press, of which John sold less than 500 copies, and ended up burning the rest of the batch sitting in his garage, would currently fetch around $6,000. And a signed first edition of Stephen King’s The Stand currently goes for around $25,000 at auction.
But what might be most surprising for you to know is that an unsigned mint copy, first UK edition, of Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone will currently sell for a minimum of $30,000! A collection of the first three Harry Potter books, first edition, is currently being offered by Abe Books for $86,000.
So, you can imagine how happy I was to open up my first editions of the new Harry Potter book (I ordered both the UK and US prints) this week, to add to my painfully gathered collection of Rowling books. People who visit always do a double-take of my Potter cabinet...over the past several years, I’ve managed to acquire first editions of the various books from over six countries. I’m proud of them, except having to explain why I have so many copies of the same books.
I don’t have any of them signed just yet, but am hoping that Rowling will come my way soon.
Collecting rare books is an accepted hobby--people have been doing it for years. But when a new, very popular book of which several thousand copies exist in its first edition becomes as valuable in the rare book community as the Rowling books have, that’s when you know a community has popped a marketing pill. Of course, the earlier books are more expensive because fewer numbers of the true first editions exist; still, how does one justify the value of such a book, when the author is neither a recluse, nor a true literary giant?
See, the Harry Potter books are social phenomeons. And it is only in this multi-media age that one could create a social phenomenon out of relatively mediocre literature; Enid Blyton was writing fantastic stories for years in England up until she died, and while she was popular enough back then, I suspect that she would have been a giant in today’s electric climate of rapid marketing and recommendations. Even without the Internet and today’s media frenzy, she managed to write 700 books that have sold in excess of half a billion copies worldwide.
Don’t get me wrong—I like Rowling’s books. They’re fantastic flights of imagination that help kids see the world from a completely different perspective. I have seriously considered that I might not be in a creative field were it not for the hundreds of Enid Blyton books I used to devour growing up. Reading, in general, is becoming a forgotten art with children, and anything that can get their noses into books is welcome. But in today’s climates of movie rights, product partnerships and “properties” instead of “characters”, I can’t help but feel that we’re building a future upon the shoulders of kids who aren’t being given a chance to think for themselves. Cartoons don’t seem to have moral lessons anymore; flatulence is considered funny; gore seems to be acceptable. Minivans now come with DVD players as standard; we’re dumbing ourselves down as a society, and as a culture.
And, I as a marketer, am partly to blame. I sold your son an Xbox. I convinced you to watch Dumb and Dumber. I sold you the optional platinum package with your cable so you could have seventy six more channels. I coaxed you into buying a mini-DVD player so you could watch episodes of Punk’d on your plane ride instead of reading a good book. I’m the beer commercial that your teenage son watches on his way to South Padre Island for spring break. I’m the woman with the big boobs next to a product that has nothing to do with me. I’m the logic that convinced you to elect a president who says things like “standing ovulation.” I’m the Web site that you can buy your term papers from. And I sure as heck am the little voice in your head that says, “Buy that...yeah, buy that. You really, really, need that stuff.”
So, as we go with our natural human inclination to own things and exercise our God-given right as consumers, let’s also be careful about things we start to hoard. In addition to our DVD collections and Playstation games, our cutlery and our Barbie doll sets, our cars and our catalogs, let’s also be responsible marketers. Let’s remember that there’s a generation to follow us. And all of our consumerism is sure to leave a mark on how they choose to live their lives, just like our parents’ choices provided examples for us. Let’s stop for moment, put down our commercials and our direct mail, our billboards and our CRM technology; let’s gather together in groups of people, and celebrate some of the things that allow us to think for ourselves, and exercise mental muscle.
Let’s spend a moment collecting our thoughts.