Harry Potter Sequels in the Works
After selling 8.3 million copies in the US in just 24 hours, Harry Potter 7 is billed as the “the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling’s magical series.” We, however, having read the novel, could not agree less with J.K. Rowling and her publisher Scholastic’s publicity-drumming campaign of artificial supply restriction. For we believe that there will be more Harry Potter novels in the future.
Now, if you haven’t finished the series yet, go away because we might ruin the ending!
A mashup of HP covers
There are two reasons that an author continues a series. One is the fun of writing the characters he’s dreamed into life. The other is money. For JK Rowling, Harry Potter offers her both opportunities, a temptation that we believe will be too hard to resist.
One of the Guardian Book blogs argues the financial point indirectly. They claim that over time the Harry Potter series will generate decreasingly exponential interest, and thus revenue. They hold out for a bright spot, but it’s true that Harry Potter is a series of big bangs and a short “long tail.”
The real indicator is that Harry Potter is still alive at the end of HP7. That last chapter, 19 years in the future, indicates that the world of Muggles and Magic still exists in basically the form it had before Voldemort emerged. The whole point of the Harry Potter series is a fight against evil, and once that evil is vanquished–as it is in HP7 without lasting consequence–the world returns to normal, fertile grounds for a sequel. After all, why introduce us to Harry and Ginny’s spawn unless you plan to develop them in the future?
This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 8:05 pm and is tagged with harry potter sequels, j k rowling, jk rowling, rowling harry potter, harry potter novels, harry and ginny, harry potter series, magical series, harry potter 7, fertile grounds, hp7, mashup, muggles, 19 years, scholastic, bangs, sequel, harry potter, restriction, temptation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
on July 27th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Of all the books, this is -by far- the most mature depiction of Harry Potter. He doesn’t think, behave and fear like a kid anymore, he’s definitely become a good read for adults too — hence the huge number of readers.
If more Harry Potter books were to be published, the “grown-up version” of the hero would make for a whole new set of scenarios.