Harry Potter, Twilight and the 'It' Factor

DragonBlaze said:

What would you all prefer, a mindless horde of fans that are for your work only because of marketing targeting just that one aspect of your book or a decent following of fans of varying backgrounds who appreciate your work as a whole?

Click to expand...

<tounge-in-cheek> Which group has the more money?</tounge>

Richard White said:

<tounge-in-cheek> Which group has the more money?</tounge>

Click to expand...

Haha! Good one! I would say see it hypothetically with money out of the picture and going off the principle of the matter?

Sorry, I fully admit to having a mercenary streak about me.

Being respected and living in a small flat is wonderful.

Being hated, but staring out at the teeming horde from my villa in Monaco could be a lot nicer.

No, I mean, I'd rather be thought of as a great writer, but ya know, if I could crank out a bunch of boilerplate novels that would earn me tons of money, I'd be right there. Maybe writing under a pen name, but accolades and awards don't put food on the table.

Not that I'm earning a living from my fiction in anyway shape or form now - unless you call technical manuals fiction.

I want a third option.

Being respected while staring out at my adoring horde from one of my many villas, with one being in Monaco.

Well, that would be the best of both worlds, I do agree.

Let's look at the publishing starts of the Twilight and HP series, then.

Twilight's editor claims to have recognized the book's potential halfway through the MS. After a 2003 auction, Little Brown upped their $300K offer, and Meyer received an advance of $750K for three books. Initial reviews were strong, and Twilight debuted at #5 on the NYT list within a month of publication.

So this is a book that started out with high expectations (and back-up) and fulfilled them.

Whereas Bloomsbury paid only 2500 pounds for HP and the Philosopher's Stone, then did an initial printing of only 500 copies. 300 of these were distributed to libraries -- in other words, the editor was betting on a word-of-mouth campaign. Through 1997 and 1998, HP/PS garnered positive reviews and a number of UK awards -- most tellingly the Smarties Book Prize, which is voted by children. In other words, the readers themselves.

The American edition (Sorcerer's Stone, because everyone knows that Americans are stupider than Brits and will recoil in horror from the word "Philosopher") sold for $105K (very decent for a kid's book at the time.) It was published in October 1998, started garnering good reviews and awards, and finally topped the NYT list in August 1999. Ungraciously, it then parked at or near the top until pressure from (nonScholastic) publishers urged the Times to create a separate list for children's books.

So, much lower expectations for HP and a slower build-up, but one that led to a juggernaut -- I'd say on the merits of the book, which appear to have hit a high percentage of the readers. Or, as an earlier reviewer in The Herald noted, "I have yet to find a child who can put it down."

As for the symbiosis between movies and books. No movie is made in order to boost a book -- a book must already be BIG in order to attract commercial studios.

The book then promotes the movie, which in turn promotes the book. See the recent surge in sales of all the Song of Ice and Fire books, following the HBO production of A Game of Thrones.

Richard White said:

Not that I'm earning a living from my fiction in anyway shape or form now - unless you call technical manuals fiction.

Click to expand...

Some of the ones I've read certainly qualify.

I remember seeing a PostSecret card which summed up what HP always did for me.
It read something like: "I am more jealous of their friendship than their wizardry."

As has repeatedly been pointed out, if dumping tons of money into a huge marketing campaign turns an otherwise unremarkable book into a bestseller, why wouldn't publishers do this for every book?

Amadan said:

As has repeatedly been pointed out, if dumping tons of money into a huge marketing campaign turns an otherwise unremarkable book into a bestseller, why wouldn't publishers do this for every book?

Click to expand...

Methinks it hasn't worked in every case . Haven't there been instances where a publisher went all out on a book or series, only to have it tank with the readers?

hester said:

Methinks it hasn't worked in every case . Haven't there been instances where a publisher went all out on a book or series, only to have it tank with the readers?

Click to expand...

That's... what I said.

Whoops, serves me right for not reading the whole thread. Sorry!

Amadan said:

I think a huge marketing campaign can make a big phenomenon bigger, but if applied to something that hasn't already caught on, it's as likely to flop as succeed.

Click to expand...

It's a well known truism in sales that a strong marketing campaign makes a weak product fail faster.

Word-of-mouth is what turns a mild-mannered midlist book into a roaring beast of ka-ching! ka-ching! Marketing is simply an attempt to kick-start those word-of-mouth sales.

Presumably every book that becomes a phenomenon would have done so regardless, thanks to word-of-mouth, but that could only happen if it stayed on bookstore shelves long enough for the ground swell to build.

And there's no guarantee of that happening. So marketing and publicity are done to try to quickly get books into the hands of excited book buyers. The hope is these excitable people will then recommend the book to their friends, family and blog readers.

Marketing doesn't sell the book; it only convinces people to take it off the shelf and consider buying it. And when you think of how many novels you walk right by at Ye Olde Big Box Bookstore without knowing they exist, you can see how valuable that is.

I think Harry Potter and Twilight both benefited from having young audiences. Kids and teenagers see each other in school, they hang out with their friends more often than adults do, they're prone to getting excited about things they like, and they're also more likely to try out the things their friends suggest, i.e. succumb to peer pressure.

All of those things make kids and young adults more likely to rev up the beast of ka-ching! ka-ching! via word-of-mouth.

oh, no, not the Twilight vs. Potter controversy again!


You see that's why I avoid mentioning Stephenie Meyer's name every time I reference Twilight.


Thanks to the poster who differentiated between nausea and nauseated. Just learned that. I am embarrassed of not knowing for so long. Oops!


I only read two Harry Potter books, no Twilight, so I can't give you a sensible comparison. I enjoyed Harry, though, although the novel was difficult to read because each tome seemed endless.