Harry Potter 5 - Deadline, schmeadline
Wandering about this evening, I happened into a bookstore in the Washington D.C. area that had Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Volume 5, sitting on the open shelves for sale. Considering how much store is being placed in the Friday release date, I am not sure how widespread the breaks of the release date are. Of course, I picked up a copy but was astounded at the cover price of US$30 - that's a lot of money for a children's book!
I talked to the proprietor of the store and he explained that he didn't get the copies from the publisher but from an intermediate distributor and seeing as the distributor didn't specify any rules about selling the book, the bookseller put them on the shelves. I seriously doubt that this will have any impact seeing as this particular bookstore is known for not selling the big name, hyper-publicized titles but carries a vast stock of literary fiction, poetry, history and what might be called "highbrow" stock.
This all raises some issues about embargoes on selling books. Once bookstores have received copies of the book, why should they wait to start selling it? Do publishers already have far too much control over the bookselling industry? Is it horrible to see booksellers suffering just to satisfy the multinational marketing needs of a company that is already guaranteed to make a record profit on a title? Or is there some other reason for the embargo?
Some would say that if the bookstores have the books in hand, they should be able to sell them. Of course, if the publisher starts requiring booksellers to sign legal agreements not to sell the books until a certain date, we have a new debate. But in the current state of play, many would say all power to the bookstores.
As it happens, I picked up a copy of Harry Potter 4 in a different country on another continent days before the official release date. It was also an independent bookstore...
(For what it is worth, the book use the common awkward grammatical construction that Rowling fills her books with so I can't imagine that this book is going to be any better than the rest in terms of the quality of writing. Yet, I'm sure I'll still enjoy it sufficiently - the escapism combined with the trivial-to-read writing [except for the at-time awkward grammar] means I'm bound to get a few dollars worth of entertainment out of it.)
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