17 July 2005

Harry Potter And the Half-Blood Reports

Gaga.
One hundred thousand copies of Harry Potter's latest adventure sold on the first day in India. Sunday newspapers gave us a nice heads-up on the schoolboy who has made global waves.
The Sunday Times of India and the Economic Times carried between them five front page stories on the subject.
The Hindu also carried a big story.
But I could not find in them the price at which the book is being sold in India. Deccan Herald mentioned the price--in the last para or so.
In most stories, there was a lot of nice stuff from book-stores....banter about not revealing to the readers the secret of the new book, and about print orders for more.
Would it not have been better to have or play up the price to serve the reader better?
Better still, it would have been nice to get some details on the English publishing and book sales in India. How much does a best-seller by Shobhaa De really sell?
Is the Potter sale outrageously above average? By how much? (Looks plausible, since 100,000 copie at nearly 900 rupees a copy would put the revenue at a high range by any standard)
Maybe a Ruskin Bond, who writes India-based stories for children, could tell us something interesting.
Many set-piece events elicit some enthusiastic reportage, but they fall short of some interesting research or vital detail which would make them stand out.

2 comments:

nandini chopra said...

Not to mention the free e-version - don't even know if it's for real.

On a separate note, I saw a Lord of the Rings exhibition in Sydney and a big group of school children taking down notes! And I thought to myself, a hundred years later who knows these tales will get handed down generations and soon people will believe them to be true!

Nice blog, mads

Anonymous said...

hmmm. Good point. Myths venerated/Facts generated!