I was a huge Potterhead back in the day (well…I still am, just not as obsessed). I know the books are great and all, I know how addictive her writing style is, that she can create such vivid and engaging characters and places, and the stories keep you hungry for more…but IMO that still does not completely explain the insane hype that generated. I don’t think there has ever been this level of mania and craze for a book – a children’s/YA book for that matter. So I am wondering, what are some of the factor that led to the hype? I’ve heard things like the rise in Internet (and internet fandom), JKR’s rags-to-riches story, etc all contributed. So for those who have been there, what was the mania like at that point, and what factors (aside from the quality of the books themselves) that lead to it?
The first Harry Potter book got a ton of media coverage. A lot of it had to do with the surprise that literature was still capable of getting young people excited about reading. The Internet was relatively new, at that point, and cable TV was still a really big deal.
This. That plus the spin that the publisher put out that “these books were getting kids who didn’t read to read for the first time”. Well, ultimately it did but it was because of the artificial hype than anything specific about the books themselves. Parent heard that these books were very popular, non bookish kids liked them - even if that wasn’t true - and bought them.
yeah i think it’s also because back then, we didn’t have booktoks and bookstagrams and blogs and goodreads and amazons and all the other avenues where tons and tons of books are advertised and talked about all day every day.
back then you either heard about books from your friends or the media, or you went to the library and explored for yourself.
when a book series got attention it got a lot of it because everyone’s attention wasn’t divided in all these different places, we all watched the same channels and read the same magazines.
Yeah I think it happened at the exact magic moment where the internet had the ability to reach almost everybody, but everybody hadn’t figured out that they could use the internet to reach pretty much any crazy thing they wanted yet, so for a hot minute (or more like a decade from 1997 to about 2007) it was this very powerful engine that was able to turn everyone’s attention to the exact same things.
Yeah, the thing is, if you actually look at the Harry Potter Series, they’re actually kinda bad; at minimum, no better than any other book series of the time.
What book series from that time do you think is at HP level? Honestly, as far as children’s fantasy books go, I think the Hobbit and Narnia are the only ones from before HP that are even close.
My memory may be betraying me - I was a kid when they came out - but my memory is off reading the first one shortly after it came out with no context that it was the new big thing and then a few months later it being this big sensation. My understanding is it became a big deal by word of mouth first and then the publishers caught up and magnified that
The publishers knew it was a big deal. The CEO at Scholastic had to approve the deal because the advance - which by today’s standards is modest - was considered massive at the time.
No one could have predicted what it would become though. Same with Hunger Games. Also Scholastic. She was an in house author but the building shook when that book came in.
I worked at Barnes and Noble before the 4th book came out and it was such a fun time. We did readings and the kids were just out of their minds over Harry Potter, even correcting us when we mispronounced words or names. E.g. it’s how I learned how to say Hermione. “It’s HER-MY-OH-KNEE!” out of the mouth of babes.
I remember in Germany the hype really started with the first movie. We had the first book in our school library and I remember an acquaintance told me the book is great and my 18 year old self was like “but isn’t that for children…? Meh” then I watched the movie and was hooked, along with everyone else.