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?
I think another part of it was that the first four books were released in four years, with the movies starting to come out shortly after. In all there were seven books released in 10 years and 8 films in 10 years with a few years of overlapping new books and movies being released. It was a huge hype train that kept picking up momentum.
Plus all the games and associated merch which came out; for the first book/movie there was a PC game (also released on PlayStation), some board games, some other toys, all of which added to the hype train because kids were surrounded by it. No other children/YA book series had that much merch for it - there are no Percy Jackson board games or 10+ video games for A Series of Unfortunate Events. Harry Potter grew up with the internet and capitalised on all the kids moving from real toys to chunky PCs to gameboys to xboxes etc
I think more specifically though, is that at least initially it kept pace age wise with its readers. Not everyone was maybe exactly the main characters age when they started reading it, but about the same amount of time had passed between them and the books became a bit more adult as a lot of the readers also got older, and this was also mirrored with the movies. Its like many of us actually grew up with the characters as they grew up.