Harry Potter: Wizard Rock

I thought this website was pretty informative: http://www.belindapalmer.com/photo2.html

Interspersed with the writer's personal experiences, belindapalmer.com suggests fifteen different strategies for marketing an e-book: posting bookcovers on book-related sites, getting listed on search engines, advertising in e-zines, etc. Of course, these strategies are not limited to e-publishing alone; traditional novels can likewise benefit.

Theoretically, once you've put a good product into the hands of enough people, your reputation - and sales - will spread by word of mouth. If your readers enjoy your book, they just might recommend it to their friends, who might in turn recommend it to others.

Harry Potter has added a entirely new dimension to word of mouth advertising. Some readers were so enchanted by the bespectacled boy wizard that they've adopted Harry as their muse. According to MTV, a new genre of music, "wizard rock," has appeared on the indie scene. Basing their tunes on the Rowling novels, groups like Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, and the wizard-rappers Siriusly Black are growing in popularity.

That'll add a punch to any novel's marketing plan.

Harry Potter: Humor

At a London auction on June 26, a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is expected to sell for 7,000 pounds ($14,000 US). A thousand novels were printed in the first batch, but since then, J.K. Rowling has sold more than 325 million Harry Potter books worldwide.

And counting.

Perhaps Rowling's family-friendly humor contributes to her sales. Posted on MuggleNet, the following gag is from the first Potter novel in the series:

"Now, you two - Behave yourselves. If I get one word that you've blown up a toilet or -"

"Blown up a toilet? We've never blown up a toilet."

"Great idea though, thanks, Mum."

Toilet jokes are becoming an industry standard in children's humor, though Rowling's wit isn't limited to the bathroom alone. Her description of Dudley is also pretty endearing:

"Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel. Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig."

Novelists have to compete against the rest of the entertainment industry, and thus far, it's been pretty hard to trump sit-com saturated cable TV. Generally, however, the only difference between a "good" novel and a "boring" novel - or a "good" show and a "boring" one - is the audience's attachment to the story. And laughter is perhaps the shortest distance between writer and reader.

Harry Potter: Cliche

I love Harold Bloom. In fact, sometimes I think of him as my Uncle Harry, though no familial relation exists between us. Bloom is, without question, one of the most respected voices in literature, but when it comes to Harry Potter, he's anything but a fan.

In a scathing Wall Street Journal article, the critic slams the J.K. Rowling books, saying, "Can more than 35 million book buyers, and their offspring, be wrong? Yes, they have been, and will continue to be for as long as they persevere with Potter." According to Bloom, Harry Potter is the poster-boy of an enormous "dumbing-down" in our society.

After reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Bloom voiced the two following grievances:

1. The book, he says, is not well written. Rowling's prose style is "heavy on cliche" and "makes no demand upon her readers."

2. It lacks "authentic imaginative vision"

Yet, from a marketing standpoint, what can we learn from Bloom's critique?

Like countless other authors, Rowling feeds the public's "hunger for unreality," but by incorporating cliche words and ideas into her novels, she makes Harry Potter particularly accessable to readers, both children and adults. Because of her reader-friendly writing style, Rowling can make sales.

Such is the great dilemma in fiction writing. Every author wants to make big sales, and every author wants to write timeless literature. But an author can't usually do both. Consider the Modern Library's list of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Absent from this list are Michael Crichton, Stephen King, James Patterson, and every other New York Times best-selling author.

Rather, the Modern Library's top five are Ulysses by James Joyce, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Joyce, Lolita by Valdimir Nabokov, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. All of these books, as far as I know, have never been best-sellers and, in fact, had only small circulations before the death of their authors.

If you so desire, how can you incorporate cliche into your own writing?

Harry Potter: Characters

Under some literary theories, characters, above all else, are the most important elements in a story.

They make for darn good marketing, too.

As I continue to read through Harry Potter critiques, I find increasingly more reviewers who praise the novels for their characters. With Ron, Hermoine, and of course Harry, J.K. Rowling's world of wizardry has captivated both the young and the young at heart - as a marketer, you can't ask for a better target audience.

"The Real Magic of Harry Potter", an article published in Time Magazine, gives the following critique of Rowling:

"She addresses children as though they know as much as or more than she does about the things that matter. Kids like the characters she has created, Harry above all, not because he is fantastic but because he is familiar. Rowling, they say, gets everything right, writes as though she knows what it is to be 13 years old and anxious or shocked at discovering what you can actually do if you try. Maybe she finds her way straight into the hearts of children because she never left in the first place."

On Scholastic's website, one young reviewer wrote of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, "I think this is the beginning of a beginning of a beautiful friendship." Another child said, "i thought it was aaaaaaasome."

If you can appeal to children through your characters, then you can also, in all likelihood, capture the attention of at least a few adults.