Friday , March 29 2024

Very Granular Harry Potter

British book So You Think You Know Harry Potter coming to the U.S.:

    So you think you know all about Harry Potter, his friends, his adversaries, and his amazing adventures? This book is the ultimate test, as tough as making one of Professor Snape’s potions and as slippery as a member of the Malfoy family. There are 300 questions devoted to each of the first four Harry Potter Books – that’s a whopping 1,200 questions in total! Questions are divided into Easy, Medium and Hard, and complete answers are provided at the back.

PW Daily on the book:

    First published late last year in the U.K. by Hodder Children’s Books as an exclusive title for bookstore chain W.H. Smith, the title has been doing gangbuster business, selling 132,000 copies to date. The title also sold 60,000 copies (trade) in Australia over roughly the same time period. Now the quiz book is scheduled to land Stateside on May 21 via Vermont distributor Trafalgar Square – the same day that the title will be released to the general trade in Britain.

    ….Of course, the rush to market makes sense, since the countdown to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (laydown June 21) has begun. “We know that kids are eagerly awaiting Harry Potter #5 and we figured why not give them something to keep them busy till then–and hopefully beyond that, too,” Sloan said.

    One note: because Trafalgar Square distributes British books without making any Americanizations, a sticker on the copyright page will explain to U.S. readers why Gifford’s work refers to the first Harry book by its original British title, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Meanwhile PW also reports printing is going very well for the new Potter:

    the two printers handling the new Potter, R.R. Donnelley and Quebecor, already have the files for the Order of the Phoenix and have put them into pre-production. Copies are expected to start coming off the presses by Memorial Day weekend.

    “Scholastic did a very good job planning this,” says one printing executive. “So many [publishers of] blockbusters wait for the last minute.”

    One thing that printers say is not exceptional about this run: Security. Despite that strange incident in an English field last week and Scholastic’s famously copious attention to avoiding leaks, American printers say they haven’t imposed any extra measures at their plants nor have they required employees to sign
    non-disclosure agreements. “We haven’t erected any special fences,” says Jerry Allee of Quebecor. “The key to good security often is just fast turnaround.”

    It should be noted that not everyone involved with Potter security is quite so levelheaded. A story in London’s Independent today described the injunction obtained by Bloomsbury against a defendant in the field incident as the “kind that one would normally expect to be used to prevent disclosure of nuclear secrets by renegade MI5 agents.”

About Eric Olsen

Career media professional and serial entrepreneur Eric Olsen flung himself into the paranormal world in 2012, creating the America's Most Haunted brand and co-authoring the award-winning America's Most Haunted book, published by Berkley/Penguin in Sept, 2014. Olsen is co-host of the nationally syndicated broadcast and Internet radio talk show After Hours AM; his entertaining and informative America's Most Haunted website and social media outlets are must-reads: Twitter@amhaunted, Facebook.com/amhaunted, Pinterest America's Most Haunted. Olsen is also guitarist/singer for popular and wildly eclectic Cleveland cover band The Props.

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