Harry Potter has been very good to me. I’ll be sorry to see him go.
Not only have I taken immense pleasure in reading J.K. Rowling’s seven-book fantasy series, but I’ve also enjoyed the rare opportunity it’s provided to exercise my latent skills as an investigative journalist.
That’s because author J.K. Rowling and her U.S. publisher impose a ludicrous embargo on each Potter book, which means they don’t send out advance copies for reviewers.
Most reviewers — virtually all, I’d warrant — would gladly honor a reasonable embargo on reviews if review copies were provided. We do it all the time with TV shows and movies. Indeed, I routinely do it with books. After all it does my readers little good if I review a book before they can go buy it.
Telling a journalist he or she can’t have something, however, is like waving red meat in front of a starving lion. So when the Harry Potter books grew to be the biggest phenomenon in the history of publishing — which came in 2000 with book four, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire— I set about the old-fashioned business of working sources to get an early look at the book. My colleague Oline Cogdill deserves a great deal of credit in helping me work these angles.
Like most journalists of a certain age, I was, in part, attracted to reporting by the example of investigative journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who famously worked sources to break the Watergate scandal and bring down a crooked president, Richard Nixon.
Opportunities for investigative reporting techniques in book reviewing, alas, are rare.
So it’s with no small pride that I’m able to say that Oline and I have been able to thwart Scholastic by obtaining early copies of every Potter novel since Goblet of Fire. For the record, that’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005) and the new and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
My reviews never appeared before the day the book went on sales. Still, I was always among the first in the country, beating everyone except the New York Times and the Associated Press.
This time, though, hard work was defeated by dumb luck.
The New York Times ran a review Thursday, after, the paper says, it bought a copy at a Manhattan store, which either made a mistake or for some reason ignored the prohibition not to sell the book before 12:01 a.m. today.
The Baltimore Sun also produced a review Thursday after a relative of one of its staffers received a copy, properly ordered but delivered early by mischance, in the mail.
Although my review of Deathly Hallows — a shameless rave; I loved the book — was ready for Saturday publication, like always, you will, alas, see my review only at sun-sentinel.com. Rather than being scooped by either of the other two regional papers, my editors decided to run the New York Times review on Friday.
Yes, in the 21st century, newspapers still worry about scoops, and though it broke my heart, I do not disagree with the decision.
Interestingly, The New York Times and the Baltimore Sun have come in for some scathing criticism over the last two days.
Rowling told British papers she is “staggered that some American newspapers have decided to publish purported spoilers in the form of reviews in complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children, who wanted to reach Harry’s final destination by themselves, in their own time. I am incredibly grateful to all those newspapers, booksellers and others who have chosen not to attempt to spoil Harry’s last adventure for fans.”
Excuse me? Obviously Rowling didn’t bother to read the reviews in either the Times or the Sun, both of which were thoughtful, respectful, and took pains not to reveal significant plot points (neither did I). Both reviews were highly positive — both reviewers really, really liked the book.
Tim Rutten, writing for the Los Angeles Times Friday, considered these facts and concluded what really mattered in this contretemps was not spoilers or respect for readers, but money. The publisher imposed the embargo to increase interest in the book, and thereby sell more copies.
But I’m not so sure. Harry is review-proof — and spoiler-proof, too. Scadillions of readers, all ages, are going to buy and read the new book as fast as possible. Even if the reviews in the Times and the Sun had been hatefully negative, or brimmed with spoilers, it wouldn’t have dimmed the sales prospects one iota.
No, I think it’s all about sticking it to the critics.
See, 99 percent of the time, publishers come to reviewers hat in hand, as it were, begging us to please notice this or that novel or nonfiction or children’s or what-have-you book they are trying to sell. Most of the time, reviewers get to be imperious and dismissive — they need us more than we need them. So when a new Harry Potter comes along, they get to stick us in the eye by making it hard for us to get a book we finally are interested in.
This is not new. It used to be Stephen King. Then it was Tom Clancy. John Grisham. But no one was ever as obnoxious about it as Scholastic has been with Harry Potter.
I mean, really. Don’t tell a reporter in a free society he can’t have something. Unless what you really want is for him or her to get it.
So I’m going to miss Harry Potter. It’ll be a long time before something comes along in book news that will give me the kind of thrill I felt on Thursday when I knew at last that I was about to get my hands on a book that big bad Scholastic didn’t want me to have until Saturday.
That it was a great fantasy novel that provided enormous reading pleasure was, in this context, almost beside the point.
— Chauncey Mabe
