Marginal Revolution: Will any future book series approach the success of Harry Potter?

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Will any future book series approach the success of Harry Potter?

I'd long wanted to offer my thoughts on this topic, so when Today's Machining World approached me, I thought they were an ideal outlet. I wrote:

Absolutely. Most of all, the Harry Potter series is a social phenomenon. It’s not mainly about the books. It’s about kids – and often adults – sharing a common reading experience. We crave this kind of social connection – that’s what Oprah’s Book Club is about too. We like to look forward to the same books, read them at the same time, and talk about them afterwards. If you took these same kids, put them on a desert island, and just gave them copies of Harry Potter, with no further information or explanation, most of them wouldn’t be so impressed.

With the current Potter series now over, we are looking for something else to latch on to. We may not find it right away, but when we do, the world will be wealthier and have more readers. Some other book series will trump the popularity of Harry Potter – it is simply a question of when.

For a differing point of view, scroll to p.50 to read Megan McArdle, and on p.51 is Kevin Hassett.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 19, 2007 at 05:23 PM in Books | Permalink

Comments

...seems like with the advent of these internets, it's even more plausible that the fire could catch easily and quickly.

exhibit a: numa-numa man, star wars kid, any-of-a-million-other-memes

Posted by: shawn at Oct 19, 2007 5:28:27 PM

Really? Well I hear the February 2008 issue of the Quebec Forest Industry Council Monthly will have an article about the Britney-K Fed custody dispute. They are getting Steven Pinker, Craig Ventner, and Manny Ramirez to answer the question: What does the family court decision in this case portend for gay couples with pets?

Unfortunately, you'll have to be a subscriber to read it on-line.

Posted by: mobile at Oct 19, 2007 6:21:50 PM

Will (not particularly amazing thing that happened before) happen again eventually?

Yes!

Posted by: josh at Oct 19, 2007 6:24:48 PM

Oh no, not again! {Wakes up in parallel universe) Why do I keep forgetting my medication?

Posted by: Seer at Oct 19, 2007 6:31:41 PM

Totally agree. One of the most important factors in the spread of the Harry Potter phenomenon is the entire internet/telecom revolution. Another overlooked but very important has been the rise of the multinational advertising firm like WPP and O&M. These guys are really able to capture the economies of scale as far as mindshare is concerned using a blast of TV, radio, internet, print,etc. Beyond the obvious, I have the following prediction, in the next 5 years a Radiohead like stunt will pop up for books with great results. The arbitrage by removing an increasingly ineffective intermediary is even greater in the publishing business.
Of course, this experiment didn't work out so well for Stephen King("the plant") but he was probably ahead of his time.

The real winners in the whole digital distribution of books age wil be local language books, which are currently poorly marketed because of a lack of scale. Expect Chinese and Hindi authors to challenge Rowling's 1b haul in the next 25 years.

The biggest change by far the internet will have is that it will shift the burden(& profits) of marketing from the publisher to the author. Today's reserved and shy authors are going to be a dying breed. The next Rowling will be something like a ringmaster in a cage surrounded by global media's vindictive lions.

Also, I wonder how massive marketing camapaigns are going to be financed in the future. Today's money flow is like this - me->fidelity->mc graw->publisher subsidiary->rowling. In the future, rowling types might come to market directly or VC's based on past reputation and issue zero coupon junk bonds/equity to risk-tolerant investors.

Megan Mcardle's piracy point is valid but she ignores that both the law breakers and law-enforecers are getting smart very quickly. However, information theft can be fought the only way one can fight it- by bundling it with something that's hard to copy. Concerts in the case of music today, personal reading sessions and a chance to meet intersting people at those sessions bundled with books probably.

Posted by: sa at Oct 19, 2007 6:36:02 PM

I agree that another Harry Potter phenomenon will emerge at some point. However, as someone who first read Harry Potter in elementary school, and have grown up with the books being published every couple of years, this statement --- "It’s not mainly about the books." --- to me, is misguided. Harry Potter fervor may fulfill a need for a common social experience, but the series's extraordinary popularity is due to the feeling of wonder it imparts on younger readers. I can remember reading them vividly; my friends can remember reading them vividly; this was not just "another book" we all read to be like one another. It will take another series of the same caliber FOR A CHILD (note: reading the first book at 18 is an entirely different experience) for Harry Potter mania to repeat itself.

Posted by: cameron at Oct 19, 2007 7:44:07 PM

Heck, you don't need to be defensive about the quality of the books. A whole lot of people -- myself included -- were well over 18 when we read the first book. I admit I wasn't really hooked until book 3, but I liked the earlier books well enough to keep reading.

I'm not sure there is another series of young adult fantasy novels that can compare in terms of quality, quantity, and approachability. Series that I absolutely loved as a child, like The Dark is Rising or the Chronicles of Prydain are both shorter and less consistent, and I'm inclined to say that Potter has more moral heft to it as well. Narnia gets a lot of good press, and I liked it as a child, but when I tried rereading it before the movie came out, I found it almost unreadable.

Posted by: Sol at Oct 19, 2007 8:09:41 PM

chronicles of pyrdain! I feel like we're best friends. That's the first book I ever remember checking out of the library. I remember picking it (well, "The Book of Three") up off of the shelf in 2nd grade, and seeing that scary guy with the antlered skull on his head. I remember where I was when Gurgi first appeared, songs on the radio when I was reading it (California Dreamin', Mommas and the Poppas) , a particular incidence of walking out of the house/past our car when I was reading book 4 (castle of llyr), and re-reading the books last year (as a 28 year old, and insisting that I buy the exact same editions from when I was 7...they've got the great yellow pages and old-book smell) was absolutely one of my best times ever. All of these images came crashing in around me, and it was one of the best series of positive things I remember from being a child.

I can only hope that, when I re-listen to Potter in the coming years, I have half the number of great, positive experiences linked to the books in my head. Hopefully listening to all but the last book on my iPod will not have somehow ruined the brain mapping.

Posted by: shawn at Oct 19, 2007 9:22:31 PM

Totally unrelated, but wasn't there a thread a while ago wondering why this sort of service hadn't sprung up more widely in airports?

Posted by: Andromeda at Oct 19, 2007 10:33:46 PM

What was fun about the Prydain series is that it made me wonder what else was in Welsh mythology, and that was great.

Posted by: perianwyr at Oct 19, 2007 10:36:16 PM

I actually found the last two books to be less enjoyable because of the hype and mania. Since I didn't want the ending to be ruined I read them much faster than I would have liked to (and the ending was still ruined in the sixth book). The feeling that I couldn't control the pace at which the story unfolded was frustrating.

That said, I'm sure the hooplah surrounding the books was a major contributor to their success.

Posted by: Kyle at Oct 20, 2007 2:48:02 AM

Dear Tyler,

Could you write a post about the emergence of technical trade journals as a journalistic outlet for general interest and economics celebrity bloggers?

Posted by: londenio at Oct 20, 2007 3:27:21 AM

Posted by: shawn at Oct 20, 2007 7:34:15 AM

I agree it was more a social rather than literary phenomenon -- Rowling writes well, but a well-written book was a lottery ticket that happened to pay off (while many other writers of comparable skill did not share her luck).

But will it happen again in my lifetime? If I had to bet, I'd be no -- simply because it has never happened before in my lifetime (or even in the last century). Fads in general seem common enough, but not book-series fads in particular.

Posted by: Slocum at Oct 20, 2007 8:52:12 AM

Based on this, it looks like economists have a new outlet as literary critics in manufacturing trade journals once they stop blogging. Another Black Swan, and Creative Destruction at its finest.

Posted by: Eric H at Oct 20, 2007 11:06:06 AM

Of course at some point there will be another phenomenon like Harry Potter, but not for a very long while.

It's fairly easy to generate intense interest in a storyline and characters among a select group of fans, and even expand that to notice in the mainstream audience. It is much harder for that to appeal to such a large segment of the population worldwide. If all Harry Potter did was attract school children, it was unlikely to achieve all that it has. At the same time it also attracted single women and adult fantasy fans. Satisfying such disparate markets with the same product is very rare. This "crossover appeal" is needed for such phenomenon, and that is rare.

I don't think it's the marketing that propelled Harry Potter. The marketing juggernaut only came in AFTER they realized there was a phenomenon. It was an accelerating factor, but apply the same marketing resources to any other book or series and it would not have worked. Instead, people discovered Harry Potter on their own or by word of mouth by the time the movies came out. The convergence seemed to occur between the time of the 3rd and 4th books.

If we break down the reasons for Harry Potter's appeal, we'll find it will be much harder to duplicate.

1) An inspired writer with some talent.
2) Many likable characters
3) Stories that can be told within a single book
4) But which are linked to a multi-volume story
5) But which has a definite ending
6) The entire story is completed in a fairly short time frame
7) It appeals to several large audiences that do not normally read the same books
8) Catches the imagination of different cultures around the world
9) Easily lends itself to merchandising
10) Essentially G rated and avoids glorifying violence, use of bad language, or explicit sexuality

The only similar phenomenon I can think of was Star Wars. Would this make it a once every 25 years?

Marketing will try to push many potential Harry Potters that fill only several of these points, and they will fail. Marketing can't create lightning in a bottle, although it may succeed in fooling some people. Many TV shows, movies, or books will do very, very well. But they are unlikely to reach the heights Harry Potter has.

Posted by: Chris Durnell at Oct 22, 2007 12:38:59 PM

Did the Harry Potter books sell better than the Bible?

Posted by: wood turtle at Oct 23, 2007 12:38:02 PM

I think there will be another series of books that latches on like Harry Potter did, maybe not quite as large, but there will be one. It won't be the same type of phenomenon as Harry Potter. There's no way to repeat what J.K. Rowling was able to do, but there will be something that captures audiences in a similar way. I feel like this future book, or series of movies even, will focus on another type of journey or odyssey - one much different from Harry Potter. I mean, if you look at history, there's always something that a large amount of the population latches on to. There were the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, both being extremely popular. Even today, there are storylines and concepts that have enough popularity and following that sequels continue to have hype and excitement. An example would be the Bourne films. While the Bourne movies aren't on the Harry Potter scale, they have experienced a lot of success and are liked by a large audience.

I think in order to have a Harry Potter like repeat; one would have to create a story with characters that have both potential for growth and potential for adventure. This way, the story would be able to have multiple sequels. When a story of this caliber arises, it will be able to take advantage of the marginal utility, or added satisfaction, of each of the next installments of the story. By taking advantage of all the added satisfaction, the popularity of the story will gain more, and more, hype. It may even reach Harry Potter like status – maybe.

Posted by: bb8343 at Oct 24, 2007 6:15:08 PM

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