Publishers hope Potter boosts other sales

NEW YORK -- When "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" comes out Saturday, bookseller Chuck Robinson is counting on a nice increase in sales -- and not just from the Potter book.

"The release happens to coincide with our 23rd anniversary, when we're having a storewide sale," said Robinson, owner of Village Books in Bellingham, Wash. "We're hoping the additional traffic will help all our books."

Like local candidates on the same ticket of a landslide presidential campaign, booksellers and publishers are looking for the Potter rush to carry over to other titles.

Business has been especially slow this year. According to the Association of American Publishers, sales of hardcover books were down more than 20 percent through the first three months of 2003.

"Order of the Phoenix" should help simply by confirming an old business formula: the more people in the store, the more books purchased.

Sales officials at Borders Group Inc., a leading superstore chain, say that anywhere from 30 percent to 60 percent of those who enter one of their stores end up buying a book.

"Everybody is looking to Harry Potter," said Patricia Johnson, executive vice president of Alfred A. Knopf. "This could very well bring the book business back to the forefront."

"There's nothing that compares to the impact of a Harry Potter book," said Mark LaFramboise, a sales official at Politics & Prose, a Washington, D.C.-based bookstore. "Hillary Clinton's book is huge, but it's not even in the same category as Potter."

J.K. Rowling's four previous Potter novels have worldwide sales of more than 190 million and her U.S. publisher, Scholastic, Inc., has commissioned a record 8.5 million first printing for "Order of the Phoenix." Anticipation is so high for the June 21 release that Amazon.com has created a "Harry Potter Meter," offering hourly updates of pre-orders.

The Potter "bounce" was considerable for the previous book, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," which came out in July 2000. According to the Association of American Publishers, sales of hardcover "juvenile" books tripled that month and adult hardcovers were up 39 percent.

Filling the gap

Booksellers cite a variety of works they expect to benefit this time around, ranging from the memoirs of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to children's series such as Lemony Snicket. Scott Werbin, an assistant manager at the Tudor Bookshop & Cafe in Kingston, Pa., said "Order of the Phoenix" should help sales well after the initial release.

"I would expect a lot of kids will finish the book and then find themselves with another year, or longer, before the next Potter book," he said.

"I imagine they'll be looking for something to fill that gap. In fact, we're planning to set up a table that says, 'Now that you've finished the new Harry Potter, here are alternate titles.'"

For publishers, there has been a major change since the last Potter release. Until "Goblet of Fire, " The New York Times included Potter books on its adult list of best sellers. Rivals of Scholastic, aware they had no chance at the No. 1 spot, avoided releasing major fiction around the same time.

"There's a big difference between being No. 1 and not being No. 1," explained Neil Nyren, vice president of Penguin Putnam.

"Some of it is ego, but some of it is purely financial. When you're No. 1, you've got the best position on the Barnes & Noble shelf. And you can advertise that you're the No. 1 best seller. All that can help a book sell."

With rivals complaining that Potter books were keeping their works from the top, the Times changed its policy just as "Goblet of Fire" was coming out, creating a separate category for children's books.

Now, publishers are more willing to release new fiction at the same time as a new Potter book. Penguin Putnam, for example, will publish Clive Cussler's thriller, "White Death," the day before "Order of the Phoenix" goes on sale.

"We were going to publish the book on Monday, June 23," Nyren said. "But just a few weeks ago, we were sitting around and talking about the Potter book and we decided that this was going to be the biggest weekend of the year in any bookstore. So we wanted his book to be there."

Competitors are so anxious to cash in on "Order of the Phoenix" that at least one publisher will indirectly help promote the Potter book.

A couple of days before "Order of the Phoenix" comes out, Knopf will run an ad headlined: "When you head for the bookstore to pick up your Harry Potter, bring this checklist of KNOPF BOOKS FOR GROWNUPS." Knopf goes on to list several works, including fiction by Jane Smiley and Norman Rush.

"It's been a rough season for fiction, what with everything from the economy to the war and other concerns," Knopf's Johnson said.

"Some of the books we're listing have been out for a couple of months. We're hoping that people will come to the bookstores and see something they might not have noticed, that, for instance, there's a new Jane Smiley novel out."