The Publishing News magazine this week had an article about the overall economic growth of the book market in 2007. Now, I make no claims to fully understand the economic statistics, but a couple of things really stood out:
‘Volume growth came in particular from hardback fiction (+19%) … The growth in hardback fiction came mainly from the adult edition of Harry Potter – excluding that title, the sector grew 4% by volume in 2006′
‘The value of children’s book purchases increased by 11%. HP7 drove the increase in the children’s book market. Excluding Harry Potter, spending on children’s titles was down 4%, and volume purchases flat.’
If I’m interpreting this correctly, then I think it is incredible that a single title (or a single series, rather, as it doesn’t specify HP7 alone) could account for 15% of volume sales in adult hardback fiction. It just shows how powerful the Harry Potter phenomenon has been, and that is not necessarily a bad thing – I love the series as much as the next person. But I also think that it is a shame that once you have removed Harry Potter, spending on children’s books was down – there has been so much hype about Harry Potter getting children to read who hadn’t been interested in reading before, but if that interest does not spread into other authors, then it is a limited success. There are so many fantastic children’s authors out there, many of whom are in some ways superior to J. K. Rowling but whose books would probably appeal to a similar audience (I’m thinking of Diana Wynne Jones, The Edge Chronicles series by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddel, and Tamora Pierce, to name just a few of my favourites) who deserve a larger share of the market (although admittedly, those I’ve named are all pretty successful in their own right). And in general, it is so important to get children reading proper books, rather than just endless Mary-Kate and Ashley style spin-offs which take very little time to read and are probably never re-read.
So while I think the Harry Potter phenomenon is a fantastic thing in many ways, and while the statistics above demonstrate well the continuing power of books, lets hope that the children who were so enchanted by Harry continue to be inspired by other authors now that the last book is finished.
March 19, 2008 at 11:38 am
Maybe the statistics are a little twisted by this being a Harry Potter “year”. How was the growth of spending on children’s literature in the years between Harry Potter books? In my own experience, I’d say that people all buy their children HP books (which would presumably take an 8-year-old a long time to read) when or soon after they come out; in the intervening years, they look around for something similar. Do you remember the “three year summer” (the gap between books 4 and 5)? That was when Newsround got so keen on His Dark Materials – just for something to do, I think. I’m sure other children’s literature saw some growth then. So maybe it’s not as bleak as it looks, and it will drive children to read other things once they get through that massive tome.
The adult literature market, though, has no excuse.
I despair of getting my 12-year-old sister to read anything but naff, light-weight series. I bought her a Judy Blume book recently, just to find something of the same length and appearance which is at least well-regarded. She even listens to HP on tape. Sigh. God knows what I was reading at that point, but it certainly wasn’t Meg Caboot.
March 19, 2008 at 2:13 pm
You’re right, of course, and probably the fact that spending on children’s titles was down on the previous year once you took away Harry Potter means that during the last year (a non-Potter year) spending was up on non-Potter books! I’d hope so at least – it will be interesting to see what happens next year.