Potter Set for June 21

Scholastic's announcement last week that it will publish Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on June 21, the first day of summer, sent ripples through the publishing industry as booksellers, publishing houses and printers began grappling with how they will deal with what is likely to be the publishing event of the year.

At more than 255,000 words, Phoenix is substantially longer than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which had over 191,000 words. Although Bloomsbury's U.K. edition will be 768 pages and priced at £16.99, a Scholastic spokesperson said the company was still working on the design, cover, art and price for its U.S. edition. In Canada, Raincoast Books plans to simultaneously publish separate children's and adult hardcover editions of the book. The adult edition will feature a different cover from the children's edition, said Raincoast publicity director Tessa Vanderkop. "There's a big cross-over market for Potter, but some adults don't like to be seen with a children's book," explained Vanderkop. For past Potter books, Raincoast has published an adult hardcover edition when it brought out the paperback version. Raincoast, which is one-quarter owned by Advanced Marketing Services, has not set a price for its edition.

The first concern for publishers is whether to change the publication date for books scheduled for release on or around June 21. David Shanks, president of Penguin USA, said he suspects that any publisher that believes it has a "sure-fire number-one bestseller will want to stay away" from the week of Potter's release. PR experts Lynn Goldberg, CEO of Goldberg McDuffie Communications, and Sandi Mendelson, president of Hilsinger Mendelson, agreed that publishers should steer clear of June 21. "Potter will own the day," Goldberg said. She added that any book that is "launch sensitive," like Rudy Giuliani's Leadership or Michael Crichton's Prey, would be better off debuting on another day, since the media will be covering Potter. Goldberg would still go ahead with certain other titles, such as beach reads and midlist books that don't heavily depend on free publicity.

While acknowledging that the first 24 to 48 hours following the Potter release will be dominated by customers buying Phoenix, Mendelson said that publishers might try to develop innovative programs to take advantage of the extra traffic in the stores. Although Harcourt trade publisher Dan Farley doesn't have new programs in mind, he is hoping that Phoenix provides the same coattails for Harcourt that Goblet did. He noted that after the release of Goblet, Harcourt "had great success with wizard books and magic books."

There are a number of major books set for a June release, including Hillary Clinton's memoir from Simon & Schuster. The company said it is sticking with its June 16 pub date. Bantam has Dean Koontz and Little, Brown has James Patterson, and neither publisher plans to change its release date. "It's kind of like John Grisham," said Bantam publisher Irwyn Applebaum. "Everyone starts juggling pub dates as if all those books were going to be clear number-one bestsellers, even though it's a bit of wishful thinking."

Phoenix hit number one on Amazon.com the day the release was announced. In a spot check of children's bookstores, orders are beginning to trickle in and plans for Potter celebrations are being drawn up. "People have already called to reserve their copies. It's great," said Elizabeth Bluemle of Flying Pig Children's Books in Charlotte, Vt. Jennifer Lavonier, manager of Books of Wonder in New York City, said that while the pub date is still months away, "you have to plan early. You have to jump on the bandwagon fast to get yourself noticed as people scramble for the book." The party of choice for Goblet was a midnight-release extravaganza, and booksellers seemed to be leaning in that direction again.

Also beginning their preparations are printers. Quebecor was the lead printer for Goblet, although there was no word that the company has picked up the contract for Phoenix. But given the length of the book and what is certain to be a huge order (first printing of Goblet was 3.8 million; Phoenix will likely start at four million or better), it is certain more than one printer will be needed to provide Scholastic with the quick turnaround it wants.