dispatches from the new world of work

Oh, for God's Sake

I must state up front that my wife vociferously disagrees with me on this one. It seems that a Vancouver grocer accidentally sold 14 copies of the new Harry Potter last week. The bookstore has gotten a court injunction (!!) to keep purchasers from revealing the plot. I know Big $$$ are at stake (JK Rowling wants to increase her lead over the Queen on the Brit's richest folks list?) ... but save me from such nonsense ... and judicial gag orders.

(Not at all sure, but I don't think such a court order would have been granted Down South in the U.S.???)

Tom Peters posted this on 07/14/05.

Comments

Judicial Gag order, 14 renegade readers....Sounds like great publicity for this much anticipated book.

Posted by Josh at July 14, 2005 12:32 PM

I don't know Tom, sounds like a pretty great PR stunt to me.

Posted by Bruce DeBoer at July 14, 2005 1:39 PM

As far as I'm concerned, if you're privy to confidential information and could potentially publicize the 'plot', if you like, before the publishers themselves officially release it, then I could understand a court injunction to prevent that possibility, though I'm suspicious in this case. Certainly the publishers have been doing quite a lot to stimulate interest and its very likely this is as Bruce says, a PR stunt. Clever of them to have the bookstores seek the injunction rather than the publisher.

Posted by Noel Guinane at July 14, 2005 4:18 PM

If you're finding all the Potter PR a little tiresome, you might want to try the series of Harry Potter parody books from Michael Gerber:

- Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody
- Barry Trotter and the Unnecessary Sequel, and
- Barry Trotter and the Dead Horse.

The series have sold 700,000 copies and been translated into almost twenty different languages. Great fun!

http://www.barrytrotter.com/

Posted by Noel Guinane at July 16, 2005 4:31 AM

I suspect that there's more than a few recording artists wishing that they had so much input and say over how their work is marketed, publicised and presented to the world at large. Hats off to JKR for some impressive dealmaking in the past!

Posted by Keith Rickaby at July 18, 2005 4:15 AM

Absolutely. No denying she's a businesswoman.

Posted by Noel Guinane at July 18, 2005 5:20 AM

Tom, Tom, you wonder if there would be a judicial hullabalu if this happened in the US? Really? The litigation capital of the world. The place where McD's got sued for too hot coffee and making people fat???

We have learned from the best up here is all ;-)

Posted by Glenn Davies at July 19, 2005 12:06 PM