Australia gears up for Potter mania again – news commentary by Andy McCourt
Australia is lucky since this time equates to 9:01am EST on Saturday 16th July – just in time for a civilized hour book launch to eager Potterphiles as opposed to the ‘midnight openings’ touted in the UK and elsewhere.
Rowling’s books have sold around 7.5 million copies in Australia and New Zealand since Potter first wiggled his wand, and 270 million worldwide. The initial print run of the last one – Goblet of Fire – was 750,000 and production was shared between South Australia’s Griffin Press (PMP) and Victoria’s McPherson’s.
Published here by Allen & Unwin (for Bloomsbury), Half Blood Prince carries a RRP of $45 but already Dymocks is taking orders at $29.95. Over in England, the scammers and opportunists have already been at work trying to steal advance copies and sell them to newspapers. Rowling gained an injunction in June against two such characters who has tried to get the Sun and Daily Mirror interested in their contraband.
All over Australia, bookstores will be hosting special events for the launch with Borders opening two hours early at 7am. Prior to opening the first carton of HP#6, there will be activities such as quizzes, face-painting, games, wizard school and presumably, turning parents into toads but not until after they’ve paid up.
Discovering who has printed HP#6 here in Australia is like making Voldermort attend Sunday School but it’s a safe bet that Griffin and McPherson’s have once again shared the spoils as there are no others with the kind of capacity needed. Security is watertight and initial print run of HP#6 is unknown, but Allen and Unwin’s head of publicity Andrew Hawkins said it is “as big if not bigger” than HP#5 – Goblet of Fire. He added, “The flow-on effect into the economy is amazing. Everyone right down to the truck drivers gets motivated and excited; we are going to have a magical event on Saturday, which is a bright spot in an otherwise troubled world.”
New book press for Griffin
In the case of PMP’s Griffin Press, next month marks the due date for it to move into new premises in Salisbury, 25km from the iconic Netley site that has served them since 1858. (Pictured left to right, the Griffin team; Daniel Lamb, Ashley Crawford, Ben Jolly and Geoff Bowden.) A new Timsons T48 ‘C’ large-format book press, supplied by JL Lennard, will be commissioned in the new premises, making two Kettering, UK-built Timsons for Griffin, a T48A ‘B’ format having been installed in 2002. Most Harry Potter books worldwide are printed on Timson presses.
Griffin’s last Potter print run in 2003 – Goblet of Fire – took up 30 consecutive shifts to print the text alone, running at 390 metres per minute and printing 48pp joined pair sections for 96pp per revolution. The new press is bolstered by new high-speed finishing equipment that will surely make Salisbury one of the most advanced ‘reading for pleasure’ book printing sites in the world.
One thing my sources did note, is that the supply of sufficient paper is an issue that affects large print runs of books such as HP#6. Print runs can be cut short simply because there are not enough tonnes of the specified paper available in one hit, resulting in re-prints to fulfill demand.
MY CALL
Buy the book, see the movie, wear the Tee-shirt. That one woman can do so much for the printing industry and literacy is demonstration of the power of creativity to change paradigms. People will actually be flocking to bookstores this Saturday! That means they won’t be watching MTV, downloading Dungeons and Dragons, spray painting your walls or blogging. Kids will avidly be scrambling to be the first to own – a book!
Glory be!
Australia is lucky since this time equates to 9:01am EST on Saturday 16th July – just in time for a civilized hour book launch to eager Potterphiles as opposed to the ‘midnight openings’ touted in the UK and elsewhere.
In the case of PMP’s Griffin Press, next month marks the due date for it to move into new premises in Salisbury, 25km from the iconic Netley site that has served them since 1858. (Pictured left to right, the Griffin team; Daniel Lamb, Ashley Crawford, Ben Jolly and Geoff Bowden.) A new Timsons T48 ‘C’ large-format book press, supplied by JL Lennard, will be commissioned in the new premises, making two Kettering, UK-built Timsons for Griffin, a T48A ‘B’ format having been installed in 2002. Most Harry Potter books worldwide are printed on Timson presses.