Time magazine has a new in- depth feature on the efforts used by the team at US Harry Potter publishers Scholastic, as they have gone about preparing for the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” Detailing the steps the company went through, including a representative traveling to the UK to pick up the final manuscript of the last Harry Potter book (“To make absolutely sure the manuscript was safe on the plane, he sat on it”), to the efforts made by the truck delivering the book (“travel to stores on pallets, sealed in black plastic, in trucks tracked by GPS”), the article points out the extraordinary efforts at hand in order to preserve that special unspoiled moment when we Harry Potter fans pick up the last book for the first time.
“This is the moment of ineffable, intangible ecstasy that occurs when a reader opens his or her brand-new $34.99 copy of Deathly Hallows for the first time. “All the way through the process, everybody who touches this [manuscript] has the same goal in mind,” says Arthur A. Levine, Rowling’s editor. “Midnight. Kids.” The magic moment is a rare and delicate thing: it occurs only when the reader comes to the book in a state of pure ignorance, with no advance knowledge of its contents. For the magic moment to happen, the theory goes, the reader’s mind must be preserved in a state of absolute innocence—it must be, in Internet parlance, spoiler-free.”
The Harry Potter team at Scholastic is interviewed, including past PotterCast guest Cheryl Klein (aka Hotttt Cheryl) who details some of her job as an editor on the books, and what it was like for her when she traveled to the UK to pick up a revised edition of the precious manuscript.
Another early reader was a studious 28-year-old named Cheryl Klein, whose job title is continuity editor. Rowling’s books have become so complex—and their fans so obsessively nitpicky—that it takes a full-time Potterologist to make sure Rowling’s fictional universe stays factually consistent. “I keep track of all of the various proper nouns that appear in the series,” says Klein. “For instance, with Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, I make sure it’s always B-o-t-t-apostrophe-s. Every Flavor is not hyphenated, and Flavor does not have a u.” It’s a tough beat: Klein acknowledges, for example, that in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Moaning Myrtle sits in a U-bend toilet, whereas in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, she occupies an S-bend toilet (this crept in, it should be noted, before Klein’s tenure, which began after Goblet). Klein has either the worst job in the world or the best, depending on how you look at it.
Like everyone else at Scholastic, Klein maintains the Harry Potter omertà. “Most people know better than to ask,” she says. “That includes my friends and my family and everyone else.” After Rowling revised the manuscript, per Levine’s and Klein’s suggestions, Klein flew to England to pick up the new draft. On her way home she was stopped for a random security check at Heathrow. “The woman opens up my bag, and she starts pawing through it. And she says, ‘Wow! You have a lot of paper here.’ And I thought, Oh, God, she’s going to look at it, and she’s going to see the names Harry and Ron and Hermione. But I just smiled, and I said, ‘Yes, a lot of paper!’ And she said, ‘Uh-huh,’ and she zipped it up. That was the end of the scariest two minutes of my life.”
The July 3 issue of Time Magazine will be on newsstands this weekend.
Morning All! Tonight sees the start of our annual church Flower Festival which lasts all weekend. There is a garden opening of the very old Tudor house and the village school holds its Sports Day tomorrow. That’s the plan, but the garden was severely flooded this week, and some of the flood water got into the school, and to cap it all heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow and Sunday….
That´s a PR-trick, isn´t it? To pretend that behind every corner someone waits to steal Deathly Hallows as though the whole mankind was interested in Harry Potter!
And JKR feeds that with her approvement of spoiler-”politics” at the Leaky-Cualdron.
Ridiculous!!!
The night HBP was coming out, I walked into HMV on the Friday afternoon, and then later on, the guy from newsround did a report on how the HMV in Edinburgh, had copies of HBP on the shelfs, and I had walked right past them, and didn’t even notice haha. That could have been a big spoiler!! :p
That´s a PR-trick, isn´t it? To pretend that behind every corner someone waits to steal Deathly Hallows as though the whole mankind was interested in Harry Potter! And JKR feeds that with her approvement of spoiler-”politics” at the Leaky-Cualdron. Ridiculous!!!
albeit—
what are you talking about? I dont understand, they’re taking EVERY PRECAUTION to avoid spoiling…so…Jo is right to endorse the non-spoiling, as she and her publishers are doing EVERYTHING they can!!!
And…yeah, behind every corner, someone isn’t trying to STEAL Harry Potter, but if you came across the manuscript im sure they wouldn’t throw it away…
So all of this is on paper? Nothing electronic. I don’t understand how that can be. At some point, I’m assuming, the manuscript has to be transferred to some type of electronic storage before printing.
I hope all the news media people read it and heed it. I heard some yahoo on msnbc blurted out a supposed spoiler without warning earlier this week, right on TV. I’m going to have to stop surfing the net about 10 days before the book comes out.
What I’m looking for is pictures of them shipping the books. We saw those last time, and the time before. I remember drooling over stacks of them, I even made it into a background for my computer. Last night they talked about the book on Fox News Live and used footage of people stacking HBP on shelves. It made me laugh, and I wondered if they realized it wasn’t the right book.
You know, I kind of agree with the article when it says that spoilers don’t ruin a great book. It ruins the surprise, that “Oh My God!” Moment, but it doesn’t ruin your enjoyment of the book. I was spoiled about key moments from books 3, 5 and 6 and yet they still are the three best books I have ever read so far in 19 years of my life.
It’s official; Hotttt Cheryl has the best job in the world (aside from parenting my children- who, incidently, decided it would be a GOOD thing to cut their hair by themselves this morning… and all before my cup of coffee): urg.
Posted by Mrs. de Mimsy-Porpington on June 29, 2007, 01:38 PM
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It’s official: Hotttt Cheryl has the best job in the world- aside from parenting my 3 children- who incidentally, decided it would be a good thing to cut my son’s hair this morning with the Play-doh scissors… and all before my first cup of coffee. Urgh.
Posted by Mrs. de Mimsy-Porpington on June 29, 2007, 01:41 PM
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I want to say “bring it on!” I’m going a huge book release party and will, like most of you get it at midnight. However, it is my little girl’s 8th birthday weekend, filled with family visiting and a pool party with 50+ kids. I mean, what am I to do? Read the book at the party instead of saving a kid who jumped in over their head? “Hold on, let me finish this chapter!” Love this story. I can’t wait for the magic moment, or can I?
Hmmmmmmm. “Hottt Cheryl” missed something. In PoA, Hermione “slaps [Malfoy] around the face.” In HBP, there’s a reference to hermione “punching” Malfoy. That happened in the FILM version of PoA, but NOT the book!
What a great article! It gave me goosebumps! I really like the part where it points out how Moaning Myrtle lives in a Ubend in COS but in GOF she lives in an Sbend but “this crept in, it should be noted, before Klein’s tenure, which began after Goblet.”
And that magic moment… it’s going to be better than Christmas or birthdays or anything!!!
Posted by bushybrownhairedknowitall on June 29, 2007, 02:11 PM
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Yeah but in hindsight, people tend to embellish and make a slap sound like a pinch when they are retelling the story or remembering it. Might not be a mistake
Harry's eyes met Ron's. He knew that Ron was thinking exactly what he was: If he could have chosen any members of the D.A. in addition to himself, Ron, and Hermione to join him in the attempt to rescue Sirius, he would not have picked Ginny, Neville, or L
Morning All! Tonight sees the start of our annual church Flower Festival which lasts all weekend. There is a garden opening of the very old Tudor house and the village school holds its Sports Day tomorrow. That’s the plan, but the garden was severely flooded this week, and some of the flood water got into the school, and to cap it all heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow and Sunday….