Best Selling author JK Rowling is upset that The Daily News published an excerpt of her newest book that was mistakenly sold in a Brooklyn Health Foods store. Seems Ms. Rowlings and her publishers want $100 million as compensation for the mistake from the Daily News. They claim the review is harming their $3 million dollar "world-wide" publicity campaign.
Hey newsflash for the Scholastic Legal Braintrust...you need to spend publicity money on this only to reach the four score and seven people on the planet who have not heard of Harry Potter. As for JK, what the hell is she so upset about. Didn't she start writing these books in a coffee shop in Scotland on the equivalent of an NEA grant of like $25,000 as a single mom?
More power to her success, but hubris and greed are not pretty. I used to think so highly of her...perhaps I will again if she drops this nonsense.
posted by Jo Fish on 06.19.03 at 12:17 PM
Comments:
Misspellings aren't pretty either. It's Rowling, not Rowlings. And yeah, I think {Dr. Evil} One Hundred MILLION Dollars! {/Dr. Evil} is excessive too, but I think the theory behind it is, if people can get away with ripping off the big guys, what's to stop them from ripping off the little guys? I'm sorry but the Brooklyn health food store owner is an idiot if it didn't know the book wasn't supposed to go on sale yet; you'd have to be in a cave to be that oblivious.
Rowling, Rowlings, Schmowlings. Lemony Snicket's books are one hundred million billion times better than Harry Potter and Greedy Tree. Plus, he plays a decent accordion for Magnetic Fields.
I begrudge Rowling absolutely nothing; she worked her way up through her writing talent from a single mom on welfare to one of the richest women in the world. I consider her quite a wonderful role model. Also, I think it's totally uncalled-for to praise one author by putting down another. No reason people can't like both; it's not a bloody contest.
