Fiction Industry Short Essay

8/7/2019 Fiction Industry Short Essay

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Sarah Pearson 20304366

Topic: Why do we read books?

Abstract: Reading has become popularised by such works as the Harry Potter

and Twilight series, to the point where even less literary novels have become the

subject of a cult mentality. The question is: are people reading the books

because theyre good, or because theyre popular? And how much of a

difference does it make?

It seems self-evident to say that there are many reasons that people read books.

However, sometimes those reasons can combine in ways that make it difficult to

discern the true source of the particular novel or series popularity. Is it the

marketing hype thats making a certain work rocket up the bestsellers list? Or is

it because the novels have been boosted by word of mouth? In truth, they both

function to get people reading, but when marketing gets a hold on a book with

grass-roots popularity, it becomes nearly impossible to tell where one type of

popular recognition ends and the other begins. Put simply: ...aggressive

marketing...describes a critical problem: the novels and the hype become

intertwined, resulting in analyses that fail to take into account the full complexity

of either.1 But the problematic nature of discerning marketing from text must

be attempted, as ...it is both realistic and necessary to separate the books fromthe marketing2, and furthermore the only way to elucidate the effect and

meaning of either is to look at both aspects, individually, as well as in concert.

Focusing mainly on the current phenomenon of J.K. Rowlings Harry Potterseries,

the past craze surrounding J.R.R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings, and with some

discussion of the most recent cult engulfing the vampire romance novels of

Stephenie Meyer, the aim of this essay will be to look at the way marketing and

popularity interact, and how these elements function to create readers and fan

bases well beyond the authors expectations.

When a novel begins attracting widespread reader attention, as Harry Potter and

the Philosophers Stone did in late 1998, selling 70,000 copies in the UK...3, the

world of marketing and merchandise often follows in its wake. For Rowling, the

film deal with Warner Brothers came even as the second novel hit shelves

1 Philip Nel, Is There a text in This Advertising Campaign?: Literature, Marketing and

Harry Potter, p.2362 Ibid, p.2373 Ibid. p.244

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throughout Britain.4 And it was this deal that turned ...the boy who lived5 into

the cultural monolith of spinoffs and product positioning we see today. The other

ingredient in creating the monster is todays technological saturation. Computer

games provide another outlet for spruiking films and the novels they are adapted

from, and a very effective one at that: the Nintendo Wii version ofHarry Potter

and the Half-Blood Prince currently ranks in the top ten of bestselling games.6 In

other words, the advancement of technology combined with the more pedestrian

popularity of the novels (i.e. prior to any movie deal) creates an avenue through

which marketing can stream, first diffusing among the novels, and then

exploding via the more visual media of movies, television, and computer games.

As Tammy Turner-Vorbeck points out, there are more than 400 different Harry

Potterrelated products on todays markets. 7 However it seems that Turner-

Vorbeck is only interested in seeing the insidious and at times monstrous aspects

of a world flooded with Harry Potter toys: The proliferation of these items is

blatant exploitation of the genuine excitement for childrens literature that stems

from childrens true interests.8 However, among the numerous Potter products

that she names, there are two that simply do not belong within the category:

the textbooks which the character of Harry Potter used in the...books and

movies...9 Turner-Vorbeck is of course referring to Fantastic Beasts and Where

to Find Them and Quidditch Through The Ages10

, which cannot really bedescribed as part of the wizarding wonderland of merchandise, because they

were written and sold for the purposes of charity. The two books raised $15.6

million pounds for Comic Relief, and contributed to the fight against poverty and

social injustice in Britain, Africa and around the world11. Furthermore, J.K.

Rowling is notorious in her resistance and deflection of the gargantuan

marketing phenomenon now surrounding her novels. [She] refused to allow her

characters to be shown drinking Coca-Cola... 12 Furthermore, Rowling said in an

interview. I can only say now to all of the parents out there that if the action

4 Ibid.5 J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, p.186 Sunday Herald Sun, August 9, 2009, Playliftout, p.137 Turner-Vorbeck, cited in Heilman, Elizabeth E. (ed.) Critical Perspectives on HarryPotter, p.3348 Ibid.9 Ibid.10 Both Rowling, J.K., under pseudonyms Newt Scamander and Kennilworthy Whisprespectively

11 Nel, Philip, Is There a text in This Advertising Campaign?: Literature, Marketing andHarry Potter, p.24212 Ibid, p.241

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figures are horrible, just tell the kids: dont buy them!13 It is true that the

marketing of the Harry Potter series has become the focal point, shifting away

from the novels themselves, but this is the nature of a modern book cult:

bestselling novels attract marketing, and conglomerates such as Time Warner,

like moths to a flame. It also crucial to remember where Harry Potter, as well as

the recent prodigious success of the Twilightquartet of novels, all began: with

the books, in absence of the hype and all the marketing spin offs. For example,

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone was released in June 1997, but the

books caught on well before the hype began. The marketing didnt really take

over until 1999; the products didnt appear until the latter half of 2000; and the

first movie...didnt appear until November 2001.14 As for Twilight, author

Stephenie Meyers official website shows that the original novel in the serieswas

first conceived in June 200315 and published in 200516, however only the 2008

release of the film adaptation turned it into a burgeoning craze, in which stores

such as Supre market so-called placement tees to teenage girls.17 It is

important to take note of the gap between popular novel and movie marketing

madness; if it either mania was as deeply rooted in marketing as Tammy Turner-

Vorbeck intimates, then surely the novels and the films and products would not

have such clearly distinct origins.

The reason both the Harry Potterand Twilightseries are defined here as new

book related crazes is because they have one major predecessor in the form of

J.R.R. Tolkiens Lord of the Rings, which began in 196518 and was markedly

different from the way Meyer and Rowlings novels have been disseminated to

the public consciousness. According to J.S. Ryan, the cult of Tolkien:

...began with the moral piracy of Ace Books which, without payment of

royalties, published and estimated 100,000 copies of the trilogy. It was this event

which unleashed the Tolkien craze on the American University campuses. New

York subways were painted with runic slogans celebrating the chief characters in

the trilogy...saying that Gandalf lives and Bilbo is God19

13 Ibid.14 Ibid, p.24415 http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight.html16 http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/bio.html17 http://www.supre.com.au/(eom1vg3olhu1kqaled1aoj45)/ShopOnline/Shop.aspx?

pid=2&cid=17&pageIndex=118 J.S. Ryan, Tolkien: Cult or Culture?, p.7519 Ibid, pp.75-6

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The first thing of note is of course that this cult had nothing to do with movies

and marketing, and in fact had its beginning in illegal publication, causing it to

conform more to the traditional connotations of the word cult, i.e. antithetical

to...consumer culture.20 Though blockbuster film adaptations did eventually

appear, this was almost 40 years after early Tolkien mania swept the United

States.21Although the films have certainly become a part of the Lord of the Rings

canon, the division of time has meant that this new incarnation has had less of

an all-consuming effect on the source text. The films and novels ofHarry Potter

and Twilightare far more deeply intertwined. However, The Lord of the Rings is a

good way to access the way in which novel and marketing interact, simply

because in this case, the two are nowhere near so tightly bound together. With

The Lord of theRings, it is far easier to discern ...cult audience practices as

existing both inside and outside the parameters of commodification and

consumer culture...22 With Twilightand Harry Potter, this is far more difficult to

see, particularly with the former, which is too newly come to craze status to be

easily broken down into more comprehensible parts. Potteron the other hand

has been around for over ten years and as such there is more evidence of cult

behaviour. For example: [q]uite a few [readers] feel that the fifth volume wasnt

up to scratch (a view, incidentally, shared by lots in the fanfiction community,who arent reluctant to excise [Harry Potter and the Order of the] Phoenixfrom

the canon)23 Indeed fan fiction is an excellent indicator of when cult practice

has become part of what is essentially a mainstream obsession. On

FanFiction.net, there are nearly 415,000 stories pertaining to the Potteruniverse,

and over 100,000 for Twilight24. It seems likely that this latter number will grow.

As Matt Hills puts it: [f]or the cult audience, the blockbuster does not burst

onto the cultural scene and then rapidly fade away: instead its appearance is

keenly anticipated...and then it lives on through fan interpretations, debates and

memories/memorialisations. 25 Essentially the fanomenon26 ofHarry Potter

20 Hills, Matt, in, Mathijs, Ernest (ed.) The Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in GlobalContext, p.16021 Mathijs, Ernest, Popular Culture in Global Context: The Lord of the Rings Phenomenon,in ibid, p.322 Hills, Matt, in ibid. p.16223 Terego, Al, and Denim, Sue, in, Brown, Stephen, (ed.) Consuming Books: Themarketing and consumption of literature, p.15624 http://www.fanfiction.net/book/25 Hills, Matt, in, Mathijs, Ernest (ed.) The Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global

Context, p.16226 Terego, Al, and Denim, Sue, in, Brown, Stephen, (ed.) Consuming Books: Themarketing and consumption of literature, p.151

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has created a sort of mass cult-like fanbase. This is already occurring with the

Twilightseries. Followers of the latter set of novels can display their allegiance

with the aforementioned Supre T-shirts. Both groups show their vested interest

by going to see the film adaptations: Twilightmade 5.4 million dollars in its

opening week in Australia27, while for the recent release ofHarry Potter and the

Half-Blood Prince the figure was over $14 million.28 This shows that as yet, Potter

is the bigger franchise, which is not surprising since it has been building on itself

since the late 1990s.29

But there is a certain amount of tautology involved in the interaction of novel

and marketing. As has already been discussed, word-of-mouth is the key way by

which books gain popularity in the first instance, for instance: ...children told

each other about Harry simply because they thought it was a good book.30 It has

also been noted that this reputation acts as a beacon to conglomerates

searching for marketing and merchandising opportunities. As exploitative as this

influence can be, it also true that [c]laims of literary merit are closely linked to

individual taste and therefore nearly impossible to prove.31 In short, when the

books become popular enough to warrant mass marketing, films soon follow,

along with a host of products and often, tie-in covers on the original novels. This

last effect is important because it exemplifies the way this sort of cult grows andcontinues; i.e. the movies send readers back to the source material, either as

first time readers or as readers re-acquainting themselves with a favourite novel,

which then encourages them to watch the film adaptations a second, or even

third, time. In essence, the cycle creates that which is central to both marketing

and novel: interest. As Al Terego and Sue Denim show, [p]eople get sucked into

Potters parallel universe in a number of different ways. [...] Some are drawn in

by the films...others by family connection...others by the phenomenon itself

(whats all the fuss about?)32 When it comes to such marketing infused

franchises as Twilightand Harry Potter, it is this notion of fuss that is pivotal. It

is fuss, that is, the interest in what makes the books as well as the films so

popular, that is drawing the new readers and viewers in. And that is why it is

27 http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/getflickd/2008/12/box_office_vamp.html28 http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/getflickd/2009/07/29 Nel, Philip Is There a text in This Advertising Campaign?: Literature, Marketing andHarry Potter, p.24430 Nel p.244

31 Ibid, p.25832 Terego, Al, and Denim, Sue, in, Brown, Stephen, (ed.) Consuming Books: Themarketing and consumption of literature, p. 153

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most important to look marketing hype and the source text as two sides of the

same coin. The two elements feed off one anothers unique ways of gaining the

attention, and love, of people en masse. Most crucially, this is regardless of the

insidious, and at times actively exploitative, nature of marketing and hype, or

the fallibility of word-of-mouth, based as it is around that most relative of terms,

good.

References:

Hard copy sources:

Brown, Stephen, (ed.) Consuming Books: The marketing and

consumption of literature, Routledge, New York, 2006:

Terego, Al, and Denim, Sue, Riddikulus! Consumer

Reflections on the Harry Potter phenomenon, pp.146-159

Heilman, Elizabeth E. (ed.) Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter,

Routledge, New York, 2009:

Turner-Vorbeck, Tammy, Pottermania: Good Clean Fun or

Cultural Hegemony?, pp.329-341

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Mathijs, Ernest (ed.) The Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global

Context, Wallflower Press, London, 2006:

Mathijs, Ernest, Popular Culture in Global Context: The Lord

of the Rings Phenomenon, pp.1-19,

Hills, Matt, Realising the Cult Blockbuster: The Lord of the

Rings Fandom and Residual/Emergent Cult Status in the

Mainstream, pp. 160-171

Nel, Philip, Is There a text in This Advertising Campaign?: Literature,

Marketing and Harry Potter, from The Lion and the Unicorn 29

(2005), pp. 236-267, downloaded via Project Muse, August 6 2009

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, Bloomsbury

Publishing Plc, London, 1997 (as Scamander, Newt) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,

Obscurus Books, London, 2001

(as Whisp, Kennilworthy) Quidditch Through the Ages, Whizz Hard

Books, London, 2001

Ryan, J.S. , Tolkien: Cult or Culture?, University of New England,

Armidale, 1969, pp.75-92

Playliftout, Sunday Herald Sun, August 9, 2009, , p.13

Online sources:

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight.html Accessed 6 August,

2009

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/bio.html Accessed 6 August, 2009

http://www.supre.com.au/

(eom1vg3olhu1kqaled1aoj45)/ShopOnline/Shop.aspx?

pid=2&cid=17&pageIndex=1 Accessed 9 August, 2009

http://www.fanfiction.net/book/ Accessed 9 August, 2009

http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/getflickd/2008/12/box_office

_vamp.html Accessed 9 August, 2009

http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/getflickd/2009/07/ Accessed

9 August, 2009

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Fiction Industry Short Essay