A cute Harry Potter hack that could have been...

[Tesha]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/20/BUGPER3HVA1.DTL

I was reading the 'Chron's story about how unauthorized
versions of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows are
turning up on the internet, and how Scholastic claims
"they're obviously fakes because they differ", and I
got to thinking:

But what if they *WEREN'T FAKES*? What if J. K. Rowling
played a Clue game with us and released several
different versions of the book, each with a different
ending, and the variations showing up on the Internet
merely reflect that fact?

You know, maybe:

o In one version, Harry dies at Voldemort's hands

o In another version, Harry kills off Voldemort

o In a third version, Harry comes out of the
Boggart Case, marries Ron, and goes off to do battle
with the *REAL* bad guy, the Lord Bushofmort and
his evil Cheney?

o While in the fourth version "Hermione kills Ron
in the Room of Requirement with a candlestick"?

She could sell as many as four (well, maybe three)
times the volume of books because *EVERYONE*
would probably want all four (well, at least three).

If she passed on this opportunity, it would be a shame.

Tesha

[jgraz]

1. It's gonna be tough enough to bring this thing in for a landing as it is

Let alone having three different endings.

What would have been funny is for them to typeset and leak an absolutely terrible 7th book, so that anyone who reads it early has their head explode with disappointment.

[JoDog]

2. I've suspected

that maybe some of the leaking was disinformation on Scholastic/Bloomsbury's part. Once it became clear that the book had leaked, leak a fake book that differs on vital plot points. Then anyone tempted to just read the internet files and not buy the book would be encouraged to purchase it to make sure they got the true story.

As a former journalist, one thing that is ticking me off right now is Scholastic claiming that media outlets that are publishing reviews and such are breaking an embargo. That's not the case. An embargo is when a piece of work (like a movie, book or TV show) is made available to newspapers and TV outlets ahead of the official release date. The company distributing the work asks the media to embargo (or hold) any reviews of the work until a specific date set by the distributor, usually the day before or day of the release. If a media outlet breaks an embargo and publishes early, they may not critic's passes or copies from the company in the future. However, if the media outlet is big and influential enough, it may break an embargo with few reprecussions. For instance, the Chicago Tribune broke the embargo on the review of the first "Lord of the Rings" movie by a day, and nothing was said about it.

Scholastic has not made early copies of "The Deathly Hallows" available to critics. The company's attitude is that book reviewers can get their copies when everyone else does. Therefore, there is no agreed upon embargo. The Baltimore Sun and NYT were following the rules the publisher set out--by mere luck, they got copies early. They are not the bad guys here. They didn't break rules.