What Was the Original Intended Audience for the Harry Potter Books?

I recall reading a comment by J. K. Rowling that she didn't think of her books as fantasy until after she had written several and realized that she had ghosts and goblins and other fantasy creatures and fantasy settings as well, and it hit her that they were fantasy.

I also think, but am not sure, that I read another comment of hers that she was not specifically writing them as children's books, that she was writing the story and it just turned out that it appealed to children.

While the author, while writing a book, may not always try to classify it as a particular genre or in a particular demographic, the publishers will do that for marketing purposes.

So this question could have multiple answers. What was JKR's intended audience with the first few books? Did she have a genre and age group in mind? And when the first publishers started marketing the first book, what markets were they targeting?

I'm more interesting in whether the books were written for a particular group, such as us in SF&F, than in the publishing end (since that doesn't effect as much of the content), but I wouldn't want to exclude that info if there have been public comments or discussions about it.

Answer

Rowling, having delivered the third Harry Potter book to Bloomsbury and now working on the fourth, says she didn't consider her possible audience when she conceived the series. "What excited me was how much I would enjoy writing [Harry Potter]. I never thought about writing for children -- children's books chose me."

Source: "Flying Starts: Seven first-time children's authors and illustrators talk about their fall debuts: J.K. ROWLING (excerpt)," Publisher's Weekly, December 21, 1998

Just to be clear - this doesn't apply to when she was shopping the book around to publishers - by that time, it was already intended to be a children's book (from the same article):

When J.K. Rowling first met her agent, Christopher Little, over a lunch in London in 1995, he felt it only right to sound a cautionary note: "Now, you do realize, you will never make a fortune out of writing children's books?

Comments

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...

Blog

Search This Blog