Harry Potter and the Half-Dead Booksellers

So, by now those who braved the hordes of HP fans on Fri night have probably finished their book. I hope that the reading was as much fun as the anticipation of it. Have I read it yet? No. I have only read the first one. It's not that I don't like the world that Rowling created, or that I didn't enjoy the book, but I wanted to wait until she has them all out to read the rest. See, I determined a while ago that if I know that a series has a planned limit of books, I would wait until they are all out to enjoy them (like King's Dark Tower series). Why? Because I hate waiting forever between the books to get the next one. A year I can handle. But much more than that and I feel obliged to go back and reread everything so it's all fresh in my memory banks. Not that I don't have a good memory for things but I read so much that I would rather not chance getting confuzzled. Take Jean M. Auel's Earth Child series (Clan of the Cave Bear, etc.) for example. I read the first one when I was 14. There are 5 in the series so far and the last one came out 2 years ago (I believe). It took her like 10 years or so to come out with the last book.

Ok, I think that would be a long time for anyone between books and I know that's an extreme example, but it's why I wanted to wait on the HPs. Besides, I've noticed something kind of unique about the HP fans. . .no one has told me any major plot points that could ruin my enjoyment of reading them. You know how when people see a movie and just have to talk about it and inevitably ruin a major point for you? Somehow I've managed to avoid that with the HP world. However, I suspect that my luck will change if I wait for the last book to come out and I haven't read the rest. So, I may cave in and read them ahead of time. But I am so swamped right now that I don't know when I'll get a chance to do so anyway. Maybe I'll just wait until right before the next one is published. lol

Anyway, I got to work the HP night. Bought a general witch costume that I actually like quite a bit (worth the money) and will definitely wear for Halloween this year. Tony (the manager) went as Haggrid and a few of the temps dressed up. Rebecca (fellow co-worker/friend) also wore a general costume that she made for herself. The evening was a little boring in spots because those who were coming in for the "party" stayed away until late. And even then they mostly just wandered around. We didn't have as many people as I would have thought considering the number of reservations that we had. The one other store did better than us but I think that's because the mall they are in actually has a movie theatre attached to it. I suspect that parents took their kids to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and then to the book "party." They were also chosen to be shown on the news so that probably helped as well.

Most of our HP fans were adults. So, it was fairly calm. Tony decided that I would be in charge of handing out the books which meant that I was the first one to put a hand to a copy. We had strict orders that the boxes were not to be opened until after midnight. So, that was kind of cool. We did a countdown and everything. It was all pretty organized and we had people out by 1:30. We had a last minute guy come in for his copy at almost 2a but since I was just closing the gate behind Tony and Jessica (the assistant manager), I was able to sell him the book. Til Natalie and I got the store organized and everything counted, she left at 2:30a and I got out of there about 3a. It was a looooong day.

I wasn't supposed to be back into the store until 3p but Erin had called to say that she had a nasty migraine and wanted to know if anyone could come in early to relieve her if it was still hanging on. I was the only one that could so I wasn't surprised when she woke me up at 11:30a to ask if I would come in at 1:30p. Man was I tired. When I got in, everyone was tired. We stayed pretty busy until about 7p and then died down. We were dragging but not too badly. I think that most of the diehard fans were home reading the book. And I think that we had way too much competition from places like Walmart for us to stay swamped. I also wasn't feeling very well which didn't help matters but I had off yesterday and today and will chill some more tomorrow. So, I should be all good.

The whole thing felt anticlimactic pretty quickly. I've found that I enjoy the anticipation of events a lot more than the events themselves for the most part. Not always but a lot of time anyway. Then again, I didn't have any real personal investment in this event other than as a bookseller so that could be why in this case. I heard a figure of 6.5 million copies were sold within the first 24 hours. That is just insane. Good day for publishing but I wonder if there will ever be anything as big as this again (besides the last book). But when there is a next time, I think I'll safely stay home instead of being infected and turned into the living dead.