How this employee could not have known about the "no selling until July 16th" business is beyond me.... maybe they live in a cave.... OY.
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Harry Potter and the vanishing volumes
B.C.'s top court steps in after Potter books sold early
Nicholas Read
Vancouver Sun; with files from Canadian Press
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Judging from the reaction of Harry Potter's Canadian publisher, you'd think Lord Voldemort himself had turned up in Coquitlam.
Last Thursday, 14 copies of the new Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, were inadvertently sold from that city's Great Canadian Superstore outlet on Lougheed Highway.
And Raincoast Books is so desperate to get them back that it sought and won a B.C. Supreme Court injunction Saturday that forbids copying or disclosing any part of the book before 12:01 a.m. July 16, the day of the book's formal release.
According to Geoff Wilson, a spokesman for the Great Canadian Superstore's parent company, Loblaw Companies Ltd., a store employee accidentally sold the copies without being aware of a worldwide publicity machine that demands Fort Knox-style security around the book.
"It was an inadvertent error on one employee's behalf," Wilson said in a phone interview from Toronto. "We have the books on embargo in over 1,000 stores across the country."
Raincoast marketing director Geoff Broadhurst said several of the 14 copies have been returned to Raincoast already, but refused to say how many.
"We're trying to protect the privacy of these innocent consumers," Broadhurst said in a phone interview Monday. "We don't want them to be caught up in this unsolicited, unrequested Harry Potter hype."
That hype is so intense that in the U.S., publisher Scholastic is shipping the books in steel container trucks and delivering them to retailers chained up like Houdini. Store owners will have to use bolt cutters to release the books at midnight.
Broadhurst refused to say what steps are being taken in Canada, only that "extraordinary security measures are in place for all retailers intending to sell Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this weekend."
To ensure that secrecy, the company's injunction against the 14 book buyers prohibits them from "displaying, reading, offering for sale, selling or exhibiting in public" their copies of the book.
In other words, Raincoast is doing everything it can to ensure they don't breathe a word about its plot developments. (Rumour has it that a prominent character dies in it. In the last Harry Potter volume, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, died.) Instead Raincoast wants all 14 buyers to return their books temporarily in exchange for an autographed book plate and a T-shirt.
"We're calling upon the individuals to come forward in a way that makes them comfortable," Broadhurst said Monday.
Wilson said a notice has been placed in the Coquitlam store's book department asking the 14 customers to return their books for a full refund.
"If they return them, that would be wonderful," Wilson said. "This only came to our attention on Saturday. But as soon as we heard about it, we took immediate action to make sure the books were taken off the shelf. They weren't on the shelf for very long."
Broadhurst said despite the court injunction, the publisher doesn't want to be heavy-handed about things.
"From Raincoast's point of view, what we want to do is encourage the books to be returned temporarily in the true spirit of July 16 and in keeping with the secret of July 16."
Recently, two men in England were charged with theft after allegedly stealing copies of The Half-Blood Prince from a distribution centre. Police say the two tried to sell the book to a newspaper reporter.
Phyllis Simon, co-owner of Vancouver Kidsbooks, refused even to say if she had any books in her company's two stores.
"We aren't allowed to confirm the circumstances of their shipping," Simon said.
But Susan Jahnke of Duthie Books on Fourth Avenue said Raincoast won't deliver copies of the book until Friday.
"They don't drop them off till the day before, and there are always big signs on the boxes that say, 'Do not open until. ...' "
Broadhurst also refused to say how big Raincoast's print run will be, only that it is the largest in Canadian history.
Two American environmental groups are urging U.S. readers to make that print run even larger by forgoing the U.S. version of The Half-Blood Prince in favour of the Canadian.
Greenpeace and the National Wildlife Federation have launched a Save Muggle Forests campaign, upset that Scholastic did not use 100-per-cent recycled paper as did Raincoast.
"[Scholastic] books are published on paper made from ancient forests," Greenpeace said on its website.
Worldwide, about 10.8 million copies of The Half-Blood Prince are due to be distributed, compared to only 8.5 million for the previous book.
14 copies of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" were sold early by mistake
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