I’m Half Blooded! Check it and See!

Yesterday a man was being interviewed on the CBC Radio One Afternoon Show (Priya Ramu-less for weeks, now!) and on first listen I thought he was pleading with kidnappers to return his teenage daughter. Suddenly I realized he was pleading with 14 people to return their illicitly acquired copies of the newest book in the Harry Potter series.

“Please!” he said, “We’ll give you an autographed copy at 12:01, July 16th! Don’t spoil the secret for the FANS!”

In case you haven’t heard, the Superstore in Coquitlam accidentally sold 14 copies of the new book A WEEK before its official release date. On account of the “embargo” agreed upon between the publisher and the booksellers all around the world, and lest this precious cargo fall into the hands of terrorists or drug dealers or speed readers or speedy drug dealing readers, Raincoast Books was making a public appeal to those who had bought the books to return them.

I’m mixed about this. Whatever gets more books to sell (meaning there will be more good books in the world and hooray for that) is a terrific thing. And in this age of whatever it is this age is now, it’s probably necessary to come up with gimmicky crap like this. And yes, at least people are talking about books a quarter as much as they’re talking about television. So books win!

But it is still annoying as fuck to hear the fakey, overwrought marketing executive go on and on about this flipping book. For one thing, it’s probably 900 pages long! Who’s going to have time to dig through it and find the secret and tell the world in the space of 4 days? If it’s your kid, well, kids can be tied up and kept quiet and if it’s a grown-up – hey, adults are too busy to read a Harry Potter book in a week. Done.

It’s like amateur acting. I hate amateur acting. This does not include any of the acting I have seen friends perform. I’m talking about “Waiting for Guffman.” (that movie … I can’t watch it … it makes me squirm) I’m talking about on Christmas Eve when the weather reporters on the radio pretend they’re picking up Santa on the radar – GOD I hate that! I’m talking about: “I am preTENDING to be the sorrowful BUTTERfly in this MOURNful, modern, HIP HOP rendition of MISS SAIGON!” Starring Snoop and Farrell, feat. Dave Navarro!

Um. Yeah.

The similarity between bad acting and bad marketing is: people trying too hard. People letting the Great Idea they had take over the message they are trying to convey.

Not that books sell themselves and should be left to do so; far from it. But, you know, MY first book won’t sell itself. J.K. Rowling’s 8th book? Probably it’ll do okay.