(This is an old post that I accidentally made a draft when I was editing it. Sorry if it shows up in your RSS feed again! The comments are amusing, though. It should also be noted that the book discussed below was eventually released as a proper publication.)
You’d think it would be incredibly hard to do, but J. K. Rowling has once again pissed me off by doing something that no respectable writer would do in her position. You can find the story here.
The short version is that Rowling is going to publish seven copies of a new book called The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Yes, only seven. We’ll get back to that in a minute. Six copies are going to her friends and family, and the last copy is going to be put up for auction for charity–the bid starts at
$62,000. Okay, now the only good side to this is that she’s raising money for kids. Here is my problem.
You are the richest damn person in England and practically the richest woman in the whole freaking world. So, instead of saying “thank you fans for making me filthy stinking rich” you’re going to take a nice dump right in the face of everyone that supported you by not making this book accessible to everyone. Gee, thanks Rowling. I appreciate it. I mean, goodness, I spend over $200 of my hard earned money buying your books, reading them, and then spending another $300 going to the movies and buying them on DVD. But, your reward to me as your fan is to slap me in the face and make what could be a very interesting reading experience impossible.
Now hold on before you think I’m a horrible grumpy man ignoring that she’s donating to charity. Take this into account. What if Rowling had simply gone to her publisher, who presumably wouldn’t think twice about this, and said “I’d like to publish this book from the HP series, but I don’t want any royalties. All royalties should go to such-and-such charity”? Think about that. The publisher gets its profit and that little charity gets millions of dollars to help kids in Europe. The seventh HP book sold millions of copies. We can assume that a couple million would be sold of this other book. If 1$ from every purchase goes to unfortunate kids, that’s easily a million dollars, if not more. If she donated her advance too, which would probably be considerable anyway, just imagine? So not only is she spitting in the face of her fans, she’s also spitting in the face of all those unfortunate kids in Europe by telling them “well, I don’t care enough about you to actually do something that could bring you considerable money”.
So, Rowling has spit in the face of gay people, spit in the face of fans (twice), and now spit in the face of unfortunate European children. Congrats Rowling, you earn the Worst Person of the Month Award. Keep it up and you might get Worst Person of the Year.
15 Responses
I was about to cry and say I wasn’t going to talk to you ever again, but then I saw what you were talking about and I’m mad about that too, so yay, I can still talk to you. 😀
Yeah, she’s on my s-list right now. Just to reiterate a point everyone, I don’t have the books. I love the books still to this day, I just HATE Rowling.
But some voice in the back of my mind says this might all be a marketing ploy, a way to create “buzz”. Can’t you see a “limited edition” being released sometime by “popular demand”?
Sure, that could happen, but limited editions also mean that not EVERYONE who wants it will get to read since it is a ‘limited’ edition, not a regular edition.
If it’s a media ploy, I still hate her because she’s treating her fans like garbage either way. Her fans are why she exists as a writer. Without her fans she would still be a single mother on welfare…
Wow…I never liked her period..but this can’t just be a pub. stunt? Then she’ll end up publishing it later 08?
I still love the series (up to book 6, that is), but I absolutely hate her!
I hate her for killing off Sirius!
I hate her for killing off Hedwig!
I hate her for killing off Fred!
I hate her for killing off Dobby!
I hate her for killing off Remus!
I hate her for killing off Tonks!
I hate her for NOT killing off MacNair!
I hate her for not killing off Bellatrix horribly enough!
I hate her for allowing the girls at one particular fansite to wipe her ass by giving them that big, shiny award, which she only gave them to alleviate her own precious guilt for killing Sirius! She has all but admitted it: both on her site and in several television interviews. The administration of said site, in turn, felt it was okay to talk down to people by telling them that "stupid people don't last long here," and that "they controlled their fate!" (And by the way, in response to one of their threads, if Sirius was a member of their board, he sure as hell wouldn't be bedding them! They all act too much like his dammed old mother, or worse yet, Dolores Umbridge!
I hate her for talking so much about how much she fucking cried after she killed said characters, and after she ended the series. Maybe her elementary school audience believed her, and they're probably all that matter to her anyway, but I can see right through it! Cried? Yeah right! All the way to the bank you cried, I'll bet!
I hate her for suing Steven Vander Ark! God, I hate her for putting him through that!!!!!
I hate her for only donating a relatively paltry sum to the Greyhound Rescue Group when, with her money, she could have done so much more!
I hate that she borrowed so much from other writers, famous and unfamous, and won't admit it. Don't believe me? Watch Golam in Lord of the Rings? Kreacher is him all over! Also, watch the ending of Sound of Music and compare it to the ending of Half Blood Prince! If Rolf had killed off Captain Von Trapp, there wouldn't have been much difference! I believe that about like I believe Kingdom Come never heard of Led Zeppelin!
Anyhow, I've been seething on and off about this for a good long while now, but its worse right now because my doctor messed up my meds! Anyhow, thanks for letting me rant! I've needed to get this off of my chest!
Mr. Willis: Seems she did just that. 🙂
Polly Juice: I appreciate your honest, but, phew, that's one hell of a rant…
SMD: (laughs) Yes, I guess it was. I've had it bottled up for awhile, and as I stated, the doctors messed up my medication.
Maybe I should call myself Verita Serum instead of Polly Juice. Perhaps that was what was in the meds as well.
Lets see if she redeems herself with Pottermore. But I'm not holding my breath.
I have a feeling she's going to have more retirement tours than Ozzy Osbourne.
I'm just hoping she okays a TV show based in her world…you know, like The Aurors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WhhS2maFEs
SMD: LOL, for a minute you had me going, but I think a show about the Marauders would be a great idea.
Just remember: the Marauders are mine, muwhahahahahahaha!
You're free to have them, madam. 🙂
your mean whoever wrote this jk rowling is an amazing person
OK…
I really like JK rowling, I think here efforts in charity are admirable and I believe that the connections she had with her characters were stronger than anyone else and its wrong to say she just killed them off to make money, like why would that effect the amount of books sold, but rather killed them off to elevate the story and too prove no one is too special to die and feel the hurt in the world. I think she has made mistakes but everyone does and that she is a good person especially for creating such an ingenious world.
This article is from 11 years ago. I don’t know if money is a motivation, but I continue to be bothered by her desire to get brownie points for “diversity” by simply saying “see, I have these people over here” without making those elements actually part of the story. I’d rather she write a story that explicitly presents those ideas than think she deserves some sort of credit for something she didn’t actually do. Dumbledore was just the first of what seems to be a trend.