Even Bloomsbury has Harry headaches. The huge profits that the novels generate lead the City – in many ways, a stupid organism – to expect the company to make high margins in the Potter-less future. But publishing is publishing: a risky, low-margin business. Harry’s wizardry can alter that law only for the books in which he stars.

However, the series is often only good for its publishers as many booksellers don’t make a dime of the sales of the books.

But booksellers have mixed feelings about Harry. He was one of the factors contributing to the demise of Ottakar’s, which incurred big marketing costs in promoting him before seeing supermarkets and Amazon cream off most of the sales. Waterstone’s, which bought Ottakar’s, has warned that it will not make any money out of The Deathly Hallows. Independent booksellers cannot compete with their loss-leading rivals; a quarter of them have said that they will not stock the book.

Even Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos indicates his company wont be making any money on the forthcoming book, and even Rowling’s publishers admit they are distracted from other parts of their businesses during Potter releases.

Even though the books generate huge sales for all concerned, when you factor in the enormous effort of promotions and marketing and deep-discounts from retailers, Potter fans seem to be the only ones coming out on top.

See also:

Harry Potter: Winning the Battle But Losing the War?

Harry Potter and The Pricing Problem

“HP books are being printed right here in itty-bitty Crawfordsville,” a local resident, who requested anonymity, reported. “We’ve been hearing midnight trains on that seldom-used track to Donnelley’s for weeks now. That’s really the giveaway: middle-of-the-night freight trains on a track that rarely gets used. This is just like last time.”

“There’s weird security here, with the employees,” she added, before referring PW to another local source, a woman with several relatives and friends, employed at both Donnelley’s North Plant and South Plant. While this woman, who also requested anonymity, indicated that, to her knowledge, employees have not been required to sign nondisclosure agreements, she described thorough lunch box searches at the end of each work day and a ban on all cellphones at the plant for the duration of the project, identified as “MLK” by all Donnelley personnel.

“They wrap up the books in black cellophane and keep them in a secured storage area. There are garage doors in some of the rooms, blocking them off. You can only go through if you have a garage door opener,” she said.

(via PW)