ABA on Harry Potter: Scholastic Not Being Book Fair

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Scholastic School Division is pre-selling Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix through Scholastic's book fairs. In at least one book fair promotion, for each Harry Potter order, Scholastic guarantees a first-edition copy, a collectible baseball cap, and an official certificate of purchase, which the buyer receives when pre-ordering the book.

The news of the Scholastic book fair Potter promotion has a number of booksellers,who contend that the children's publisher is undercutting them on what's sure to be this year's biggest seller, up in arms. In response to Scholastic's book fair promotion, and on behalf of independent booksellers, ABA today wrote Scholastic Vice President of Trade Books Michael Jacobs calling for the publisher to "immediately reevaluate this unfortunate decision."

"They're selling the book [to students] at full price, but they're offering a $17 cotton cap for free," said Cissy Greenbaum, owner of Westwinds Bookstore in Duxbury, Massachusetts. "And I found out by mistake -- the biggest issue is that this is being done and nobody knows about it."

In the letter, ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz noted:

"I’m writing on behalf of the numerous bookstore members of ABA who have communicated their distress and anger over Scholastic’s decision to pre-sell Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix through the upcoming Scholastic book fairs. This action can only be described as an assault on your retail customers."

Domnitz continued, "The strategy of pre-selling the new Potter at school book fairs for actual distribution to the public from your warehouses on June 21, 2003, eliminates the retail distribution channel, from wholesaler to bookshop (independent or chain). This is simply beyond the pale."

The letter also states: "This will be the biggest publishing/bookselling event of the year. Bookshops, by promoting your book, will create goodwill, credibility, and profitability for themselves AND for Scholastic. Scholastic is undercutting retail distribution, and not for the first time. And with a book as important as this, such a move can be particularly devastating for many booksellers, and going directly to the consumer (your customer’s customer) months BEFORE the publication date is both obdurate and callous. You are undermining all of the effort being put forth by booksellers nationwide, and it simply defies belief."

For the full ABA letter, click here. --David Grogan