A world without the boy who lived
May 5, 2014 5:00 PM

I have a very simple question that Google is not helping me answer. Would JK Rowling have completed all 7 Harry Potter books if the the first one had not been accepted by any publishers? You know, just for fun.

JK Rowling has said many times that she had the whole series planned out from the start. So, would she have abandoned the project if the first book was not published? Is it said anywhere, or do you believe that she (or other writers) would have been satisfied to write their series' just for their own pleasure?
posted by Youremyworld to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: This needs to be a totally different sort of question for it not to be total chatfilter. -- jessamyn

I'm just speculating here, but it's well known that she was a struggling single mother at the time who viewed her writing as a potential way out of poverty. It's doubtful that she would have had the luxury of writing seven (seven!) very large novels just for the hell of it if the first had already proved to be not commercially viable. From a purely practical use of time, I would suggest that she would have tried a different story and kept trying other avenues. She was under financial pressure to find one that worked after all, I don't know that writing for a hobby was where her head was at. And writing generally takes a very long time. Again, just my thoughts.
posted by Jubey at 5:06 PM on May 5, 2014


There is absolutely no way to answer this question unless one of us happens to be J.K. Rowling.
posted by erst at 5:06 PM on May 5, 2014


This question is like saying, "The guy on the street corner is thinking of a number between 1 and infinity. What do you think it is? Discuss."
posted by Houstonian at 5:08 PM on May 5, 2014


I'm going to guess no.

I'm a published author, and I've written first books in series both before and after I've been published that didn't sell. The only sequel I've written was for a book that sold. If you're doing the whole thing for money, it's actually harder to sell two finished books in a series--because editorial changes to the first can substantially impact the second. If you're doing the whole thing for money, or if you hope to be published, it makes more sense to pick yourself up after rejection, dust yourself off, and start fresh with a new concept.

Seven books is a hell of a lot of unpaid work.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:08 PM on May 5, 2014


« Older Debt dispute, part 2   |   Terry Pratchett's favo[u]rite limerick? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.