Teenagers are looking for Harry Potter 6 in a bookstore

VietNamNet Bridge – Slated for release at 7.30am on July 21 by HCM City-based book distributor Fahasa, Harry Potter’s last volume will mark one of the biggest original book distributing campaigns in recent years.

Two years ago, Harry Potter 6, The Half-Blood Prince, became the first work of literature to be released in Vietnam simultaneously with the rest of the world.

Fahasa carried out in minute detail all phases ranging from transportation to the opening of warehouses at the same moment as those worldwide, though the batch to be sold then was merely 3,000 copies.

The upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, however, will be a much bigger event. Instead of merely 3, all 25 Fahasa bookstores will open to sell Harry Potter 7.

To be able to orchestrate this event, Fahasa has gone through a complex negotiation process with Bloombury Publishing House, which includes strict security regulations like keeping secret the cover and the number of pages, sealing packages, or submitting posters to Bloombury for approval.

In particular, the transportation process in which the copies will be delivered to Vietnam 7 days before the issue date will cost Fahasa more than half a billion dong.

The release hour will also be a problem since Vietnamese readers don’t have the habit of going to bookstores around 7.30 in the morning. So to make it more convenient for customers, Fahasa is encouraging them to order in advance at a Fahasa bookstore or www.fahasa.com.vn for a 5% discount off the cover price.

This discount is particularly enticing considering the fact that Vietnamese readers will have to pay an unusually high price for Harry Potter 7: almost VND600,000. This is the record price for an original work of literature in the Vietnamese book market.

With high costs as well as a discouraging price for each copy, Fahasa, a typical example of a nimble Vietnamese company in the WTO age, is gambling on the attraction of the book itself. Harry Potter 7 is the last volume of the most successful work for children in history with a total number of 320 million copies printed in 64 countries throughout the world.

The series have also been remarkably popular in Vietnam. About 2 months after the release of the original English version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Youth Publishing House will also embark on the “biggest literature work distribution campaign in recent years” for the Vietnamese version, which will certainly be much cheaper than the English one.

(Source: SGGP)