Marketing, accounting, and publicity mattered, but not nearly as much as editorial preference. The corporate mindset. The novel's heroine is depicted as a femme fatale with a mobile phone, a taste for luxury lingerie and, by the end of the comic, a drug habit that drives her to suicide. The formula's not so difficult. A high school kid who joined an English printing firm for a fortnight's work study program came up with and implemented an idea that earned the company millions of pounds and saved it from bankruptcy.
Critics decry the consolidation of the book business and the declinee of independent book stores.
But anyone who has walked into a Barnes and Noble or Borders can see that most Americans have more access to a wider range of books of all qualities and types than ever before. It was thought that the combination of apartheid censorship and lack of educational advantage had held them back, but now their time had come. Yet they are scarcer than viable South African feature film projects. The Harry Potter books have been a sensation wherever they've been released so far. The books have been published and released in nearly 40 countries and in nearly as many languages.