Rowling heavily promoting her The Casual Vacancy – but will it cast a spell on adult readers?

JK Rowling is heavily promoting her latest novel “The Casual Vacancy”.

According to her interview with the Guardian, she dreamed up the idea for on a plane: "And I thought: local election! And I just knew. I had that totally physical response you get to an idea that you know will work. It's a rush of adrenaline, it's chemical. I had it with Harry Potter and I had it with this. So that's how I know."

The Casual Vacancy is set in a fictional town of Pagford, written from multiple perspectives. It is supposed to be "a story of class warfare set amid semi-rural poverty, heroin addiction, and teen-age perplexity and sexuality."

In writer Ian Parker's assessment, "within a few pages, it was clear that the novel had not been written for children.... But reviewers looking for echoes of the Harry Potter series will find them. The novel describes young people coming of age in a place divided by warring factions, and the deceased council member, Barry Fairbrother (who dies in the first chapter but remains the story’s moral center) had the same virtues, in his world, that Harry had in his: tolerance, constancy, a willingness to act."

From a marketing and legal standpoint, the terms of the embargo have become part of the story. The Guardian reporter described being "required to sign more legal documents than would typically be involved in buying a house before I am allowed to read it, under tight security in the London offices of Little Brown. Even the publishers have been forbidden to read it, and they relinquish the manuscript gingerly, reverently, as though handling a priceless Ming vase."

Good legal practice, but silly marketing? You are the judge!

Will Rowling be able to cast her spell on adult audiences? I have my doubts...Let’s wait and see!

Will ReadMatter Really Matter?

Two enterprising journalists, Jim Giles and Bobbie Johnson, decided that it was time for an innovative online magazine - Matter. The format will long-form investigative narrative journalism about science and technology. “No cheap reviews, no snarky opinion pieces, no top ten lists,” they promise. “Just one unmissable story.”

Both journalists have an impressive resume: Jim Giles wrote for Nature and The Economist) and Bobbie Johnson for The Guardian and The New York Times. Not too shabby.

They decided to use Kickstarter to raise $ 50,000 in funds. They were more than successful – they raised over $140,000. “People gave way more than I thought they would,” said Jim Giles. “We have tapped into frustration with the way the internet has promoted quick and cheap journalism and bashed longer-quality stuff, or at least undermined the business model that used to support that sort of thing.”

Matter tweeted on April, 4: “We don't have a set launch date, but it will probably be in a couple of months”. Once Matter is alive, readers will have the option of buying individual stories for 99 cents each or opt for a subscription. The magazine will be monthly at first, and then weekly, assuming everything goes according to plan.

The 99 cents model is clever. Readers can purchase an article and read it on Kindle and iPad. Giles and Johnson leverage the ebooks hype. Some journalists and writers make money via Amazon and news sites such as atavist.net with stories that are too long to be published in a newspaper or magazine, and too short for a book.

Matter wants writers to approach them with vague ideas. The writer then gets matched to an editor very early on — before the piece is even formally commissioned — and the final article comes together as a collaboration between the writer, editor, and publishers.

However, Matter is quite narrow in what it wants to publish. It is focusing on long-form, narrative, investigative news stories about science and technology. To overcome this hurdle, the founders are looking at different models e.g., cooperating with newspapers.

Let’s wait and see if it lives up to its promise of “gripping exposes of online crime, untold tales of environmental threats, inside stories about revolutionary technologies and exclusive reports from the most controversial research labs.” Time will tell.......