Soccer Dad

Harry potter and the big oops

The spell is broken (from the Baltimore Sun)

And in Maryland, one surprised customer opened his mail to find his own copy -- delivered four days before the official worldwide release. Jon Hopkins, a 25-year-old software engineer, said he has no plans to divulge the book's secrets.

"I couldn't believe it," he said yesterday after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows arrived at his Davidsonville home. He had ordered the book from DeepDiscount.com on June 3. On Friday, he received an e-mail saying his order had been shipped. He never thought it would come this early.

I e-mailed this article to my wife who called me later and reminded me that her father had ordered us a copy via DeepDiscount. I said that I knew that and wondered if we'd be receiving our copy early also.

Sure enough I got a phone call when she got home, "It's here."

She also told me something else. Apparently Scholastic had gotten hold of a shipping list from DeepDiscount and had called my father-in-law offering him a gift certificate in return for a promise not to read the book until Saturday.

Needless to say, as the article tells us, Scholastic was none too pleased with what happened.

So the publisher wasn't happy to hear of the case of Harry Potter and the Early Delivery.

"You're kidding me," said Kyle Good, a Scholastic spokeswoman. The company has spent millions orchestrating the launch of the last Potter book -- and Internet leaks or early delivery of the novel could spoil that plan.

Apparently DeepDiscount also realized that it had messed up.

Broggi said DeepDiscount.com is in the process of shipping an unspecified number of Potter books from its warehouses in Chicago based on estimated delivery times provided by the U.S. Postal Service. Shipping from Chicago to New York is estimated to take five days. Shipping to Maryland and points south takes even longer.

"Apparently, this one streamed through incredibly quickly," Broggi said of Hopkins' copy. He didn't know how many other copies would arrive early. "It's a freak accident. I would say all we ask is for it not to be read or to keep the ending to yourself."

My guess is that a lot more than one "streamed through incredibly quickly." DeepDiscount used MediaMail which doesn't guarantee a specific delivery time but that the item will be delivered between 2 and 21 days.

At Scholastic, after Good looked into the early delivery yesterday, she said she was satisfied that a "human error at the distribution level" had caused the book to be shipped earlier than it should have been. Asked whether DeepDiscount would suffer for its transgression, she said, "We'll have to talk with them about how we handle it."

Well by now we know that Scholastic has initiated legal action against DeepDiscount. (The NY Daily News article on the topic shows the cover of the Bloomsbury edition of "... the Half Blood Prince." Anyway , Dumbledore is holding his wand in his left hand.)

Apparently, though, DeepDiscount could have worked with the Post Office instead of guessing about delivery times. I'd also guess that unlike the Sun's or Daily News articles. there are many more copies of the book out there than Scholastic initially estimated.

Thousands of copies of the book are in the U.S. Postal Service pipeline. But postal workers have been warned to hold the books until Saturday, said spokeswoman Monica Suraci. The post office expects to deliver about 1.8 million Harry Potter books.

"Our mandate is to hold them so nothing goes out before Saturday," she said. "We've done a great deal of internal outreach on a lot of different levels to reassure that our folks are containing Harry Potter and do not go before that date."

The Wall Street Journal has a lot more including a link to the text of the lawsuit and details about how distributors would ensure that the books would not arrive early.

Those familiar with the direct-mail business weren't shocked that some customers have gotten early copies, but said some would be upset. "This is a big oops," says Denny Hatch, who writes an enewsletter called BusinessCommonSense.com. John Schulte, president of Minneapolis-based National Mail Order Association, a professional organization of people involved in direct marketing, says mistakes happen. "Everything is run by humans, and if somebody typed in the wrong ship date, then you have a problem," he says.

The New York Times reports that

Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic’s trade and book fairs division, said the company had a list of people who had ordered “Deathly Hallows” from DeepDiscount.com and was currently calling them to ask them to put aside the book until 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

That is consistent with my father-in-law's experience.

More Harry Potter on Soccer Dad.

Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.