Even after her books were published, JK Rowling found it difficult to call herself a “real writer.”
Even after the publication of Harry Potter, JK Rowling struggled to see herself as a real writer
The 59-year-old author created the magical Harry Potter franchise – which became the best-selling book series of all time, with over 600 million copies sold worldwide – but admitted that even after publication, she did not want to see herself as one because she had so badly wanted to be a published author because she did not want to “jinx” herself.
When asked when she realised it was a success, she told the Sunday Times: “To be honest, it’s all a bit of a blur. Winning the Smarties Book Prize (in 1997) was a massive moment and then I got a record advance from America and everything went crazy.”
“I was overjoyed (when I made it onto the bestseller list) because it felt like something that happens to real writers.
“I can’t stress enough how shy I was about calling myself an author. Even after my book was published, I was hesitant to say it out loud because I had wanted to do it for so long and didn’t want to bring bad luck on myself.”
The release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1997 was followed by Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the following year and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in 1999. By this time, Rowling had already sold the film rights to Warner Bros for a reported £1 million.
Four more books followed, and after the release of eight films – starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint – as well as the creation of a theme park, a studio tour and a West End play, the entire franchise is said to be worth $25 billion.
Rowling, who also writes under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, explained that she already knew what she wanted to do with the long-running story of the wizard’s apprentice and his time at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry after completing the first book, but she made sure that she would still have “fun” picking up the pen in the almost two decades that followed.
She said: “By the end of the first book, I knew how the seventh would end and had worked out a lot of the details of the world, but I left enough room to have fun creating things as I went along. Even though they are such different genres, I’ve applied a lot of what I learned about world-building from Potter to the Strike series. In my work, I like to know exactly where I’m going. In my life, that’s not so much the case.”
