The fantastic world of J.K. Rowling and her self-built fortune
lovemoney staff
21 November 2016
J.K. Rowling's magical empire
As J.K. Rowling's latest post-Potter venture, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, takes global box offices by storm, we take a look at the author's life and the spectacular story behind her self-made success.
How Harry happened
It was on a fatefully delayed train from Manchester to London’s King Cross station, now known the world over as the home of the Hogwarts Express’s Platform 9 ¾, where Rowling conceived the idea for Harry Potter back in 1990. After her journey, Rowling spent the next five years developing the intricately woven storylines for the seven-book series.
Another career path
Joanne, as she’s less frequently called, then made an international move to Portugal to teach English as a second language where she got married and had her first child, Jessica. Sadly, the marriage ended in divorce and Rowling made the move back to Britain with her daughter.
Rowling’s big break
After completing three chapters of what would become Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone, Rowling tried her luck and sent her work off to various literary agents. Much to her delight, she heard back from Christopher Little, who was responsible for getting her children’s classic to Bloomsbury Publishing.
Not the best deal
When Bloomsbury accepted the Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone typewritten manuscript, Rowling was living as a single mother on welfare and training to be a teacher. They offered Jo a modest deal of a $2,250 (£1,545) advance for a measly 1,000 printed copies of the first book.
Instant success
Once published in 1997, the book went on to become a best-seller that same year. Due to its success in English-speaking countries, the book was quickly translated into numerous foreign languages, allowing Harry Potter to gain a global fanbase.
Record-breaking numbers
After its translation into 78 different languages around the world, the Harry Potter series went on to sell over 450 million copies, with the revenue generated by the book sales soaring up to $7.7 billion (£5.3bn).
Hollywood calling
In 1999 J.K. Rowling sold the film rights for the first four books in the Harry Potter series to Warner Bros. for just $2 million (£1M). Throughout the deal, Rowling was insistent that the people cast to play the film characters stay as true to their book descriptions as possible – even maintaining that the English characters hail from England and the French from France and so on.
Movie pay-off
The franchise would go on to include eight films as the seventh book was too action-packed to be stuffed into a single movie. Collectively, the films raked in a whopping $7.2 billion (£4.9B) worldwide with the last film bringing in over $169 million (£116M) in the US alone.
Harry Potter as a brand
The Potter brand is now known and loved across both nations and generations. And it now stretches across much more than just books and films.
Pottermore
Having already amassed a fortune from tapping into the depths of her wildly creative imagination to build the brand of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling continues to develop her magical world online at the Pottermore website. Fans can interact with all things Potter and be the first to learn the truth behind interesting plot details straight from Rowling herself. They can purchase items ranging from eBooks for $8.70 (£5.99) and merchandise like quill pens for up to $73 (£50).
Video Games
The video gaming world has long been fascinated by the worlds of Harry Potter and games were a natural brand extension. From Playstation to Lego, the franchise has kept up with the ever-changing consoles and graphics with J.K. Rowling signing the rights over to technology giants like Sony.
Theme parks
The Harry Potter craze doesn’t stop with books, films and online memberships. It’s been brought to life with three separate amusement parks in America with two in Orlando, Florida housing different settings from the films. Admission to both of these parks cost $219 (£150) for adults and $209 (£144) for children.
Theme parks
The third park is set to open April 2016 at Hollywood’s Universal Studios. The $95 (£65) tickets will give visitors an experience much like the ones from Orlando’s parks.
Warner Bros. Studio Tour
Superfans of the series, or Potterheads as they call themselves, can indulge in an interactive tour just outside London. The tour takes visitors around the Warner Bros. studios where the majority of the eight movies were filmed.
Warner Bros. Studio Tour
Tickets for the tour cost adults $65 (£44.95) and kids $54 (£36.95) for the complete studio package which includes a ticket and a souvenir and digital guide. However, if you want to invest in a souvenir of your choice, you can splash out on a replica of Albus Dumbledore’s robe for $722 (£495.95) or a Horcrux ring for $58 (£39.95).
Plays
Depicting the tales of Harry’s son, Albus, 19 years after the last book ends, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the London-based play written by Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany. Fans scrambled to secure their spot with tickets selling out in less than an hour and the sheer amount of traffic crashing the ticketing site. Prices went as high as $379 (£260) with third party sites re-selling them for as much as $4,295 (£2,950).
Merchandise
Harry Potter toys and merchandise had chalked up a magical $7.3 billion (£5B) of sales as of 2015 and, as the excitement around any Potter-related announcement shows, those numbers are unlikely to slow for a long time.
Other works
The success that Rowling found through penning the Potter series also opened the door for her to publish other writing. In 2012, she published her first adult fiction book called The Casual Vacancy, which became a bestseller and was later adapted as a TV miniseries by the BBC. She later went on to publish a series of three crime books under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith that also won awards and were named bestsellers.
Rich list
In 2010, Rowling came second only to media mogul Oprah Winfrey on Forbes’ list of richest women in the world. It was reported then that she had a net worth of $1 billion, making her the first person in the world to become a billionaire through writing.
Charities
However, in 2015 J.K. Rowling fell off the Forbes list of billionaires, with the magazine citing her generous charitable donations as the main reason. As well as donations, to raise funds for UK charity Comic Relief she wrote two companion Harry Potter volumes, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, which raised a collective $25 million (£17M).
Lumos
However, simply donating to existing charities didn’t satisfy Rowling who founded Lumos, her own charity dedicated to raising funds to improve the quality of life of underprivileged children. As she did for Comic Relief, she wrote a new Harry Potter tie-in book, The Tales of Beedle The Bard, which raised a cool $6 million (£4.2M) for Lumos.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
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Just as fans thought Harry Potter's days were over, Rowling released its spin-off, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which made an estimated $75m (£61m) over its opening weekend alone. Starring Eddie Redmayne as magizoologist Newt Scamander, the film took more than the rest of the box office top 10 combined.
Just how rich is she?
While her philanthropy may mean she fell of Forbes' list of billionaires, in 2015 alone J.K. Rowling still boasted an impressive $825 million (£570M) fortune, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. But since the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Rowling's fortune is expected to have increased dramatically, raking in generous box office takings, as well earnings from other post-Potter works.
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