Harry Potter series: Britain's spy agency alerted books' publisher to possible online leaked copy
Usually concerned with top secret matters affecting national security, Britain's eavesdropping spy agency GCHQ was also on the lookout for leaks of a yet-to-be-published Harry Potter book, its publisher has revealed.
Shortly before the publication of one of the volumes in JK Rowling's seven-part wizarding saga, publisher Nigel Newton received an unexpected phone call.
"I remember the British spy eavesdropping station GCHQ rang me up and said 'we've detected an early copy of this book on the internet'," Mr Newton told the ABC's Conversations program in an interview last week, which gained attention in Britain on Sunday.
"I got him to read a page to our editor and she said 'no, that's a fake'," said Mr Newton, founder and chief executive of publishing house Bloomsbury, which published the Harry Potter series.
A spokesman for GCHQ said: "We do not comment on our defence against the dark arts," in reference to a subject taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in which pupils learn how to defend themselves and fight back against the evil deeds of Dark Wizards.
He said it was lucky that they had "many allies", describing the spies as "good guys" and those trying to ruin the plot of the book as "the enemies".
The incident appears to represent the absolute fever pitch surrounding the books at that time, with Mr Newton adding the publishers had a number of security measures in place — including guard dogs and stationed security at printing houses.
"It was completely mad [the demand for the books] and we were in the eye of the storm," Mr Newton said.
"I remember Jo Rowling phoning me once after she delivered a new book and saying, 'please, Nigel, will you release the name of the title because I have people outside searching my trashcan looking for bits of paper'.
"At that time we had to go into a complete security lockdown because people were trying to steal the manuscript."
Mr Newton recalled another breach when a security guard fired blank rounds at a journalist while trying to sell stolen copies of the book to the media.
He also described one incident where Sun newspaper sent a journalist with an attache case full of 5,000 pounds in notes to circle the printing factory at Clay's, Bungee and Suffolk.
"They offered a worker this money if he would go in and make a copy," he said.
The publishing house, described by Mr Newton as the midwives for the series, regarded keeping the plot secret as very important.
"It's one of the reasons that people read it all at once," he said.
"[After] a midnight launch, most of the kids had read the book by the next day."
First book draws readers into this other world: Newton
Mr Newton recalled the time before the first book was published, when the manuscript had been rejected by 12 other publishers.
Unaware of these rebuffs, Bloomsbury signed the author without hesitation.
"It's not a good selling point [to say] 'here, nobody else wants it but we're scraping the bottom of the barrel so we'll have you," he joked.
His colleagues in the children's division did not have a lot of books on the list, so they had a look at the book.
"They all sat on beanbags at the top of the 21st century box building in Soho square... and they passed each page around from this one copy they had," Mr Newton said.
"They all got so excited that they photocopied the material and rolled it up in a scroll and tied it up with ribbon and filled it with M&M chocolates and gave it to the eight or so of us in the editorial committee.
"What they were trying to say to us was that this book will win the Smarties Prize, which is the greatest prize in the world for children's literature."
I'd never seen anything like it, in the response to the book so it became clear at one point that the sky was going to be the limit.
Mr Newton conceded that it was very important that the character, Harry Potter, was an orphan because "he is having to fend for himself".
"In a way, that first book draws children readers into this other world of Hogwarts where they're separate from the adults and they have their own way of making life work for them," he said.
"[It is] also a very frightening world with forces of evil pitted against forces of ultimate good, but it's about the friendships that are formed, the camaraderie of small groups of friends within the bigger school, and it's also funny — there's humour in it."
The book was published in July 1997 and Mr Newton said by Christmas it had sold 30,000 copies.
"[It] was pretty extraordinary for a children's novel," he said.
"I think I took a bet with our sales director that we could sell 100,000 copies by the following Christmas, which we did, and then I took the bet that we could sell a million copies by the following Christmas.
"I'd never seen anything like it … in the response to the book so it became clear at one point that the sky was going to be the limit."
ABC/Reuters