Bloomsbury plans to revive JK Rowling’s Harry Potter brand

How old does a boy wizard have to be before he needs a youth potion? Around 17 apparently, about the age Harry Potter was in the finale of the series. Seventeen years after JK Rowling’s first book in the super-successful saga was published, and seven years after the finale, publisher Bloomsbury is looking to conjure up some makeover magic for boy wizard. Over the next year, plans are for a new edition of all seven books, a “children’s edition”, with illustrations on every page, making it almost like a graphic novel.

Warner Bros has announced a three-film series based on Rowling’s spinoff, “Fantastic Beasts and where to find them.” There’s also a westend play in the making, and loads of crowd magic, or marketing initiatives, especially targeted at schools.

When Harry Potter burst through the publishing scene, it was a phenomenon that challenged the then prevailing wisdom that digital-age children don’t read real books, and went on to make billions for everyone involved in the franchise. But there’s a new generation out there now, and they aren’t familiar with Hogwarts.

Bloomsbury, which struck gold with Khalid Hosseini’s bestseller And the Mountains Echoed in 2013, has seen sales, even of e-books dropping in the first half of 2014, and had its profits almost halved. The company clearly believes that when times are bad, you need a good wizard. But even a good wizard needs a bit of pep-potion at times.