The countdown to two of the year's most anticipated films—The Fellowship of the Ring and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone—has begun. And since both are based on phenomenally popular fantasy books, publishers, audiobook publishers and booksellers are just as excited about the months ahead as cineplex owners. New Line Cinema's version of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, opens December 19, and retailers (including 750 BookSense member stores) have been stocking up on various print editions of the books for months (see Book News, Bookselling; Sept. 10). Happily, audiobooks are poised to be part of the Hobbit hoopla as well.
"The Lord of the Rings boxed set has always been popular on our list and now with the movie, sales have really popped," said Mary Beth Roche, v-p and director of publicity for the Random House Audio Publishing Group. The Random House Audio production is a BBC full-cast dramatization that features Ian Holm, who plays Bilbo Baggins in the film. In a move to capitalize on the Hollywood hype, Random Audio will publish The Fellowship of the Ring as a separate title (previously available only in the boxed set) on October 30. It will be available on both cassette and CD, and Random House's children's audio imprint, Listening Library, will release the same recording with more kid-friendly packaging. Random House Audio and Listening Library also feature the BBC dramatization of The Hobbit on their backlists, and Random offers a dramatization of Tolkien's Simarillion as well.
Other Random House Audio promotions tied to the Fellowship movie momentum include 100,000 postcard inserts in Ballantine's mass-market paperback boxed sets of the books. Each postcard set lets consumers mail one postcard to a friend and one to Random House Audio. The first 250 people to respond will receive a free CD sampler of The Fellowship of the Ring. In addition, Random House Audio is producing 10,000 CD samplers of The Fellowship of the Ring for booksellers to use in-store and as giveaways.
At Recorded Books, "Sales of our Tolkien titles are building and we think they'll be strong through the end of the year," said company president Brian Downing. Downing noted that the company plans to participate in major co-op promotions through Barnes & Noble, Borders and other retailers as the film opening draws closer. British actor Rob Inglis serves as narrator on these Recorded Books Tolkien titles: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Return of the King and The Hobbit, available unabridged on cassette and CD and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy available on cassette.
Additional recordings of Tolkien's works include: J.R.R. Tolkien Reads Excerpts from the Hobbit and the Fellowship of the Ring, from Caedmon Audio, and The Hobbit performed by a full cast, from Soundelux Audio.
But before Bilbo Baggins and the bunch get their due, boy-wizard Harry Potter makes his film debut in Warner Bros.'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, opening November 16. Listening Library, the U.S. publisher of the audiobook versions of Rowling's four Harry Potter novels, will largely be promoting its titles via appearances by Grammy-winning narrator/ performer Jim Dale. Though Dale has canceled a fall publicity tour in the wake of the terrorist attacks, he will appear at the Union Square Barnes & Noble store in Manhattan on November 19, and has been interviewed by movie critic Joel Siegel, for Siegel's syndicated holiday movie special, scheduled to air in 200 markets in late November.
