Demand has been so hot for this local series that Popular Bookstores now takes up to 500 copies of its new releases, as opposed to its usual practice of ordering a maximum of 10 copies per title for each outlet....The first batch ordered always exceeds 4,500 copies, and all will be sold within a month. ... To date, the first book titled Seven Days has sold more than 30,000 copies since its release in 2006 – even at the relatively high price of RM20 per copy. ... The success of the series has stunned everyone from writers and editors to publishers, all of whom thought books with 80,000 to 100,000 characters sprawled over 300 pages without illustrations would never get the attention of young readers.It was so nice to read about the runaway success of a local Chinese children's author, Khor Ewe Pin, in a piece by Yip Yoke Teng in today's Starmag. This teacher and textbook writers says that he noticed that there seemed to be a literary void for older children reading in Chinese. He studied how Rowling's novels were written ... and it seems that some of the magic dust rubbed off on him too.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Malaysia's Answer to Harry Potter?
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7 comments:
I think the success of any book depends, apart from a good story, on the timing and other hard-to-measure factors. The key is still good storytelling. And I think you'll agree it's not just Harry Potter but a universal literary formula of hope, heroes, villains, romance, etc. Whatever the reason, it's all good for the M'sian literary scene.
Hope Ewe Pin's success will encourage more to write in Chinese as well as in Malay and English. Syabas!
Great news! Let's hope it encourages other local authors.
Dunno why the editors etc were surprised though - the Malaysian Tax Dept thinks ONLY children ever read!! See my blog here: http://tinyurl.com/yjla647
That's great! Good for her. Hope to see an English translation.
Monday blog post for writers who want to publish teasers online but keep control is up today. Your cat blog post features on Friday. http://www.lepak.com/katztales.html
it is nice to know that Malaysian writer can sell too.
What's the Chinese title? 七天? And the authors name in Chinese characters?
where can i buy this series of books?
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