The Net Worth of JK Rowling

How rich is Harry Potter writer JK Rowling?

Before JK Rowling began to swing the pen, sorcerers’ apprentices led an unspectacular existence. It was only with the stories about the Hogwarts student Harry Potter that the public learned of the turbulent training for witches and wizards. The speed with which the Harry Potter books sold and made their author a billionaire at times also bordered on witchcraft. The title hero has now gone down in the annals of children’s books – and as a worldwide one Brand worth $ 15 billion.

Within a few years, JK Rowling wrote herself to be a multimillionaire. The total proceeds from her book sales alone were put at over 330 million euros in 2012, so she is unchallenged in her home country. In addition, there are the marketing rights for the Harry Potter figure. Forbes valued her fortune at $ 1 billion in 2004, but Rowling denied it. We stick with our estimate on the Sunday Times, which the JK Rowling’s fortune at 770 million euros appreciates.

The Road to an Author’s Greatest Fortune

The years before Harry Potter

The future JK Rowling was born as Joanne Rowling on July 31, 1965 in Yate, UK, near Bristol. Already in her childhood she wrote fantasy stories which she read to her sister Dianne. In her later, professional publications, characters are based on people or experiences from childhood.

Rowling studied French and Classical Studies at the University of Exeter; a year as an English teacher took me to Paris. Various office activities followed at the end of the 1980s, including for Amnesty International in London. In 1991 she accepted a job at an English school in Porto, Portugal. In 1992 she married the Portuguese journalist Jorge Arantes, but separated from him a year later and the divorce took place in 1994. In December 1993 she moved to Edinburgh, Scotland with her 1-year-old daughter – three Harry Potter chapters in her suitcase.

By 1995 Rowling had her first book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” written. The legendary glorification of the rise from a single mother with social assistance to a bestselling author comes from that time. In fact, Rowling was unemployed and suffered from depressive states. Bloomsbury Publishing finally brought out the debut in 1997 with an edition of 1,000 copies, half of which were library copies.

“Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” – the facts

• As an advance from Bloomsbury, Rowling received the equivalent of a little more than 2,000 euros.
• The first editions of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” are now traded antiquarian between 25,000 and 35,000 euros.
• After her first work, Rowling received a scholarship from the Scottish Artc Council in 1997 to be able to continue writing, amounting to around 11,000 euros.
• In Germany, Carlsen Verlag published the novel in 1997 with a print run of 8,000 copies.
• In 1998 the American publisher Scholastic Inc. secured the publication rights for around 94,000 euros.

Record sales

Already in 1998 the author presented the successor “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”, in Germany the book was published in 1999. But only with the third (“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”) and fourth part (“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ”) on the adventures of the student of magic, its inventor became a worldwide bestseller. The latter was published on July 8, 2000 and sold over 370,000 books on its first day in the UK, with a circulation of 1 million and 3.8 million in the US.

Harry Potter as a “global brand” and that

To date, 7 Harry Potter books have been published, translated into more than 70 languages, that concludes the series for the time being. However, the author does not categorically rule out further stories. In 2000 Rowling had sold the marketing rights, including the film rights, to Time Warner. Not least because of the total of 8 film adaptations (grossing: around 6 billion euros), Harry Potter became a global brand, the value of which is estimated at 15 billion dollars. The website pottermore.com has played an essential role here since 2011, where visitors can, for example, interactively experience the adventures of the budding magician. Of course, there is also a shop that offers e-books and audio books. The marketing strategy behind the portal – regardless of what is happening in the publishing house – ensures international attention.

What does the K in Joanne K. Rowling stand for?

The “K” stands for Kathleen, which was the name of Joanne’s grandmother. The reason why the author appeared under the pseudonym JK was the book publisher’s fear that the first Harry Potter part would not appeal to young lads if it was written by a woman. So the idea came up to introduce a second letter and thus to disguise the gender of the author. At that time Jo decided on the K from her grandmother. The author name JK Rowling was born.

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