'Hysterical' quest for next Potter

Philip Pullman, whose novel The Amber Spyglass was the first children's book to win the Whitbread Prize, has accused publishers of a "hysterical" obsession with trying to find "the next Harry Potter".

His comments to The Independent on Sunday come as publishing houses prepare to unleash dozens of "crossover" novels aimed at both children and grown-ups.

The literary phenomenon follows the huge number of adults drawn to J K Rowling's Harry Potter series. Large numbers have also read Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy, which like the Rowling books has been published with both adult and children's covers.

According to the industry analysts Book Marketing, nearly 50 per cent of "Potter genre" titles were bought for adult readers last year, compared with 29 per cent in 1999. In the same period, the proportion bought for those in the target group, aged eight to 14, fell from 71 per cent to 36 per cent.

While many of the forthcoming books have been lauded by critics, and attracted interest from Hollywood, not everyone is so convinced.

Pullman said: "Everybody now wants another Harry Potter, but how many people six years ago said, 'Where's the first Harry Potter? We want a Harry Potter'? None. The next big thing, whatever it is, no one can actually guess at.

"It's getting slightly hysterical. It's getting to the [point] where, with part of the children's market, it's huge advance publicity and it's film rights and goodness knows what. But only one book in 100 that's talked up like this will be a success."

Altogether, five new imprints aimed at mixed-age readerships will be released by the end of the year. Chief among these is Atom, launched by Time Warner this week, which counts among its most promising titles Mirror Dream, a fairytale by Catherine Webb, aged 16.

A commissioning editor, Ben Sharpe, said: "We've been looking at the market and seeing all this weird genre fiction with a mixed-age following, from Buffy through Star Wars to Philip Pullman, and no one was specifically targeting that area."