I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books, so I can't comment on the material itself. But I do remember that people were lining up at midnight for the launch of each book.

You cojoin two statements which were kept separate from each other. 'Keep it simple' is merely my writing advice to OP.

Ok, point taken, in that regard. Btw, I don't remember anyone focusing on her color of skin or her being "upper-class", what they were fawning over was the story of how she struggled living on welfare and how her book kept getting rejected by publishers before someone with the Midas touch saw the potential in it, making the others regret their decision.

It was definitely blown up and there was a lot of media hype, but there was nothing racist or elitist about it.

Basically, she wrote some books that a lot of people really really liked, and made a relatively modest amount of money. Then the movies, video games and oodles of merch made her a billionaire.

Bitter, said the fox of rowan berries.

Now I'm not a fan but it actually does certain things remarkably well.

1. The prophetic victim. Harry Potter suffers the tradegy of losing his parents and then suffers abusive neglect from relatives. But manages to overcome all these setbacks to essentially save the world. This is essentially the narative of a religious prophet, both gain sympathy from the audience while achieving the mental status of him essentially being a legend.

2. Ideal Friendships. If you look at any of the most successful books or dramas they contain this. Friends who care about each other, share exciting experiences together, have each others back and have amusing banter.

3. Coping with Bullies. We all come across bullies in our lives. Harry Potter and his friend cope with their bully and often overcome him in triumph

4. Magical Lore. Yes she didn't invent it and it's borrowed but she creates an exciting alternate universe that is an escape from the mundane real world.

5. Adventures with a beggining, middle and an end. The books are fast moving and aren't boring. It's an experience for the reader.

Do the concepts or literature have great depth? No. But neither does The Bible or The Quran and they both did quite well.

Except that the magic in the HP universe is really terribly done, almost every spell is shooting something, wands may as well be guns.

You need to read a book more than once in order to properly appreciate it.

I guess it is the immersive world she made and people enjoy this as well as the link to reality it has. Pretending to be Harry potter characters, deciding which house in hogwards etc.

Up until the 1990's, adults generally grew out of children's fairytales, and moved onto books for their age range. The HP marketing/media blitz created the current climate of "kidults": the juvenilization of culture where 40-year-olds proudly consume products designed for 10-year-olds and obsess over revivals of the kids' stuff they enjoyed 30 years ago.

I think HP became a success because the premise (of having special magical powers and the opportunity to escape your ****y overbearing parents) is the equivalent of catnip to children and teenagers, and the whole House competition aspect taps into human tribalism and gang mentality. Not that they're poorly written, but I definitely think the concept is the big selling point rather than the characters.

You have to consider the two major newspapers that were pushing the JK Rowling story hard at the beginning: the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, both highly reactionary, right-wing "Little Englander" publications obsessed with royalty, house prices and immigration. If she wasn't white, or if she was working class, she would never have got the amount of column inches she did, and any coverage she got would have been very different in tone.

Books for stupid gullible people, much like Harry Potter.

So, how did Stephen King succeeded & how did he make all that money? By selling coke-fueled torture porn?
So, how did Mickey Spillane succeeded & how did he make all that money? By selling misogynistic crime pulps?
So, how did Charles Dickens succeeded & how did he make all that money? By selling wordy books about petty tales?
So, how did Jane Austen succeeded & how did she make all that money? By selling girly high-hat romances?
So, how did Dr. Seuss succeeded & how did he make all that money? By selling silly stories with made-up words?
So, how did Arthur Conan Doyle succeeded & how did he make all that money? By selling books about a detective who can solve anything off of vague guesses and logic that makes no sense?
So, how did Beverly Clearly succeeded & how did she make all that money? By selling kids' books with shallow plots?
So, how did H.G. Wells succeeded & how did he make all that money? By selling dull adventure stories featuring one or two futuristic things?
So, how did J.R.R. Tolkein succeeded & how did he make all that money? By selling books filled with boring backstory and endless purple prose?
So, how did Agatha Christie succeeded & how did she make all that money? By making up unlikely murder mysteries with cheap solutions?
So, how did Michael Crichton succeeded & how did he make all that money? By writing about dinosaurs and fake science nobody understands?
So, how did William Shakespeare succeeded & how did he make all that money? By selling bawdy plays written for cheap British audiences with a dumb sense of humor?
So, how did John Steinbeck succeeded & how did he make all that money? By selling depressing stories where bad things happen in a bad world to bad people?
So, how did Ray Bradbury succeeded & how did he make all that money? By selling books whining about how the old days were better and technology is evil?
So, how did Shel Silverstein succeeded & how did he make all that money? By selling puns with scratchy drawings?
So, how did Isaac Asimov succeeded & how did he make all that money? By selling robot stories?

If you'd like me to keep going, I can also talk about Dean Koontz, Stan Lee, Michael Bay, Neil Gaiman, The Beatles, Stanley Kubrick, Sigmund Freud, and, just for kicks, we can even discuss how Jasper Johns got popular when he's just so gosh darned boring as both an artist and a person.

I dunno, I gobbled up the books when I was a kid and did watch the first movie...which was a huge disappointment, so much so that I didn't watch any of the sequels, even as a kid. So it's not fair to paint it as simple as that. She and her books/movies got pushed a lot, so the release of those became an event and because of that, became something special in the minds of the people.