What happened after Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone was published?
My publisher was very encouraging and told me it was selling surprisingly well. There was no great fanfare – a good review in The Scotsman, followed by some others – but mostly it seems to have been word of mouth. Then my American publisher, Scholastic, bought the rights to the first book for more money than anyone had expected. The burst of publicity terrified me. I was teaching part-time and trying to write Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I felt frozen by all the attention. What made you decide to become a full-time writer? It wasn’t an easy decision. I didn’t know whether this was all just a flash in the pan. And I had my daughter to think of. But I thought that I could probably afford to write full-time for two years, although I was risking my teaching career because I wouldn’t gain the experience necessary to go back to it as a career. When I won the Smarties Book Prize, sales started to climb. I got my first royalty cheque. I didn’t expect to earn any royalties – not for
