Harry Potter her publishers to adopt a more gender-neutral pen name in order to appeal to the male members of this age group, fearing that they would not be interested in reading a novel they knew to be written by a woman. She elected to use J. K. Rowling (Joanne Kathleen Rowling), using her grandmother's name as her second name because she has no middle name. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was published by Bloomsbury, the publisher of all "Harry Potter" books in the United Kingdom, on 26 June 1997. It was released in the United States on 1 September 1998
Politics of J. K. Rowling Rowling responded to her critics by saying that the people in the Harry Potter books who are "on the plumper side" include "several of my most important, admirable and loveable characters". She included a link to a fan website – www.mugglenet.com – that lists seven characters who are "fat and good", three who are "fat and bad" and claims there are none who are "fat and evil". However, there were skinny and evil characters in the series. J. K. Rowling opposes the labelling of children's books as "age appropriate". On 22 October 2015, a letter was published in "The Guardian"