Records seen tumbling as Harry Potter goes on sale

By Michael Perry and Mike Collett-White

SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) – Witching hour passed and Harry
Potter fans poured into bookshops around the world on Saturday,
snatching up copies of the latest instalment in the series that
promises to be the fastest-selling book in history.

Ending months of hype, and elaborate measures to prevent
details of the boy wizard’s latest adventures leaking out,
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” hit the shelves at one
minute past midnight London time.

Children from around the world descended on the Scottish
city of Edinburgh, where Potter author J.K. Rowling began
reading from the latest book as soon as the deadline passed.

In Sydney, Australia, about 300 Potter fans crammed into
the city’s largest bookshop waiting for secured boxes of books
marked “embargoed” to be opened.

More than 1,000 followers were aboard a special train
called the Gleewarts Express, which took them to a secret
location outside the city where they would receive their
copies.

Train owner Roger Mackell refused to disclose their
destination.

“They are going to another land. If I told you where, I’d
have to kill you,” he joked.

In London, Pottermania broke out with hundreds of parents
and children queuing outside bookshops.

“Every book just gets bigger and bigger,” said David Roche
of Waterstone’s book retailer, speaking hours before the
launch.

“It’s like a film premiere now but for a book, which is
quite extraordinary. We had 2,000 people queuing in the West
End the last time a Harry Pottter book came out; we anticipate
the queue is going to be even bigger this time.”

STAGGERING FOREACSTS

Staggering sales forecasts may explain why so much time and
effort has gone into protecting the contents of the sixth and
penultimate book in the Harry Potter series.

Waterstone’s predicts the book will sell over 10 million
copies worldwide in the first 24 hours. Around 275 million
copies of the first five books in the series have been sold to
date and three Harry Potter movies have grossed $2.5 billion.

With book sales likely to run into the tens of millions,
when a handful of copies were inadvertently sold before the
deadline in Canada, purchasers were ordered not to disclose its
contents, and, according to media reports, even not to read it.

A Web Site offering what it claimed was an electronic
version of the book was closed down, and two British men were
charged last month with firearms offenses after allegedly
trying to sell a stolen copy of the Harry Potter book to a
tabloid newspaper.

Retailers are engaged in an aggressive discount battle.

“There is no sign of the sales figures waning, and
booksellers have been working hard on marketing and the
discounting has been even heavier,” said Caroline Horn,
children’s book expert at the Bookseller magazine.

“That’s what it is about this year — market share.”

Rowling first thought up the Harry Potter character in
1990, and after the original book “Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone” was turned down by several publishers,
Bloomsbury finally offered to print it.

The adventures of Harry Potter and his friends at Hogwarts
School of Wizardry and Witchcraft have won over a new
generation of young readers and been adapted into a movie
series.

They also made Rowling the wealthiest woman in the United
Kingdom, with a personal fortune estimated in 2004 at $1
billion.