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Harry Potter shatters records
18/07/2005 08:31 - (SA)
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| Ecstatic fans pose with their copies of British author JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at Waterstones bookstore in London. (Yui Mok, AP)
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New York - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince shattered publishing records in the United States, selling 6.9 million copies in its first 24 hours on sale, its US publisher Scholastic said on Sunday.
"Once again Harry Potter made history. Early reports estimate that Scholastic broke all publishing records," a Scholastic statement said.
"The fact that a brilliantly written book for children just sold 6.9 million copies in the first 24 hours in the US is cause for celebration, not just for Scholastic but for book lovers everywhere," said Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic Children's Book Publishing.
Printing more copies
A second printing of the sixth volume in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series is already hitting US bookstores, the firm said.
Scholastic had printed an unprecedented 10.8 million copies the first time around, but pre-release sales were so brisk it rushed a second printing, the company said.
More than 5 000 bookstores across the US stayed open and fans queued for hours on Friday to snap up the latest account of the young wizard's adventures, which went on sale at the stroke of midnight.
While more than one million avid readers contented themselves with the promise from online retailers like Amazon.com of next day delivery, tens of thousands opted for the instant gratification of midnight purchases.
A momentous occasion smashing sales records
The countdown to the long-awaited release was led by a clock on a giant screen in Times Square, New York City's traditional gathering place for momentous events like the first moon landing.
The last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, sold more than five million copies on the first day.
The launch hype was matched only by the extraordinary security measures taken to prevent any copies of the book leaking out before the official release date and hour.
Scholastic required the managers of all the US stores and libraries with which it deals to sign affidavits pledging to keep the copies under wraps and in a secure room.
The release of the new Harry Potter book broke all online sales records at Amazon, with more than 1.5 million copies snapped up in a matter of hours, the company said on Saturday.
By late Friday, the US website took more than 1.5 million orders from around the world.
Amazon's US site alone took more than 919 000 orders.
The previous Amazon sales record was set by the last Potter instalment's release two years ago.
- AFP
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