News & Articles related to harry Potter - Page 9

Four in 10 kids prefer Potter book to TV

London : A poll conducted by Waterson's has revealed that 39 per cent of the kids would miss their favourite TV show to read the latest Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

According to the Sun, Harry Potter's latest book is expected to sell over two million estimated copies in the UK plus 10 million worldwide. Also more than 250,000 grown-ups are expected to buy the adult-cover version on Saturday - making it the fastest-selling adult hardback. ANI

Ploy to meet Potter demand

July 13, 2005

NEW YORK: US online bookseller Alibris said today it had launched a special offer to buy used copies of the new Harry Potter book for $5 as it seeks to meet demand for the most eagerly awaited book of the year.

Chief Executive Marty Manley said it was the first time the company had appealed directly to readers in this way.

"I have two boys, a 9-year-old and a 13-year-old, and I'm sure I'm going to be buying two books so I'm going to end up with one extra," he told Reuters.

Parents hoping to return excess copies should be careful to stop their children fighting over the books – only copies in "very good condition" will be accepted.

Harry Potter part of parade
Library conjures up float for Oldham Day

Attention wizards: Harry Potter's clan is coming to Oldham this year. So is Hogwarts, the ghostly school where Potter plays Quidditch and escapes sight with his invisible robe.

On Saturday, they'll appear on a hay wagon and loop downtown La Grange as part of the Oldham County Day parade, which starts at 10 a.m. on Jefferson Street. That's also the day that J. K. Rowling's sixth Harry Potter book -- "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" -- appears in libraries and bookstores.

The wagon, bedecked with books and a castle fashioned of wood and papier-mache, is sponsored by the Oldham County Public Library and is one of several floats in the parade. On the float, Oldham residents will be dressed as characters from the popular book series.

In her Hogwarts-approved robe, her curls as tight as the tie around her neck, Emily McOmber, 10, will appear as Harry Potter's friend Hermione.

It's Emily's first time in a parade. She's practicing her wave.

"I get kind of nervous with lots of people watching me," she said, but "it's really exciting to be on a float about Harry Potter, which has been my favorite book since I started reading them."

Festivities start Friday night. The YMCA will have road races starting at 7:15 p.m. at Covenant United Methodist Church, and people can boogie to The Marlins' music from 8 to 11 p.m. on Second Street in La Grange.

Saturday's events start at 7 a.m. and include an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast, pipe-smoking contests, carnival games, concerts from groups including the Rock-N-Country Band and a dance by the Kentucky Gold Cloggers. The Oldham County History Center will feature exhibits on the county's German and black populations and have re-enactments that take people back to the 18th century.

More than 100 businesses, politicians and craft-makers will have booths lining the streets of downtown La Grange.

Doreen Goodwin, chairwoman of the event, said she expects thousands of people.

"It's pretty festive," she said. "It's a chance for people in the community to get out and see their friends and neighbors."

The Project Guild, an 18-member women's service group, has organized the event for 35 years.

For the Oldham County Public Library, the parade is a way to stir interest in reading and visiting one of its three libraries, said director Susan Eubank. She said the library hasn't had a float in almost a decade.

"This is our big comeback year," she said. "The staff has really been pulling together and having a lot of fun with it."

Spike Frederick, an artist who works part time with the library, has focused on painting the castle and Harry Potter-themed books for the float.

"There's a dragon whose tail is sticking out of the book," he said. "It's going to be colorful. I think the kids will really like it."

13/07/2005 - 14:08:15

Another copy of the latest Harry Potter book has been accidentally sold ahead of the strict release date, this time in a New York pharmacy.

Customer Mandy Muldoon said she simply spotted a stack of the highly anticipated books on a shelf and bought one. She has since promised to return it.

Shop manager Christine Ekblom said she believed it was the only copy sold.

"They were pulled off an hour after they were put on the shelves. It was a mistake," she said.

A gag order was issued by a Canadian court this week after 14 copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were inadvertently sold at a supermarket near Vancouver.

The book is due for release this Saturday and will be unveiled at the stroke of midnight at special parties held at bookshops worldwide.

Ms Muldoon's husband, Mike, said the family would return the book to the publisher, although his stepson had admitted reading two pages.

"We're going to do the right thing," he said.

"We don't want to ruin it for other kids and take away from the experience of everyone reading it together."

Kyle Good, a Scholastic publishing spokeswoman, said: "This is the first early sale we have heard of in the US and the family is returning it."

On Friday, Scholastic will hold a ceremony to unveil the first signed copy of the Half-Blood Prince – transported to the US on the QE2 in a gigantic locked trunk.

The book will be presented to a public library.

By Rachael Mason
Staff Writer
rachael.mason@
gwinnettdailypost.com

Employees at Lawrenceville's Chapter 11 Books - and Harry Potter fans around the world - are taking bets on what will be the crucial plot twist in the newest J.K. Rowling book.
They'll soon find out if their guesses are correct. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" will be released at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Local bookstores, including Chapter 11, will be hosting Harry Potter parties to celebrate.
"The Half-Blood Prince" follows Harry through his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as the young wizard continues to fight against evil. The book also will reveal one character's royal heritage. Rowling already has divulged that it won't be Harry or his mortal enemy, Lord Voldemort.
Dorothy Jubon, manager of Chapter 11 in Lawrenceville, loves J.K. Rowling's writing. "Her character development is so good, you almost believe these are real children," Jubon said.
She is one of many fans eagerly anticipating the new book.
"We have so many people come in every single day, every hour," said Starr Adamson, manager of Barnes & Noble store in Duluth.
In particular, kids have a lot of questions about the book, especially about when it will be delivered to the store, she said. Adamson wouldn't say exactly when the Duluth Barnes & Noble is expecting its top-secret shipment of the book, but did mention the boxes of books will be covered up once they arrive at the store.
"It will get special handling, with a lot of security around it," Adamson said.
On Saturday at 12:01 a.m., and not a minute before, the latest Harry Potter book will be distributed. "We can't open the boxes until 12 o'clock," Adamson said. "We have to keep them very secure."
In Gwinnett, the book is already proving more popular than Rowling's fifth book. "We're definitely exceeding the last book and that's exciting," said Joan Dudzinski, general manager of the Borders store in Buford.
National sales also are much bigger than 2003's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." More than a million copies of "Half-Blood Prince" already have been sold through preorders on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.
In the United States, Scholastic Inc., is printing a first run of 10.8 million books, which is 4 million more than "Order of the Phoenix."
In 2003, when the last book was released, local stores ran out of copies. This year, Adamson doesn't expect a shortage of "Half-Blood Prince," though the Duluth store had taken four times the orders it had for the last book.
"We don't anticipate being out of stock at all," Adamson said.
- The Associated Press contributed to this story.

2m books 'will vanish in a day' as Harry Potter fever erupts

FIONA MACGREGOR

Publisher Bloomsbury, which will release Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for sale at midnight on Friday, said it is expected to break all previous best-seller records.

As excitement surrounding the novel grew yesterday, Bloomsbury remained tight-lipped about how many copies of the closely guarded book had been shipped to UK retailers.

But a spokeswoman for the firm said: "It's going to be bigger even than the last [Potter] book, which was the fastest-selling book of all time, selling 1.7 million in the first 24 hours."

The prediction came as the online retailer Amazon.com said the latest Potter book had become its best new product- release ever, with 1.4 million advance orders worldwide.

Caroline Copeland, a publishing expert at Napier University, said: "It will achieve the two-million figure very, very quickly. Harry Potter has been phenomenal and changed the face of children's publishing in this country."

The fifth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, broke UK first-day sales records when it sold 1.7 million copies through UK bookshops, supermarkets, internet sites and newspapers on its release in June 2003. The book has sold 3.4 million copies in Britain.

Ms Copeland said a combination of a rise in online purchasing, good marketing and word of mouth had contributed to the massive success of JK Rowling's work. "There's been a real change in the world of publishing in recent years and that's a lot to do with Amazon and other online retailers.

"Bloomsbury has also been very good at promoting the author JK Rowling as the single parent, working away in an Edinburgh caf, and the public in this country like the idea of the underdog doing well. But Harry Potter's success started ... with children talking about it in the playground."

International demand for the new book is expected to be so high that one online bookseller in the United States, Alibris, has launched a special offer to buy used copies of the forthcoming Harry Potter tale for $5 as it seeks to meet demand for the most eagerly awaited book of the year. More than ten million copies are ready for sale in the US.

But some literary experts warned that the novel faces difficulties in hitting two million sales in the UK on its first day. Giles Elliott, the charts and media editor with the publishing trade magazine Bookseller, said: "It's possible, but logistically it would be very hard to shift that number of books.

"The price war is escalating and bringing down prices, which could have an effect, but things like the weather can have a real influence on whether people are prepared to queue to buy the book."

International speculation about the new book has made its contents a closely guarded secret - and a hot topic in the literary world. Despite Ms Rowling's lawyers working overtime to prevent leaks of the plot and books being stored in locked vaults, some copies have made their way on to shop shelves in North America. A gagging order was issued by a Canadian court this week after 14 copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were inadvertently sold at a supermarket near Vancouver.

And yesterday it emerged that another copy of the latest book had been accidentally sold ahead of the strict release date, this time in a New York pharmacy.

Mandy Muldoon, a customer at the pharmacy, said she simply spotted a stack of the highly anticipated books on a shelf and bought one. She has promised to return it.

The shop's manager, Christine Ekblom, said she believed it was the only copy sold. "They were pulled off an hour after they were put on the shelves. It was a mistake," she said.

Ms Muldoon's husband, Mike, said the family would return the book to the publisher, although his stepson had admitted to reading two pages.

"We're going to do the right thing," Mr Muldoon said. "We don't want to ruin it for other kids and take away from the experience of everyone reading it together."

Kyle Good, a publishing spokeswoman, said: "This is the first early sale we have heard of in the US and the family is returning it."

The book, which is due for release this Saturday, will be unveiled at the stroke of midnight at special parties held at bookshops worldwide.

In Edinburgh, where Ms Rowling lives, a special party is to be held at Edinburgh Castle and 70 young fans will hear the author read the first chapter of the work.

Fire-eaters and jugglers will line the Royal Mile as part of spectacular celebrations in the capital to mark the launch.

Specially chosen fans will be driven in horse-drawn carriages from the City Chambers to Edinburgh Castle, which will be specially lit up for the 50,000 occasion.

Harry Potter and the undertaking counterpart

By Joseph P. Kahn, Globe Staff | July 14, 2005