Harry Potter mania hit Morgan Hill and the rest of South County
Saturday morning when Booksmart and Barnes
&
amp; Noble launched sales of the latest book in the popular
series about a teenage wizard. After five books, J.K. Rowling
’s latest tome was met with just as much, if not more,
enthusiasm as the others. At Booksmart, the celebration began
Saturday morning. Though the highly-anticipated novel broke
publishing sales records, the demand was less at the local
bookstore, according to co-owner Cinda Meister. She said sale
s were down from the last release, but they still managed to
move 425 copies.
Harry Potter mania hit Morgan Hill and the rest of South County Saturday morning when Booksmart and Barnes & Noble launched sales of the latest book in the popular series about a teenage wizard. After five books, J.K. Rowling’s latest tome was met with just as much, if not more, enthusiasm as the others.
At Booksmart, the celebration began Saturday morning. Though the highly-anticipated novel broke publishing sales records, the demand was less at the local bookstore, according to co-owner Cinda Meister. She said sales were down from the last release, but they still managed to move 425 copies.
“Demand was still high,” she said. “We sold more than I had anticipated. Everyone was so excited about reading it.”
Barnes and Noble in Gilroy sold 860 copies from the book’s official release at midnight to 1:30am when employees closed shop.
The sixth book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” brought plenty of fans of the tale to Barnes & Noble’s “Midnight Magic Party,” held at more than 660 of the bookstores nationwide. The party brought in 200 guests who came and went between the start of the event Friday at 6pm and the sales of the books just after midnight.
All store employees were on hand to help with the festivities, along with plenty of community volunteers.
“Employees volunteered their time,” said Janay Elson, community relations manager. “Everyone wanted to get involved.”
Kids and adults alike dressed up in their best wizard attire for the costume contests. Danielle Poling, 15,
sported a hood and cape and her 11-year-old sister, Kady, wore a pointy wizard’s hat. Gary Caviglia, a Morgan Hill resident and Barnes and Noble employee, dressed as the Hogwart’s Express train conductor, who takes the young wizards off to their prep school from platform 9 3/4 at the King’s Cross station in London each year.
Potter fans who came out for the party received free Harry Potter glasses, bracelets and tattoos. Face painting and wand making activities kept kids busy during the six-hour celebration, as did coloring projects and word searches featuring Potter-related lingo.
“We opened early on Saturday for people who couldn’t get here [for the party],” Elson said Monday morning. “We are still selling a lot of copies.”
The popular novel sold an astonishing 6.9 million copies in the United States in its first 24 hours – averaging better than 250,000 sales per hour and smashing the record held by the previous Potter release.
“This is a cause for celebration, not just for Scholastic, but for book lovers everywhere,” said Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic Children’s Books, author J.K. Rowling’s U.S. publisher. Sales for the sixth installment of Rowling’s fantasy series easily outpaced those for the last Potter book, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which came out in 2003 and sold five million copies in the first 24 hours.
Acknowledging that some stores quickly ran out of books two years ago, Scholastic has already increased the print run for “Half-Blood Prince” from 10.8 million copies to 13.5 million.
Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble Inc. estimated 1.3 million U.S. sales for the latest Potter book in its first 48 hours, about 400,000 more than for the first 48 hours of “Order of the Phoenix.”
