Harry Potter sales estimated at 72.1 million
LONDON -- Harry Potter has cast a spell on readers throughout the world, who purchased 72.1 million copies of the boy wizard's final adventure, an industry data service said Monday.
Nielsen BookScan said the figures for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" were provisional; full and final figures were due to be released Tuesday.
The company said 2.6 million copies of "Deathly Hallows" were sold in Britain in the 24 hours after it went on sale in England at 7:01 p.m. EDT Friday. The figure breaks the previous record of just over 2 million copies held by the previous Potter volume, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." It includes sales from book stores, supermarkets, other retailers and Internet sites, but excludes sales to libraries, schools and institutions.
"Deathly Hallows," the seventh and final volume of J.K. Rowling's all-conquering fantasy series, sold 8.3 million copies in its first 24 hours on sale in the United States, according to publisher Scholastic Inc.
The book was released around the world Saturday in a carefully orchestrated operation that saw midnight book store openings and long lines of Potter-maniacs. Its initial print run was 12 million in the United States alone.
On Monday, for a third straight day, seven of the top 10 books on Amazon.com's best seller list were Potters, including paperback and hardcover editions of "Half-Blood Prince" and a boxed set of the entire series coming out in September. On Amazon's children's list, 22 of the top 25 books were Potter books, including the top eight rankings.
Collectors already were looking to cash in. A set of all seven Potters, six of them first editions and two signed by illustrator Mary GrandPre, was being offered on abebooks.com for $2,181. The audiobook for "Deathly Hallows," signed by narrator Jim Dale, had an asking price of $319.80.
The numbers could really soar if anyone tries to sell one of the 1,600 hardcover copies that Rowling signed over the weekend. Last spring, a Rowling-signed first edition of the first Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (renamed "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the United States) was auctioned in London for $56,319.