B&N Winning One Kind of Potter Competition

by Jim Milliot and Steven Zeitchik, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 7/12/2005

The sales race hasn't heard a starting gun yet, but when it comes to pre-pub announcements, Barnes & Noble is clearly in the lead. In the latest in a string of press releases, B&N announced yesterday that its pre-orders for Half-Blood have topped one million copies.

The release is almost Scholastic-like in promoting the title, including a quote from Steve Riggio: "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is outselling the summer's blockbuster movies, and it hasn't even landed on the shelves yet. Barnes & Noble's distribution centers are working around the clock to make sure that all Harry Potter fans receive their copy at the stroke of midnight as promised, and for that Friday night, our bookstores will become part of the books' magic."

Among the tidbits: B&N "purchased one million commemorative Harry Potter bracelets; printed one million in-store posters; purchased one million pairs of Harry Potter glasses; inked one million temporary lightning bolt tattoos; plucked 370,000 feathers; and rounded up numerous live owls, snakes and magical critters."

Other Harry Potter news has the AP reporting on a bunch of Canadians who came upon the book--a judge ordered them not to spill and to return it to Raincoast--and a piece from the Chicago Tribune about Emerson Spartz's fan ode Mugglenet, a "dense and authoritative Web site about all things Potter that's so complete Rowling refers to it to keep her plot lines and characters' idiosyncrasies on track."