Harry Potter Book Sets Record in First Day
By EDWARD WYATT
NYT - Published: July 18, 2005
Scholastic Inc. said yesterday that an estimated 6.9 million copies of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" were sold in the United States in the first 24 hours the book was on sale, smashing the one-day sales record of 5 million set two years ago by the previous installment in the popular series.
But retailers also began to lower their prices almost immediately and in one case offered earlier customers partial refunds, signaling that millions of copies remain available in bookstores, warehouses and used-book outlets.
In addition to its initial printing of 10.8 million copies, Scholastic said it started a second printing before publication of 2.7 million copies, for a total of 13.5 million books already or soon to be available for sale. The estimate of first-day sales indicates that at an average selling price of about $17, Americans spent $117 million for the book in one day, as sales rose further over the weekend.
Nearly every major book retailer has reported selling more copies of this book than the last book in the series. But some also began cutting prices aggressively as used copies started to show up for sale on the Internet and elsewhere. Amazon.com lowered its price by $1 yesterday, to $16.99, and sent an e-mail message to customers who had ordered the book before publication saying that it would give them a $1 refund.
Interested buyers could find plenty of lower prices elsewhere, including in Amazon's marketplace, where outside vendors were advertising new copies of the book for $15. Wal-Mart lowered its online price to $15.78 from $16.66 before publication, and sellers were offering used copies on eBay for as low as $10.89.
One seller was offering a scanned, PDF-format version of the book at Half.com for $6.74 plus a $3.25 e-mail shipping fee. Internet chatter also focused on the availability of other scanned versions, as well as an apparently pirated audio version. Scholastic said it believed those versions were all unauthorized, illegal copies. |
