Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows comes out in a matter of weeks, which is bad news for people who like to move around without gits who think they can walk and read at the same time clattering into you, but better news for others.
That group of 'others' is mainly made up of people who work at Bloomsbury, the British publishers of the Harry Potter books. Bloomsbury today announced that advance orders for Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows are up by a staggering 17% compared to pre-orders on the previous Harry Potter book, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince. Although Bloomsbury didn't care to place a figure on the amount of advance orders it had received for Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, in real terms it means that you'll be able to annoy 17% more people by running into bookshops and quoting that hacker who claims that Hermione dies at the end of the book.
Oh yeah. Spoiler alert.
OK, so it's official – Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows hype is now at such a galactic level that even the most minor Harry Potter-related detail can get blown out of all proportion. The artwork for Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows has been analysed into dust, the American first print of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows has been marvelled over and even the news that JK Rowling is going to read some of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows later in the year has made headlines. But now comes the biggy, the Harry Potter news that everyone's been waiting for – initial advance orders of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows up up 17% on the previous book. Hooray! Forbes reports:
Bloomsbury PLC, the British publisher of the Harry Potter books, said Thursday that advance orders for the latest and final volume of the series are 17 percent ahead of the pre-orders for the previous book. Bloomsbury did not give any specific figures for the advance orders. The shares gained 2.1 percent to 197.99 pence ($3.59; 2.67 euros) on the London Stock Exchange.
Oh, how did we ever manage to cope without knowing the percentage that the pre-sale orders for the new Harry Potter book had increased over the last book? Truly our lives are complete. In seriousness, though, the last Harry Potter book – Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince – sold 250,000 copies an hour in America on the first day of its release, so 17% more than that is an awful lot of books, it's fair to say. And it's good to see that people have been listening to JK Rowling and not paying any attention to the hacker who said Hermione dies at the end of the book.
But doesn't a 17% increase in pre-orders for Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows mean that there's going to be a bunch of people who will read the new Harry Potter books before reading any of the others? Isn't that weird? But despite this, the increase in pre-orders is good news for everyone – Bloomsbury gets one last gulp of success before the Harry Potter franchise dries up and leaves it struggling again, Daniel Radcliffe will get 17% more screaming fans the next time he takes his clothes off and stabs a horse in the eye and anyone going to The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter theme-park will have to wait in line for rides 17% longer, get 17% less for their money and generally have a 17% rubbisher day than expected.
Read more: