Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince was released at midnight on Saturday, and has been breaking all kinds of records since then.

In America alone, customers bought an astonishing 250,000 copies of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince an hour in the first day of publication. It’s now officially the fastest-selling book in history.

The book is estimated to have made $100 million in a single day, taking
more than this weekend’s two top-grossing movies – Charlie And The Chocolate
Factory and Wedding Crashers – combined. It’s also reported that Harry
Potter 6 sold more copies in a day than The Da Vinci Code sold in a
year.

None of this is unexpected, though. The release of the book was an -
almost – perfectly executed exercise in hype-building, leading up to a
huge Harry Potter extravaganza at Edinburgh castle.

The scenes at the castle at midnight on Saturday were
remarkably odd. Thousands of children, already screaming at the hint of
a mention of Harry Potter from anyone, went berserk as J.K Rowling
walked along a path to get into the castle.

Then everyone fell deathly silent as Rowling sat down, opened her
copy of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, took a deep breath and
started reading… about the inside of a shop. Months of anticipation
leading up to a woman reading about stuff on a shelf. Wow.

At least everyone realised why J.K Rowling is so desperately publicity-shy. She’s got a bit of a funny voice.

By the way, Snape is the Half-Blood Prince. And he kills Dumbledore in chapter 27. Just so you know.

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[story by Stuart Heritage]