Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Has Made Publishing History With a Midnight Launch

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Harry Potter - Bookshops And Libraries Get Ready For The Release Of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow"

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Harry Potter's world is falling apart. Dumbledore is dead, Professor Snape is revealed as a traitor and the forces of Lord Voldemort are gaining strength. The last book in the Harry Potter series of seven  opens with one of the most chilling and gruesome scenes author JK Rowling has created. The Dark Lord, plotting his triumph while terrifying his followers, almost casually tortures an opponent.

• Read BBC Review
• An Interesting BLOG 
• Harry Potter Mania In New York City 
  
• Former schoolgirl's 1st-edition Harry Potter fetches more than $19K Cdn 

Publishing history has been made. The Harry Potter book, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows', went on sale world-wide at a minute past midnight last night and the book is set to be one of the fastest selling of all time.

Bookshops across the world, welcomed thousands of eager readers, young and old.

Security for the launch was tight, with books shipped in sealed pallets and legal contracts binding stores not to sell the book before the midnight release time.

But despite pleas from the author and leading fan sites, spoilers appeared on the Internet in the days before the release.

• They included photographed images of what turned out to be all 700-plus pages of the book's US edition.
• In France, the daily Le Parisien revealed how the final instalment ends, in a small article which it printed upside down.
• As many as 1,200 copies were shipped early in the US by an online retailer, and two US newspapers published reviews last Wednesday, more than two days ahead of the official release.
• An Australian fan had to be rescued from a lake in the capital Canberra yesterday after he dived in to rescue a pre-purchase receipt necessary to pick up his book.
• In Pakistan, a car bomb discovered outside a shopping centre in Karachi forced the cancellation of a 4am launch party in a book shop in the centre.

At 2PM today, while travelling on the DART to Greystones, I saw a young
girl reading the new Harry Potter book. The fact that the book looked
used caught my attention so I asked her when she got it. She answered
that she managed to buy it a few minutes after midnight but that she
had already read the book once and that she was half way through it
again. I took a few photographs of the young girl and her book but
unfortunately my flash card was blank when I got home ... she must have
cast a spell on me. While I was impressed that someone could have read
the book in 14 hours or less I was very impressed to discover that
speed reader Anne Jones read more than 199,900 words, on 607 pages, in
47 minutes and one second.

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JERUSALEM: The figure responsible for Israel's latest religious row is a bespectacled British teenager who is gifted with magical powers, world famous and entirely fictional.

The synchronized worldwide launch of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the seventh and last installment in the wildly popular series, falls at 2:01 a.m. local time this Saturday — on the Jewish Sabbath, when Israeli law requires most businesses to close.

A member of the United Torah Judaism Party slammed the Harry Potter books and said, "We don't have to be dragged like monkeys after the world with this subculture, and certainly not while violating our holy Sabbath." 

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In the UK Parents are being warned their children may suffer from
bereavement at the end of the seventh and final Harry Potter book.
Several of the book's main characters are expected to be tortured,
wounded or even die in the blood-bath climax.

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As bookshops and libraries all over the world get ready for the release of the final Harry Potter book at midnight tonight, a tantalising glimpse of the start of the book has emerged.

A trailer for a forthcoming ITV documentary on JK Rowling called 'A Year in the Life' has inadvertently revealed how the seventh and final Potter book, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow', begins. In a trailer for the programme, shown last week, the camera lingered on a printed manuscript on her table. The first page was clearly visible and readable, we have no intention of reproducing it here as we don't want to ruin it for you.

The fact that the media can get excited about a quick glimpse of the first page of a manuscript gives some idea of the level of hype surrounding the launch of the book.

Queues have already formed outside bookshops around the world, which are opening at midnight to press copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows into the eager hands of children and adults alike. Many of the fans are in costume. The first Harry Potter book was launched 10 years ago, when the core audience was about eight or nine years old and some of those kids are now 18.

A decade after the first instalment, Harry Potter has become a global phenomenon with 325 million books already sold. That number will grow as millions of copies of the new novel are snapped up over the weekend. It is being released simultaneously in 93 countries, with a print run of 12 million in the US alone and more than 2.2 million ordered in advance from internet retailer Amazon. 

Here in Dublin Easons, which are selling the book at half price in their 42 stores around the country, said they had ordered in 110,000 copies, the most ever for a Potter book. Easons also confirmed that they will be giving away about twenty JK Rowling signed book-plates in its larger stores shortly after midnight. Since Rowling does not often undertake book signings the Rowling signature is particularly exclusive and is much sought after by dedicated fans.

JK Rowling herself will be in London for the launch at midnight where she will do a reading from the new book for 500 children at the Natural History Museum.

Harry Potter fans are also invited to put their questions to JK Rowling in a live web chat with the author between 2-3pm on Monday July 30. Questions for Ms Rowling may be submitted one week in advance or live on July 30 at www.bloomsbury.com.

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Statement From Bloomsbury Publishing

Bloomsbury Publishing, originating publisher of Harry Potter, was extremely dismayed to learn last night about early sales in America of a small number of copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows prior to the UK, US and worldwide embargo time agreed with retailers, suppliers, and all third parties involved of 00.01AM British Summer Time on Saturday July 21st 2007.

We are aware of some speculation in the media that internet “spoilers” purporting to be extracts from the book have come from the few early copies sold. We confirm that this is not true as is clear from the press release of July 18th issued by Scholastic Inc, the US publisher of Harry Potter. The “spoilers” remain unauthenticated.

The release date and time embargo of 00.01AM BST on Saturday July 21st is being enforced unflinchingly and without exception by the publishers. We confirm that all Bloomsbury’s customers in 93 countries worldwide are robustly supporting this embargo time to ensure secrecy for the children and adult readers of Harry Potter.

We would like to thank our customers and suppliers again for their full support given in so many different ways. We would also like to thank the worldwide media for their own observance of, and strict policing of, the embargo to preserve the secrecy of the plot for the readers of Harry Potter.

JK Rowling said at 1pm today, ‘I am staggered that American newspapers have decided to publish purported spoilers in the form of reviews in complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children, who wanted to reach Harry’s final destination by themselves, in their own time. I am incredibly grateful to all those newspapers, booksellers and others who have chosen not to attempt to spoil Harry’s last adventure for fans.’