Malta too posts Harry Potter record sales

Malta joined other countries worldwide in registering record sales of the Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final Harry Potter.

A spokesman for Agenda Bookshop described the response from the public as "outstanding". He said that since one minute past 1 a.m. on Saturday, the embargoed time for the book to be released, several hundreds had been bought by readers, including 12-year-olds, who were then able to discover whether the teenage wizard Potter lives or dies!

Agenda Bookshop organised a party to mark the countdown to the book's release at the Valletta Waterfront.

The spokesman said it was surprising that the vast majority preferred to buy the hardback edition when usually the demand would be for paperback.

Chris Gruppetta, of Merlin Library, said 1,000 copies, including pre-orders, were sold during the first hour of the book's launch. Mr Gruppetta remarked that this week his company would be placing another order to furnish local bookshops to cope with the demand. Merlin Library marked the launching at Robert Samut Hall, Floriana.

The same mania for the release of the book was experienced beyond our shores. Author J.K. Rowling already boasts the record with the sixth installment, and early sales figures from British and American retailers suggest Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows will eclipse it.

"The nation really has gone Potter potty," said spokesman Ed Watson, who added that Deathly Hallows sold twice as quickly as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, published in 2005.

A spokeswoman at Bloomsbury, Potter's British publisher, said British sales of the final installment could reach three million copies in the first 24 hours, up from two million with Half-Blood Prince. Borders Group Inc., the second-largest US bookseller, said it sold about 1.2 million copies in the first day at its 1,200 Borders and Waldenbooks stores globally compared to 850,000 copies of the sixth Potter book in its first day.

"This is the highest single-day sales of any title ever in Borders history," the retailer said in a statement, adding that about 800,000 Potter fans attended celebrations in its US stores in the countdown to the book's release, many in costumes. Waterstone's bookstores sold 100,000 Potter books in two hours, while rival WH Smith sold 15 books every second across. Britain on the first night of its release, topping the record set by the previous Potter installment of 13 per second.

Online retailer Amazon.com received 2.2 million pre-orders up 47 per cent on book six.