30th July 2007

Records continue to be broken by the latest Harry Potter book and audio sales figures from around the world.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc announce that first day sales in Australia of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows have been exceptional and, according to NielsenBookScan, the independent book trade monitoring service, 573,845 copies were sold in the first 24 hours. This figure represents a 64% increase on the comparable figure for first day total sales of the previous title, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, in July 2005 of 350,396. Total sales of all seven Harry Potter titles in Australia are now in excess of 5 million copies.

The audio edition published by HNP Limited in association with Bloomsbury Publishing has entered at number one in the UK NeilsenBookscan audio best seller list, selling 2564 units in the first 24 hours of the adult and children’s edition of the unabridged work, read by Stephen Fry, priced at £74.99 each. According to Nielsen data the average selling price of the children’s edition was £53.36 and the adult’s edition was £57.92.

These sales figures follow those reported for the book in the first 24 hours on 23 July when  2,652,656 copies in the UK and  398,271 in Germany were sold. The UK figure represented an increase of 32%.

In addition, Bloomsbury sales in China have shown strong sell through in shops across China in the first weekend of publication. Xi Dan Bookshop in Beijing and Shanghai Book City sold more than 2000 copies each during the weekend of launch; Shen Zhen Bookshop sold more than 1500 copies during the launch weekend. Amazon China were reported to have sold more than 7000 copies. Pre-orders in China were more than 200% higher than those of the previous book.

In India, the book sold an estimated 170,000 copies in the first 12 hours breaking the record set by its predecessor Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (which sold an estimated 100,000 copies on the day of release).

In Canada, sell through of the Raincoast/Bloomsbury edition(a 50:50 joint venture of Raincoast in Vancouver and Bloomsbury in London)is exceptionally high with 855,997 of the children’s edition and 74,714 of the Adult edition selling through in the first week of publication.

In the first seven day’s, Waterstones Booksellers across their 311 branches in the UK sold 460,000 copies, more than double their sales of the previous book.

A boxed set edition of all seven Harry Potter titles will be published on 1 October 2007.

Enquiries:

Bell Pottinger
Ben Woodford/ Dan de Belder
0207 861 3232

Note to Editors

Bloomsbury was founded 21 years ago by its chief executive Nigel Newton, based on the principle of publishing books of excellence and originality for a wide market. The company undertook a full stock exchange listing in London in 1994 and has since expanded its publishing categories and geographical reach. Today, Bloomsbury has three divisions – adult, children’s and reference – which span the world’s three largest book markets of the USA, Germany and the UK, where the Company has established offices.
Bloomsbury has a strong reputation in developing new authors – Anthony Bourdain, David Guterson, Anne Michaels, J.K.Rowling, Will Self and Ben Schott – and in publishing established ones, including, Margaret Atwood, John Irving, Jay McInerney, Michael Ondaatje, Donna Tartt, Joanna Trollope and Benjamin Zephaniah. The company is well recognized for its ability to identify new authors, and employing highly professional sales and marketing skills to publish their books to maximum effect. With a worldwide library of over 11,500 titles, Bloomsbury also exploits a valuable backlist, publishing regular repeat authors.  It also develops major information databases for electronic and print publication.
Bloomsbury’s books are increasingly linked to television and film tie-ins, including The English Patient, Snow Falling on Cedars, the first four Harry Potter titles (with the fifth film premiered on 3rd July) and on TV, David Dimbleby’s How We Built Britain, The Only Boy for Me by Gil McNeil, and the forthcoming The Wild Gourmets by Guy Grieve and Thomasina Miers.  Bloomsbury’s bestseller, The Kite Runner,will be released as a major film in the UK in 2008.
2007 bestsellers

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