The new Harry Potter book broke all known and independently validated South African book-sales records on the first day it went on sale in the country, a book-sales tracker company said on Wednesday.
Nielsen BookScan said 40 039 copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were sold on July 16 through bookshops, supermarkets, internet sites and newspapers.
”To top the United Kingdom book charts, 50 000 copies need to be bought in an average week,” it said in a statement.
”In South Africa, the equivalent number is 1 000 copies. In both countries, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has sold 40 times the weekly average in one day.”
Harry Potter fans in Britain and the United States bought the latest book at record speed, snapping up almost nine million copies in its first 24 hours on sale, data showed on Monday.
Many more copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were sold in other countries following its global launch on Saturday, and British publisher Bloomsbury said it hopes to release a total figure soon.
Casting a shadow over the magical sales numbers, however, literary critics have slated author Joanne ”JK” Rowling’s latest creation — the sixth and penultimate in the series — as ”wordy, flabby and badly edited”.
Potter mania swept the planet over the weekend as thousands of bookstores from Scotland and Singapore to New York and New Delhi opened their doors to hordes of bookworms desperate to read about Potter’s latest adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
In Britain alone, 2 009 574 books flew off the shelves, said Bloomsbury — a record, according to Lucy Holden, head of children’s publicity at Bloomsbury.
Added to the 6,9-million copies that were sold over the same period in the United States, almost nine million copies of the much-anticipated Potter book were bought on the first day in those two countries alone.
Similar scenes of Potter madness were reported in Australia and New Zealand, while fans in non-English-speaking countries across Europe and Asia also rushed to grab the book, which will be translated in the coming months.
Bookstores in Germany said the English-language version of the book looks set to break sales records in the country even though the German version is not due out until October 1.
Tens of thousands of copies were sold on Saturday alone, they said.
In Portugal, which has one of western Europe’s lowest readership rates, French retailer FNAC said it sold 3 500 copies of the book over the weekend.
A similar appetite was noted in Greece and Hungary and the Czech Republic, while about 12 000 copies of Potter’s adventures have been purchased in Austria, according to the local news agency APA.
Multimillionaire author Rowling, who launched the spell-binding novel at a special party in Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, was asked whether she is worried that her fans are growing too old for the story, said Bloomsbury’s Holden.
”I think it [the record sales] shows that even the older fans who have maybe even grown out of their teenage years are still desperate to read about their favourite hero, and there are little children who are coming in and finding the series for the first time,” she said.
Many readers tore through 607 pages as soon as they bought it to discover the many plot twists as Potter battles the evil Lord Voldemort.
Several British newspaper reviewers did the same, but their verdict, delivered on Sunday, was not always so flattering.
Perhaps the most scathing came in the Independent on Sunday, whose literary editor, Suzi Feay, was less than impressed following her marathon read.
”It’s wordy, flabby and not very well edited — perhaps a bit less inventive than the previous ones,” she concluded.
The book ”could have done with some better gags”, she complained, noting that one humorous passage appeared to be largely based around constipation.
”There’s a disjunction between the teenage angst and the humour, which seemed to be aimed at much younger children,” she added. — Sapa, AFP