The Hindu Business Line : Penguin sees a blockbuster in Rowling's sixth Potter

WHILE the Potter mania ahead of the launch of J.K. Rowling's sixth book in the series on July 16 is building up worldwide, Indian retailers and book chains too are drumming up the Potter passion here.

Anticipating a surge in demand for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Penguin Books India, which represents publisher Bloomsbury, has placed an initial order of 1,40,000 copies, more than twice the first order of 60,000 it placed for the previous book, The Order of the Phoenix.

"Yes, it's going to be huge again. This is the largest ever advance order booking for any trade book in the country, particularly exceptional when one sees that it's an expensive hardback," said Mr Thomas Abraham, President, Penguin Books.

As with the previous book, strong embargo conditions will be in place for the launch of The Half-Blood Prince. The copies will be heavily guarded until the scheduled release time of 10 a.m. here. "Probably the only book that's ever been guarded by armed security," said Mr Abraham. The books will be in sealed cartons and reach distributors late July 15 night and will hit stores just an hour before the sale time at 10 a.m. on July 16. Guards will be present overnight at each of the distributor locations.

The book is priced at Rs 895 for the hardback edition while the paperback will follow only a year later. However, booksellers are offering high discounts and it's even cheaper if ordered on the Net.

As promos are very tightly controlled by the author, Ms J.K. Rowling, the launch will see no corporate piggybacking. Most of the promos worldwide will be bookstore driven, as it is in India. The special one for this year, said Mr Abraham, is the `Cub Reporter contest' being done by Bloomsbury, Penguin India and the Hindustan Times.

"One Indian boy or girl will be sent by the HT to the global launch of the book in Edinburgh where Ms Rowling will read and do an exclusive interview with these cub reporters. There are about 17 such reporters from various countries who'll be there at the midnight launch at Edinburgh castle on July 16," he added.

Penguin sold 107,000 copies of the last book in all. The second order quickly followed and all the sales were logged in the first two months by Penguin to the trade.

"This year too I expect all the sales to happen in the first three months (possibly even just the first month). Most people have figured this out and have placed higher first orders," said Mr Abraham.

The Chennai-based book retail chain, Landmark, for instance, has ordered 10,000 copies of the book and has already seen close to 2,000 bookings for the book across its six stores.

The store is offering a 10 per cent discount on the cover price (25 per cent off on the Net) and offering a collector's book along with publisher Egmont, which will contain Ms Rowling's interviews. "We expect to be sold out in a month's time," said a store official.

Odyssey, another Chennai bookstore, has ordered 6,000 copies of the book and reports a booking of 2,200. An official said that the store expects a thousand more orders before bookings close on July 13.

Asked about the book pirates making a quick strike, Penguin's Mr Abraham said Bloomsbury does have an anti-piracy law firm, Delhi-based Akash Chittranshi Associates, ready for them.

However, admitting that it would be tough to keep pirates out altogether, Mr Abraham said if they could be kept at bay for two weeks, as in the last launch, that would be good enough.

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