Harry Potter's spell creates bonanza for booksellers

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold 8.3 million copies in the U.S. andmore than2.6 million copies in the U.K. in the first 24 hours of its release.

Sales in Canada were equally strong, with 812,000 copies of Deathly Hallows sold in the first 48 hours, comparedwith 650,000 copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book,in 2005.

"We're seeing very strong sell-through," said Jamie Broadhurst, vice-president of marketing for Canadian publisher Raincoast Books in Vancouver.

The latest take in the boy wizard series by J.K. Rowling outstripped opening-day sales of every other book in history, including the first six Harry Potter novels,U.S. publisher Scholasticsaid on Monday.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sold 6.9 million copies in the U.S. the first day.

Bloomsbury PLC, the British publisher of the seventh and final Harry Potter volume, announced Monday that it hadsold a record 2.65 million copies. That figuretopped U.K. sales of thesixthbook.

Reviews of Deathly Hallows have been almost universally enthusiastic, with both young readers and adults saying Rowling has brought the series to a satisfying ending.

Readers welcome back Potter

Millions of readers lined up to purchase a copy of the book at midnight Friday, then spent the weekend indoors, immersed in a fantasy world as Harry Potter faced his final showdown with the evil Voldemort.

Hollywood studio Warner Bros. said the book took business away from the fifth Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which opened July 11.

"They wanted to get that book Saturday, lock themselves in the house and read it, because they didn't want their other friends by Monday telling them who made it and who didn't," said Dan Fellman of Warner Bros.

Scholastic said revenue from Deathly Hallows outstripped box office from the opening weekend of the film.

Sales averaged 300,000 copies an hour or 5,000 a minute in the U.S. Scholastic had previously announced its first run would be 12 million.

Canadian publisher Raincoast Books declined to announce the size of its print run for the final book.

Some stores already were out of copies, according to Scholastic spokeswoman Kyle Good.

"We are working with retailers to move additional copies to the places they are needed most in the coming days and weeks."

Pre-orders alone account for large sales

Borders Group Inc. reported thatit had sold 1.2 million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows worldwide, the biggest ever first day sales for a book.

Pre-orders alone exceeded 2.2 million at online bookseller Amazon.com, with seven of its top sellers Potter-related, including an audio CD of Deathly Hallows and a box set of all seven books, due out in September.

The running total for Harry Potter book sales was at 325 million even before the seventh novel came out.

Meanwhile, police in Bangalore, India, have seized thousands of pirated copies of the final book.

One man was arrested after officers raided a printing press and storage depot. The pirated books were being sent to other Indian cities and some may have been destined for Sri Lanka.

Bloomsbury had orchestrated an anti-piracy campaign to coincide with the publishing of the final book, according to Reuters.