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AS fans waved goodbye to Harry Potter with the release of the final film in the series, the teen wizard once again cast a spell over publisher Bloomsbury, whose sales "surged" in response.
According to research group Nielsen BookScan, sales of thePotter series, which Bloomsbury first bought in 1996, had already hit `A3225m in the UK on the eve of the film’s release. Bloomsbury’s overall sales also saw a "significant" improvement in July and early August following "soft conditions in previous months". The rise was driven by e-book downloads as customers prepared for their summer holidays—in 2010 e-book sales were 18 times higher than that of the year before—as well as strong sales at high street retailers. Bloomsbury also pointed to the success of Man Booker Prize winner The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson, which has sold just over 7,17,000 copies around the world. Other titles to perform well include Mao’s Great Famine, by Frank Dik`F6tter, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English, which made the Man longlist. The company has also sealed a deal with the Practical Law Company which will boost its academic and professional business. Bloomsbury hailed the move as bringing "more consistent and stable earnings". — The Independent
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The
publisher said that following the release of Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows Part II last month, "we are pleased to report a
surge in sales of the seven Harry Potter books".