Amazon says orders for Potter book top 1 million
( 2003-06-05 10:12) (7)
Amazon.com Inc., the top online retailer, on Wednesday reported that advance orders for the latest Harry Potter book topped 1 million copies with more than two weeks to go before the book's June 21 launch.
Amazon has said it anticipates that the shipping of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" to thousands of customers around the globe will mark the largest distribution of any one item bought over the Internet.
With 17 days remaining before the book's release, Amazon said its latest preorder tally was now more than twice the worldwide advance orders it got for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," the fourth book in the series.
If the 300,000 copies that have been preordered on its United Kingdom Web site were stacked one on top of the other, the books would be more than twice the height of Mt. Everest, the world's tallest peak, Amazon said.
Amazon said the upcoming book is its largest new product release ever.
"This is definitely a big launch," said Allyson Rodgers, an analyst at Ragen MacKenzie-WellsFargo Inv.
The new Harry Potter book contains more than 255,000 words, 38 chapters and about 896 pages, compared to its predecessor, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," released in July 2000, which had more than 191,000 words, 37 chapters and 752 pages in hardcover.
"We hope the preorders will translate into sales," said Jenie Carlen, a spokeswoman for Borders Group, the No. 2 U.S. bookseller behind Barnes & Noble Inc. . She said Borders was not taking cash in advance but collecting names and addresses of those who wished to buy the book.
The retailers' eagerness over the latest Harry Potter installment book comes as brick-and-mortar book sellers look at every means to revive sales after the recent Iraq war preoccupied readers and kept them away from stores.
Amazon.com's advance orders for the new book include orders from the online retailer's co-branded Web sites with Borders.com and Waldenbooks.com, but exclude orders from all other third-party seller arrangements.
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