Harry Potter takes over Gilroy as bookstores launch sale of
sixth installment
Gilroy – Harry Potter mania hit Gilroy early Saturday morning when Barnes & Noble launched sales of the latest book in the popular series about a teenage wizard. After five books, J.K. Rowling’s latest tome was met with just as much, if not more, enthusiasm as the others, with the local bookstore selling 860 copies from 12:01 to 1:30am when employees closed up shop for the night.
The sixth book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” brought plenty of fans of the tale to Barnes & Noble’s “Midnight Magic Party,” held at more than 660 of the bookstores nationwide. The Gilroy party brought in 200 guests who came and went between the start of the event Friday at 6 pm and the sales of the books just after midnight.
All store employees were on hand to help out with the festivities, along with plenty of community volunteers.
“Employees volunteered their time,” said Janay Elson, community relations manager. “Everyone wanted to get involved.”
Kids and adults alike dressed up in their best wizard attire for the costume contests. Danielle Poling, 15, sported a hood and cape and her 11-year-old sister, Kady, wore a pointy wizard’s hat. Gary Caviglia, a Morgan Hill resident and Barnes and Noble employee, dressed as the Hogwart’s Express train conductor, who takes the young wizards off to their prep school from platform 9 3/4 at the King’s Cross station in London each year.
Potter fans who came out for the party received free Harry Potter glasses, bracelets and tattoos. Face painting and wand making activities kept kids busy during the six-hour celebration as did coloring projects and word searches featuring Potter-related lingo.
Haley Curnutt, Amanda Flosi and Emily Flosi of Hollister came to the Gilroy Barnes & Noble so they could be among the first to get the latest book. They gathered to watch the third movie in the Harry Potter saga, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” in the DVD and music department of the store while waiting to get their book.
“We opened early on Saturday for people who couldn’t get here [for the party],” Elson said Monday morning.
In Morgan Hill, Cinda Meister, co-owner of Booksmart, said sales did better than she had expected, but they were down by a third from last year.
“We sold more than I had anticipated,” Meister said. “Everyone was so excited about reading it.”
Over the weekend, about 425 books flew off the shelves, but Meister said Booksmart had to compete with the newly opened Barns & Noble as well as other stores such as Wal Mart and Target.
The popular novel sold 6.9 million copies in the U.S. in its first 24 hours – averaging better than 250,000 sales per hour and smashing the record held by the previous Potter release.
“This is a cause for celebration, not just for Scholastic, but for book lovers everywhere,” said Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic Children’s Books, J.K. Rowling’s U.S. publisher. Sales for the sixth installment outpaced those for the last book, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which came out in 2003 and sold five million copies in the first 24 hours.
Acknowledging that some stores quickly ran out of books two years ago, Scholastic has already increased the print run for “Half-Blood Prince” from 10.8 million copies to 13.5 million.
Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble Inc. estimated 1.3 million U.S. sales for the latest Potter book in its first 48 hours, about 400,000 more than for the first 48 hours of “Order of the Phoenix.”
Associated Press contributed to this report.
