Harry Potter Mania

The sixth title, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, set a new world record for a first printing, with 10.8 million copies hitting stores on July 16, 2005.

JK Rowling's new Harry Potter book sold an astonishing 6.9 million copies in America in its first 24 hours - averaging better than 250,000 sales per hour and smashing the US record held by the previous Potter release. Sales for the sixth instalment of Rowling's fantasy series easily outpaced those for 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 shops quickly ran out of books two years ago, Scholastic has already increased the print run for the latest Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from 10.8 million copies to 13.5 million.

British publisher Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. sold more than 2 million copies in the first 24 hours, also a record.

More recent numbers are not yet available. But they are sure to be astounding. Add to that the fact that translated versions will be released during the fall, and this latest Potter installment could well shatter Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code enormous sales.