thezeppzone
12-21-2004, 06:27 PM
Woohooooooo it comes out on July 16, 2005
Read Here (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=8&u=/ap/20041221/ap_on_en_ot/books_here_comes_harry)
Sixth Harry Potter Book Due Out in July
1 hour, 2 minutes ago Top Stories - AP
By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer
LONDON - The sixth novel in J.K. Rowling (news - web sites)'s blockbuster Harry Potter (news - web sites) series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," will go on sale in Britain and the United States on July 16, publishers said Tuesday.
"We are delighted to announce the publication date," which also will take place in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, said the joint announcement by Nigel Newton, chief executive of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc in England, and Barbara Marcus, president of Scholastic Children's Books in the United States.
"J.K. Rowling has written a brilliant story that will dazzle her fans in a marvelous book that takes the series to yet greater heights. `Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' delivers all the excitement and wonder of her best-selling Harry Potter novels," they said.
In an earlier message on her Web site, the British author wrote: "I know you all expected this to happen on Christmas Day, but I was sure that those of you who celebrate Christmas have better things to do on the day itself than fight your way into my study, whereas those of you who DON'T celebrate Christmas would definitely prefer not to wait until the 25th."
Rowling, 39, noted that while she is pregnant with her third child, she has had the time "needed to tinker with the manuscript to my satisfaction and I am as happy as I have ever been with the end result. I only hope you feel it was worth the wait when you finally read it."
The news should be celebrated by Rowling's millions of fans and by the struggling publishing industry. Competition for sales began almost immediately, with the U.S. superstore chains Barnes & Noble Inc. and Borders Group Inc. announcing 40 percent discounts on the book's $29.99 suggested retail price.
"Sales from the last Harry Potter book grossed as much as a major Hollywood movie in its first week of release," Steve Riggio, chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble,' said in a statement Tuesday.
"We expect this next book in the series to make publishing history once again. We've already collected 500,000 e-mail requests from our customers waiting to be notified of the date of the next book so this announcement is very welcome news for readers everywhere."
The 2005 publishing date means that fans will be spared the seemingly interminable three-year wait between Potter IV, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," and Potter V, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which came out in the summer of 2003.
The retail price is the same as for Potter V, even though Rowling has strongly hinted she will not approach the industrial-sized 870 pages of "Order of the Phoenix." In an earlier message on her Web site, she said that "According to the plan for book six, it will be quite a bit shorter than 'Order of the Phoenix'. I am not going to swear on my children's lives that that is going to be the case, but I am 99 percent certain of it."
More than 100 million copies of the fantasy series, which debuted in 1997, are in print, and "Order of the Phoenix" sold an astonishing 5 million copies within 24 hours of publication. According to Scholastic, the book has been published in 62 languages.
Sales have remained phenomenal even as Rowling's books have grown longer and darker, reflecting the boy wizard's maturation into adolescence. The first three Potter books have been made into hit movies. The books also have inspired countless Potter paraphernalia, including candy, cakes, capes and toys.
Rowling has said that one of her characters will not survive her sixth book, but she refused to identify that character.
Potter himself is safe, at least for now. Rowling has said her teenage hero will survive until the seventh and final book in the series, but has refused to say whether he will reach adulthood.
Only recently, the book's completion seemed far away.
In a message posted Dec. 10, Rowling said she had nothing "noteworthy to report, because I have been spending nearly all my time sitting in front of my computer writing, rewriting and taking the occasional break to bang my head off the desk in frustration or else rub my hands together in fiendish glee (I think the latter has happened once)."
___
Associated Press National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
http://www.jkrowling.com
Read Here (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=8&u=/ap/20041221/ap_on_en_ot/books_here_comes_harry)
Sixth Harry Potter Book Due Out in July
1 hour, 2 minutes ago Top Stories - AP
By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer
LONDON - The sixth novel in J.K. Rowling (news - web sites)'s blockbuster Harry Potter (news - web sites) series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," will go on sale in Britain and the United States on July 16, publishers said Tuesday.
"We are delighted to announce the publication date," which also will take place in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, said the joint announcement by Nigel Newton, chief executive of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc in England, and Barbara Marcus, president of Scholastic Children's Books in the United States.
"J.K. Rowling has written a brilliant story that will dazzle her fans in a marvelous book that takes the series to yet greater heights. `Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' delivers all the excitement and wonder of her best-selling Harry Potter novels," they said.
In an earlier message on her Web site, the British author wrote: "I know you all expected this to happen on Christmas Day, but I was sure that those of you who celebrate Christmas have better things to do on the day itself than fight your way into my study, whereas those of you who DON'T celebrate Christmas would definitely prefer not to wait until the 25th."
Rowling, 39, noted that while she is pregnant with her third child, she has had the time "needed to tinker with the manuscript to my satisfaction and I am as happy as I have ever been with the end result. I only hope you feel it was worth the wait when you finally read it."
The news should be celebrated by Rowling's millions of fans and by the struggling publishing industry. Competition for sales began almost immediately, with the U.S. superstore chains Barnes & Noble Inc. and Borders Group Inc. announcing 40 percent discounts on the book's $29.99 suggested retail price.
"Sales from the last Harry Potter book grossed as much as a major Hollywood movie in its first week of release," Steve Riggio, chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble,' said in a statement Tuesday.
"We expect this next book in the series to make publishing history once again. We've already collected 500,000 e-mail requests from our customers waiting to be notified of the date of the next book so this announcement is very welcome news for readers everywhere."
The 2005 publishing date means that fans will be spared the seemingly interminable three-year wait between Potter IV, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," and Potter V, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which came out in the summer of 2003.
The retail price is the same as for Potter V, even though Rowling has strongly hinted she will not approach the industrial-sized 870 pages of "Order of the Phoenix." In an earlier message on her Web site, she said that "According to the plan for book six, it will be quite a bit shorter than 'Order of the Phoenix'. I am not going to swear on my children's lives that that is going to be the case, but I am 99 percent certain of it."
More than 100 million copies of the fantasy series, which debuted in 1997, are in print, and "Order of the Phoenix" sold an astonishing 5 million copies within 24 hours of publication. According to Scholastic, the book has been published in 62 languages.
Sales have remained phenomenal even as Rowling's books have grown longer and darker, reflecting the boy wizard's maturation into adolescence. The first three Potter books have been made into hit movies. The books also have inspired countless Potter paraphernalia, including candy, cakes, capes and toys.
Rowling has said that one of her characters will not survive her sixth book, but she refused to identify that character.
Potter himself is safe, at least for now. Rowling has said her teenage hero will survive until the seventh and final book in the series, but has refused to say whether he will reach adulthood.
Only recently, the book's completion seemed far away.
In a message posted Dec. 10, Rowling said she had nothing "noteworthy to report, because I have been spending nearly all my time sitting in front of my computer writing, rewriting and taking the occasional break to bang my head off the desk in frustration or else rub my hands together in fiendish glee (I think the latter has happened once)."
___
Associated Press National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
http://www.jkrowling.com