Bloomsbury, the British publisher of the Harry Potter books, reportedly had a good years takings despite no book from the series being released that year.
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BLOOMSBURY Publishing yesterday celebrated a positive end to 2004 - despite having no new Harry Potter blockbuster to work its magic at Christmas.
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Analysts expect the group to post profits of £16.4m this year and £17.9m in 2005, when sales will receive a boost from the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling in July.
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A deluge of pre-orders from customers reserving a copy meant it leapfrogged in-demand novels such as The Da Vinci Code to top Amazon's Hot 100 chart.
The last JK Rowling book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, took a record 420,000 pre-orders from as far afield as Fiji and Nepal.
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In a trading update, Bloomsbury acknowledged that the sixth Harry Potter novel would "clearly be an important event for Bloomsbury this year".
"We look forward to another good year in 2005 with the list of titles we have scheduled for publication," the company said.
Source:
icSeftonandWestLancs