Pottermania: Booksellers gear up for books release

With an initial press run of 12 million books, getting your hands on a copy should not be difficult. For local booksellers, then, the trick has been to order the right number of copies to satisfy their customers, but not be left with so many that they lose money. Particularly, they say, as they cannot offer the deep discounts that big-box stores like Wal-Mart or Costco can.

With prices under $20, large stores treat the Harry Potter franchise as a loss leader — something the independent shops can't do.

"Frankly, we're expending a lot of money on the party," said Brennan Neville, noting that The King's English will sell "Deathly Hallows" at its full price of $34.99.

Diane Etherington, owner of The Children's Hour, also will sell the book at full price. The Salt Lake store has already sold 70 percent of its supply of the final installment in the Harry Potter series.

"I early on decided that I was never going to discount this book. I morally think it's so wrong," Etherington said. "How a real bookseller can possibly take a book that is highly anticipated and give it away is the stupidest thing."

Sam Weller's offered a 20 percent discount on its prepaid, preordered books, the most it could do and still turn a slight profit, Weller said.

For those looking for a completely free read, the Main Library will have 150 copies of "Deathly Hallows," plus 30 copies of the book on CD and 12 books on tape. Of course, the book version already has nearly 450 holds, and almost 200 are waiting for the CD version.

Such a frenzy for a book hasn't been seen in years, perhaps, as some have suggested, since the time of Charles Dickens when crowds waited on the New York docks for the latest installment in "The Old Curiosity Shop." Then, like now, readers were anxious to discover if the series' protagonist lived or died.

"The level of business that we're talking about here, I don't think anybody alive has seen," Weller said.

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E-mail: awelling@desnews.com