According to People's Literature Press, publisher of the Chinese edition of Harry Potter V, the Chinese version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be on sale on October 1, and the planned distribution volume is expected to hit a record.

A record planned distribution volume

The fifth volume of the Harry Potter series by English woman writer J. K. Rowling made publication history last Friday. Some 6.8 million copies were sold the first day it went into market, according to sales reports released by British publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (U. BMP) and American publisher Scholastic Corp. (SCHL). The previous four volumes also turned out to be a big hit.

Although the new book may not raise such a storm on the domestic market, it still represents a big event in China's sluggish publishing industry.

People's Literature Press, which has published all the earlier four books of the series, planned a first-round distribution of 800,000 copies for Harry Potter V, a figure almost three times that of previous ones and also a record distribution volume in the history of the publishing house.

Unprecedented precautions against piracy

People's Literature Press has never put in so much for any other book than Harry Potter V, whose anti-piracy measures include printing the book by ink and paper not available on the open market, said Sun Shunlin, director of the plotting and promotion section of the press.

Each of the previous four books sold 1.5 million copies or so on the Chinese market and the total sales exceeded 6 million copies, Sun added. The fourth book was published locally as early as 2001 and the rather long lapse before the coming out of a next one has given chances to some illegal printing firms.

As a result, some pirated versions appeared the next year, alleging that they were the long-expected continuation of Harry Potter IV. Fortunately, due to a lack of formal publishing channel, these forged versions only exerted limited influence.

Foreign publishers, nevertheless, have adopted stiff anti-piracy measures, and only by last Friday, the time of formal publication, did the Chinese press have a chance to see the original version of the new book. Translators are now busily working for fulfilling the goal of putting the Chinese version of the book on sale on October 1 as scheduled.

People's Literature Press plans to launch a massive promotion campaign through TV ads and handout of cups and T-shirts bearing the image of the little wizard. The book is to be unveiled on October 1, the day kicking off a weeklong national holiday which usually turned out to be a peak time for shopping.

All these plans seem to be deviating from the Press' tradition of clinging to classic literature, but have already brought in tremendous profits. Now the press claims a yearly income of about 110 million yuan, while the portion from Harry Potter in the past three years accounts for over 30 percent of the total income on average.

(People's Daily June 27, 2003)