From Steve Weber’s Selling Books:
“A Harry Potter first edition sold for $18,000 at auction this week. The winning bidder at the London auction was anonymous.
The publishers produced between 500 and 1,000 copies in the book’s first run.
That a book that is relatively new would fetch such large amounts is unprecedented, said Luke Battenham, Bonhams’ book specialist.”
Wow! I was astonished to come across this news release from the Bibliophile Bullpen and I have to admit I’m a little concerned about the impact it will have on collectible book sales.
“Amazom’s BookSurge subsidiary announced Thursday that is has partnered with book digitization company Kirtas Technologies on a project to archive and distribute hard-to-find books. This new initiative involves collaboration with public and university libraries to provide their collections of “rare and inaccessible” books; the titles will be digitized through Kirtas and then reproductions will be sold through Amazon through the BookSurge print-on-demand service.”
From New York Times Books:
“A self-proclaimed hacker says that he broke into the computers of the British publisher of the hugely successful Harry Potter series and discovered the feverishly awaited climax to the coming seventh and final installment. But his disclosures were met with skepticism this week.
Speculation about how “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” will end has only increased as the publication date, 12:01 a.m. on July 21, approaches, fueled partly by the author J. K. Rowling’s previous hints that she might kill off one or two of the characters.”
