Harry Potter Day - Almost Here!

Well, I've ordered my copy from Amazon - have you ordered yours?!

The final volume in J.K. Rowling's phenomenally successful Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, goes on sale this weekend, and pundits are confidently predicting that it will be the fastest-selling book ever. The publishers announced a record-breaking 12 million copies for the first print run in the United States alone.

The massive sales, along with associated merchandising and film rights, will add to Rowling's already substantial personal fortune. In February 2004, Forbes magazine estimated this as 576 million UK pounds, making her the first person to become a billionaire (in US dollar terms) by writing books. By now, she must be well on the way to being a billionaire in UK Sterling terms as well.

When Rowling wrote her first book - only around ten years ago - she was a single mother living on welfare in a mouse-infested flat in Edinburgh. She was so poor she couldn't afford to heat her flat in the winter, so by day she sat in a local coffee shop with her baby daughter, nursing an espresso for hours as she worked on her manuscript. Rowling achieved her huge success despite these obstacles. It's one of the (many) great things about writing that there is no reason why anyone with hard work (and a little luck and talent) could not be as successful as she is.

And yes, I'm a Harry Potter fan, like most of the population. OK, she may not be the world's greatest literary stylist (though in my view she is still a very good writer). And many of the ideas in her books may not be entirely original. But her great talent is to write brilliantly constructed stories that grip the imaginations of readers of all ages. She has been widely credited with restoring the interest of children (and boys in particular) in reading, and that alone is a considerable accomplishment.

J.K. Rowling has said that she won't be writing any more Harry Potter novels, so I will be waiting with interest to see what she does next. With her great talent for storytelling, however, I'd expect to see her turn at some point to movie and TV scriptwriting. One thing is certain, whatever she does next, a little of the Harry Potter magic is certain to rub off on it!