(From top): A young girl pores over a Harry Potter book; author J.K. Rowling signs copies of her book; young girls give vent to Harry Potter mania

On July 16, 2005, just about two months from today, millions of people around the world will wear a ridiculously self-satisfied grin on their faces and a glazed look in their eyes. Having procured a copy of the latest and penultimate instalment in the adventures of loveable boy wizard Harry Potter, they will not rest till the last word has been read, the latest twists in the plot assimilated and the book shut away with a satisfied sigh.

Having devoured Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (and if you didn?t know that was the name of the sixth adventure, you deserve to be fed to Fluffy, the three-headed dog), they will start longing immediately for the next and last book in the series. To fill time in between, they will discuss plot details on fan websites and obsessively analyse the books. They will discuss the whys, hows and what-might-have-beens, invent bizarre connections between characters and events from previous books that could (one never knows with Harry Potter) have an impact on the seventh book. And they will keep a close watch on author J K Rowling?s immensely popular website for the latest hints on the new volume. Meanwhile, the publishing world will be raising yet another toast to a phenomenon that has, each time, raised the standards by which it judges itself.

Consider this: the book was at the top of the best-seller lists at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com within 12 hours of the announcement of the publication date on December 21, 2004. Till now, about 270 million copies of the Harry Potter books have been sold around the globe. To put that in perspective, Dan Brown?s stupendously popular The Da Vinci Code has sold 25 million units worldwide.

But Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (HBP) threatens to put all that in the shade. It has already broken all pre-order records on Amazon.com with more than 700,000 copies having been pre-ordered. Before this, the fifth book in the series, Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix, was Amazon?s most popular pre-ordered item, with 420,000 copies ordered prior to its release in June 2003. Experts at Amazon predict HBP will outsell the previous instalment before it even reaches the shelves.

Pottermania is even having an impact on the stock market. In December 2004, when the release date was announced, the stocks of Bloomsbury and Scholastic (the UK and US publishers) rose 8.2 per cent and 4.5 per cent respectively.

Scholastic Inc has ordered a whopping 10.8 million print run of the book, breaking all publishing records. The previous record, if you hadn?t guessed, was held by book five.

A lot hangs on book six. To begin with, the plot. Now that the series is inching towards an inexorable end, this book will hold a lot of answers to the myth-like questions the series has raised. Why did Lord Voldemort, Potter?s arch-enemy, not die when the curse he cast to kill the child Harry hit him instead? What is Aunt Petunia?s secret? What makes Neville Longbottom more important than he seems? And most importantly, who is the half-blood prince? (Rowling has clarified it is neither Harry nor Voldemort).

At the end of book five, the magical world?s second war between the good wizards and Lord Voldemort?s supporters, the Death Eaters, has begun. The perennially escapist Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, has finally acknowledged that the Dark Lord has arisen ? and the war is now out in the open. Book five was something of a lull in the narrative ? with the war being waged in secret by the few who did believe that the dark Lord was back - but now, it?s Action Stations. As far as plots go, this is a clincher.

Although it?s yet to reach fever pitch, preparations to see the book on its way into the world are on, and how. Scholastic is planning a multi-million dollar marketing blitz to sustain the excitement till the book actually reaches the shelves. Already on offer is a countdown clock marking the last 100 days before the release of the book. Fans can download the on-screen calendar counting down the days to the release of Half-Blood Prince with web alerts and Harry Potter facts.

At the 50-day mark on May 27, ?offline? versions of these clocks will be available at bookshops across the US. The theme message ?Who Is The Half-Blood Prince?? will appear on airplane video screens, electronic billboards, and on popular websites as banner ads. And for the first time ever, the crusty New York Times will bow to populism by running a crossword puzzle dedicated to the Harry Potter books.

In the UK, publisher Bloomsbury has been gearing up for HBP for a long time and have just unleashed their publicity blitzkrieg. It promises to be bigger than anything they?ve done before. ?There?s a tremendous amount of interest in this book as it?s the second last one, and we?ll do everything to sustain and feed that till the release date and beyond,? says their publicity director Katie Bond. Although the Harry Potter name alone is enough to carry the campaign on its shoulders, Bloomsbury will leave nothing to chance, says Bond.

Harry Potter’s Believe it Or Not

• If all Harry Potter books ever sold were placed end to end, they would go around the equator 1.4 times. • If all the Harry Potter books ever sold were laid flat, they would cover the area of about 1,000 football pitches. Or they could be used to carpet Monaco 3.7 times. • On its first day of sale in the UK, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix sold at a rate of 21 books per second. If all those books sold in the UK in the first day were stacked up, the pile would be 12 times higher than Mount Everest. • If one person were to read every Harry Potter book ever sold — at a rate of one per day — it would take them over 700,000 years to do so. • The total number of Harry Potter books ever sold is more than the populations of Britain, France, Germany and Italy combined.

The publishing house has made bookshops sign pledges not to open the sealed cartons of books that will start arriving at their doorsteps just before July 16. In fact, the secrecy and hush-hush preparations surrounding the release of any Harry Potter book is legendary ? and much like something out of the magical extravaganza itself. Dianne Hess, executive editor of Scholastic Press, has said that the office where editors of Scholastic are preparing the book has been nicknamed ?Chamber of Secrets?, the title of the second book. Entry is limited, and everything is under lock and key.

In India, Penguin India will be distributing the books as always. Big plans are afoot at the publishing major to launch Harry Potter in the style it has come to deserve. Says Thomas Abraham, president, Penguin India, ?We?ve sent out advance information about the book everywhere-and the response has been tremendous. Closer to the book?s release, there?s going to be a lot of in-store promotions ? posters, displays, special dumpbins that will showcase the new book as well as all the previous titles.?

Most of the promotional material for India comes straight from Bloomsbury. ?There are restrictions on the kind of publicity you can do for Harry Potter ? all promotional material has to be approved by the publishers,? says Abraham.

Here too, the frenzy has already broken out. Booksellers and bookshop chains across the country are booking orders for Half-Blood Prince. Bookshop chain Crossword?s Bangalore outlet, which started accepting pre-orders back in mid-April, receives 10 to 15 orders everyday, with the number going up slightly on weekends. ?Considering there are still more than two months to go before the book is released, the number is expected to be phenomenal. It?s like nothing we have seen before, not even with other Harry Potter books,? says Bijan Das, a Crossword employee.

Meanwhile, a price war has started. In India, the book costs Rs 899 and booksellers ? both on the Internet as well as brick-and-mortar ones, are trying to outdo each other to offer the best price. So Crossword is giving a Rs 100 discount on pre-orders and Oxford Bookstore is offering a 15 per cent discount till 15 days before the release. Online bookshops such as firstandsecond.com, Indiatimes Books, Sify shopping and Rediff are also in the midst of a stiff scuffle over price. While Indiatimes is offering the book at Rs 809 for regular customers and at Rs 675 for its book club members, Sify has come in under all the others with a flat price of Rs 674.

For brick-and-mortar bookshops, this is the time to go the whole hog on promotional activity. While Crossword plans parties and book readings, Oxford is sharpening its strategy. ?It (promotions) will be bigger than ever before,? promises Mona Sengupta, national PR manager of the bookstore chain. Individual stores are planning their own activities. ?We are planning to have a big launch with interactive events such as free-flowing chats about Harry Potter among well-known personalities etc.,? says Atanu Majumdar, store manager of Bangalore?s Oxford Bookstore.

The kind of advance enthusiasm in Harry Potter books, and especially this one, the penultimate in the series, is completely unprecedented, says Majumdar. Dan Brown can eat his heart out, for even The Da Vinci Code never came near this. In June, 2003, when Order of the Phoenix was released, Oxford stores around the country had 3,200 pre-orders (incidentally, that?s more than most Indian books manage to sell in all). Around 10,000 copies of the book disappeared from the chain?s stores in 20 days.

?The advance orders we?ve received for Half-Blood Prince are almost twice the number we received for Order of the Phoenix, which, mind you was a phenomenal bestseller,? says Penguin?s Abraham.

One of the major contributing factors towards sustained Pottermania has been J K Rowling?s tremendously popular website. Continuing the association between the cult of Harry Potter and big numbers, the website (www.jkrowling.com) got 76 million page views within a few short weeks of its launch in May 2004. Written in Rowling?s characteristic witty yet disarmingly simple style, the purpose of the website was ostensibly to dispel rumours about the forthcoming books and provide hints about what would happen next. ?The website definitely contributed towards keeping interest in the book alive and kicking through all of last year when fans didn?t get a new instalment in the series,? says Bond.

Needless to say (and as happens with most things Harry Potter) people soon became obsessive about it. Cleverly executed hints gave away the title of the sixth book as long back as June 2004, and the first announcement that Rowling had completed the book (between two pregnancies and endless games of Minesweeper) came not through her agents and publishers, but on the website on December 21, 2004. The agents etc merely confirmed it.

That?s the kind of personal engagement that has made Harry Potter the stupefying phenomenon it is today. ?These books, more than any other I have ever read, really make me feel part of the entire story. It?s as if I am there when those exciting things are happening. I can feel Harry?s pain and fear and sadness,? says Shubha Venkatesh, a 16-year-old obsessive fan.

Call it clever marketing if you will, but some would say it?s sheer magic.

Booked for success

What we already know about Book Six:

• Here’s a small excerpt: (He) looked rather like an old lion. There were streaks of grey in his mane of tawny hair and his bushy eyebrows; he had keen yellowish eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and a certain rangy, loping grace even though he walked with a slight limp.

• Neither Harry or Voldemort is the Half-Blood Prince

• Another important character (Dumbledore?) dies in Book 6.

• The opening chapter of Book 6 was originally planned for the early parts of Book 1, and there is also a strong link between books 6 and two (Chamber of Secrets). Rowling originally planned to include some parts of HBP in Chamber, but then deleted all traces of that plot line from it.

• Chapter 2 is called Spinners End, Chapter 6, Draco’s Detour and Chapter 14, Felix Felicis.

• Harry’s stay at Privet Drive will be the shortest ever and he will leave early for a “much pleasanter” reason than in Book 5.

• Cornelius Fudge will no longer be Minister of Magic. It won’t be Arthur Weasely either.

• Cho Chang will not be of romantic interest to Harry in Book 6. However, there will be a “little romance” for Harry, says JK.

• More about Voldemort’s birth will be revealed, thus helping us understand why he is so evil.

• Muggles begin to notice “more and more odd” occurrences in Book 6, says JK Rowling.