01 February 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows out July, 21




With one announcement, the book industry too a huge sigh of relief, as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be published on July 21, just 8 days after Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix hits movie theaters. And like the last two bboks, this lay down date is a Saturday.

This last book in the series should give a huge boost to the sagging industry, which despite a rich collection of tomes released at the end of September to Christmas 2006, is finding itself facing troubling times.

Of course, the biggest issue remains that the super books stores face tons of competition from other retail outlest like Target, Cosco and even the local grocery store (not to mention Amazon). Plus they over build, in some vain attempt to keep investors investing.

Barnes & Noble is doing better in the stock area, while Borders remains flat and not predicted to gain any strength for at least a year. It's new CEO claims big things are in the works, but from my POV, its working on the wrong things. A new inventory system would be nice, as our DM pointed out to me that when Borders was a hundred stores, it worked. Now at well over 510, it is obsolete and flawed.

Anyway, this last Harry Potter book will help through the end of the year, even though some 7 million copies will be sold the first weekend its out. It will sell well through the fall, drop off and pick up again by Christmas, which will also be the time when Order is out on DVD.

Cha-Ching.

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