Scholastic to Publish 3.5 Million Copies of “Beedle,” Ads Planned for NYT, USA Today and More

Publisher’s Weekly has a lengthy new piece online regarding the upcoming The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling where it notes that as this is the first new Harry Potter novel due out at the height of the holiday season, retailers are hoping for good sales. The article states the book “will have to ship from wholesalers during the Thanksgiving rush.
Ingram Book Group’s director of merchandising Mary McCarthy says the
logistics will be “challenging.” The company meets weekly to review
orders and transportation to ensure that everything will go smoothly.
Although she doesn’t expect Beedle to sell at the same levels as Deathly Hallows”Ingram’s initial order was roughly one-third of its initial buy for Deathly Hallows”it is still a major title.”

With Scholastic due to make a “first printing of 3.5 million copies” of Beedle, book stores are hoping sales will continue through the entire holiday season, and efforts are being made on that front. Major retailers such as Amazon and Borders are continuing to promote The Tales of Beedle the Bard, with Borders highlighting the book on Borders’s homepage and giving it front-of-store treatment in its stores on publication. Smaller book stores are taking a different approach. “At Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, Ill., children’s
coordinator Jan Dundon reports that advance sales are off to a slow
start. “It may not have the upfront excitement of a Harry Potter book,
but it will keep on selling’ she predicts. Following Rowling’s lead,
Anderson’s will use Beedle as a charity fundraiser throughout December for a local literacy group.”

Publishers Weekly notes that Scholastic has “decided to save most of its publicity push until late November and December,” with online promotion due to begin in earnest closer to publication date where fans can also expect “advertising slated for the New York Times Book Review and USA Today.”

On a related note, the article mentions Harry, A History by our own Melissa Anelli, and says that the book is now in its third print and that there are 98,000 copies of the paperback original in print. You can pre-order The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Harry, a History via our Cauldron Shop.