My son finished his copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, his final adventure by Monday.  So did some of his classmates, and I reckon so did tens of thousands of other people, if not hundreds of thousands worldwide finished their copy in one or two days.  Such is Pottermania.

It is said that in 2000, 3 million copies of the fourth book Goblet of Fire was sold in two days.  In 2003, 5 million copies of the Order of the Phoenix was sold the first 24 hours.  In 2005, 6.9 million copies of the Half-Blood Prince was sold in 24 hours.  By most estimates, the final book sold over 10 million the first 24 hours. 

Time outlined the elaborous preparations that Scholastic went through in order to give his millions of fans that magic moment when everybody gets the book for the time and pours in without knowing in advance the spoilers.  Such things like never using the internet, nor even the most trusted couriers.  It was said that JK rowling wrote the manuscript, and it was printed, and a person personally printed it out, and bring the copies to the publisher.   No couriers.  No emails.  Just personal delivery.  The press was not named, and copies were transported by GPS tracked boxes to publishers who have strict instructions not to open the boxes until 12:01 a.m. on July 21.

Bookstores and resellers have to sign long, tightly worded legal agreeemnts, and it was said that one person is currently serving 4.5 years in jail for tryin gto sell an advanced copy of the Half-Blood Prince.

In this time of the internet, news travelled fast.  It is a testament to modern technology that you can distribute more than 10 million books in one day, and it is the challenge aso how to do it all without doing it earlier, and how to make thousands of people involved in such an endeavor not to leak or do it early.