'Phoenix' book sales slow down in Japan

  October 1, 2004 at 10:02 PM ET
  Geri     Wizard News (via Daily Yomiuri)
  harry potter and the order of the phoneix


It has been over one month since the Japanese translation of Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix hit book shelves in Japan with a record 2.9 million print run, but many bookstores are now reportingopens in new window that sales have been lower than expected. "We're stumped to know why it hasn't sold as well as we expected," said one official of a major bookstore chain.

According to the Research Institute for Publications, sales have done poorly when compared with previous books and have disappointed booksellers and the publishing industry.

An employee from a large bookstore chain said:

"The sales were worse than expected, probably because some Harry Potter fans have lost interest in the series as it has been almost two years since the previous volume was released. We've started considering securing storage space for the unsold novels."

If current sales continue many bookstores may have no choice but to return other published works they had bought to balance their accounts because they can only return 5 percent of unsold Harry Potter books back to the publishers.

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