NYTimes has an interesting comparison: “On Saturday alone, J. K. Rowling’s fifth novel sold five million copies nationwide. In a culture where little registers until it’s measured in dollars, just do the math. Figure an average price of $20 a “Harry” (allowing for widely varying discounts on the $29.99 list price), and you have a one-day gross, as Variety would say, of $100 million. That’s more money than the competing Hollywood fantasy, ‘The Hulk,’ brought in for its entire opening weekend ($62 million), and, assuming a very conservative average of two readers per book, a larger audience as well.”
In India too, the book sold something like 100,000 copies in a week. At Rs 650-odd per book, that is about Rs 6.5 crores (USD 1.4 million), which is more than the took of most hit Hindi movies in their opening week. Whoever thought book reading was out of fashion!
