Harry Potter and the gilded book launch
The July 15 midnight launch of J.K. Rowling's sixth novel, ''Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," will be the largest book introduction in US history. By comparison, when Alfred A. Knopf brought out Bill Clinton's autobiography last year, it was a certified Big Deal, with a first printing of 1.5 million books. Earlier this year, Doubleday printed 2.8 million copies of John Grisham's novel ''The Broker."
But in the land of Hogwarts, those numbers are as small as Professor Gilderoy Lockhart's harp-wielding dwarves. For Rowling's last novel, published in 2003, Scholastic printed 6.8 million copies, and it wasn't nearly enough. That print run reached 9.3 million, the largest in US history, the publisher says. For ''Half-Blood Prince," the company plans to have 10.8 million copies ready for Harry's American fans alone.
This is now the third mega-launch of a Harry Potter novel, with its own intriguing subplots:
I: Pooped Potter Party People
For the 2000 release of ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," many bookstores held ''Rocky Horror Picture Show"-type parties for little fans who peered over the sales counters dressed as their favorite Rowling characters. Now the once-spontaneous parties are practically de rigueur. The Barnes & Noble at the Prudential Center was hoping to show the Harry Potter movies inside the Huntington Avenue arcade -- no go -- but it still plans to lay on extra security for its Friday night Potter launch party, which will probably attract 1,500 customers.
Leo Landry, manager of The Children's Book Shop in Brookline, remembers the ''Goblet" launch five years ago. ''That was a blast, because it was so unexpected. Now it's become a little more painful, because there is all this party shopping. We hear some other store is really pulling out the stops, and we say, 'Well, we have chocolate frogs.' "
II. The Little Guy Shall Be Crushed
Independent stores like Landry's are at a huge disadvantage in Potter-mania. The big chains offer a 40 percent discount on the $30 book. Online, walmart.com is offering 44 percent off.
Question: Why has neither Scholastic nor any major retailer targeted the 6 million boys and girls who will be at sleepaway camps on July 15 with a special promotion?
III. This Book Sells Itself
You won't hear J.K. Rowling complaining about her grueling book tour, because there isn't going to be one. She has chosen two US media outlets for interviews, Time magazine and NBC's ''Today" show, and plans to speak with the operators of two Harry Potter-oriented websites, www.mugglenet.com and www.the-leaky-cauldron.org. According to the Times of London, ''the increasingly reclusive" Rowling, who owns homes in London and Edinburgh, hasn't spoken to a British journalist in two years.
IV. Will the Loons Come Out?
Essential to any Harry Potter book launch is the inevitable counter-crusade from publicity-mongering Christians condemning Rowling's celebration of sorcery and witchcraft. I asked Richard Abanes, who was promoting a book called ''Harry Potter and the Bible: the Menace Behind the Magick" when I wrote about him in 2001, if he had anything planned for the release of ''Prince." Unfortunately, Abanes remembered my column of four years ago, an outing he called ''one of the most biased, prejudicial, ignorant, irreverent, inflammatory, and misleading pieces of journalism I have ever read."
Wait -- he's not finished. ''You labeled me a Christian educator, rather than what I am -- i.e., a nationally recognized, best-selling, award-winning journalist who writes on cults, the occult, and world religions, who has written several books on social-religious issues." Now that's part of the permanent record, and I won't make that mistake again.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com 
