JK Rowling’s new adult novel tops pre-order sales

JK Rowling’s new “adult” novel The Casual Vacancy is already one of the biggest book releases of the 21st century, as a million orders have already been placed for the book.

UK booksellers expect it to be the best-selling fiction title of the year.

“It’s one of the biggest releases of the 21st century. I think 99.9 percent of us (in the industry) are predicting it will go straight to number one,” the Telegraph quoted Philip Stone, charts editor at The Bookseller magazine, as saying.

Bookshops are expected to open early for the launch of the novel at 8am on Thursday and pre-orders at Waterstone’s are the highest of the year so far.

The last book in Rowling’s Harry Potter series sold 2.5 million in its first 24 hours in the UK alone, although few are expecting the new book to emulate this figure.

Currently the record for most hardback sales in a first week for an adults’ novel stands at 550,000 for The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown’s eagerly-awaited 2009 follow-up to The Da Vinci Code.