Harry Potter waves magic at Bloomsbury

HARRY Potter publisher Blooomsbury said today that 2004, a year in which there was no new book from author JK Rowling, would be in line with market expectations.

The new year will be buoyed by the next Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, due to be published on 16 July.

Demand for the book, the sixth in the series, was highlighted by the fact that it rushed to the top of Amazon's book chart less than 24 hours after its publication date was announced in December.

The book will be published simultaneously around the world and is expected to prove as big a success as its predecessors. Some 420,000 copies of the previous book in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, were pre-ordered from Amazon in the run-up to its release two years ago.

The next book takes up the story of Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School and is expected to reflect the increasingly dark tone of the books.

JK Rowling has previously disclosed that a key character in the story will be killed off but has not revealed who. The suspense is likely to fuel demand from Harry Potter fans for the next book - and will keep publisher Bloomsbury in the black when it does come out.