HP & The Half-Blooded Prince Book gets sold early by accident, oopsies!

[BorderEevilIII]

from dailydish

POTTER PREVIEW FOR CANADIANS

Copies of the new "Harry Potter" novel have gone on sale in Canada a week early by mistake.
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Prince" isn't due for release until July 16, but a small number of copies accidentally found their way onto shelves at a shop near Vancouver last week.

Publishers are now desperately trying to get back all the books bought and are promising eager fans of the wizard adventure book plates autographed by author JK Rowling as an incentive.

Canadian "Potter" distributor Raincoast Books Ltd has also obtained a court injunction banning those lucky enough to get a sneak preview of the sixth Potter adventure from revealing the plot.

[sarah1980]

yup at The Real Canadian Superstore in Coquitlam the company I work for but not the store

[BorderEevilIII]

US shop accidentally sells new Harry Potter book

NEW YORK (AFP) - A New York boy got his hands on the new Harry Potter book ahead of its worldwide launch Saturday, when a drugstore accidentally put the eagerly-anticipated top-secret tome on sale.

Mandy Muldoon, the boy's mother, purchased "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the sixth instalment in J.K. Rowling's wildly popular series about a boy wizard, in a Kingston, New York drugstore.

The shop accidentally stocked the book on its shelves days ahead of the scheduled release, the US publisher Scholastic told AFP.

But Kris Moran, director of publicity for trade at the publishing house, said she believed only one copy had been sold. "As far as I know, he is the only one (in the United States)" who has the book, she said.

"I took it up to the clerk and said 'Is this really the book?'" Muldoon told the Poughkeepsie Journal newspaper, which ran a photo of her nine-year-old son, Sylum Mastropaolo, smiling broadly as he held the book.

The family said they later learned that the book was not being released until Saturday, and contacted the publisher, promising to return the treasured tome.

"The family contacted us. He's returning the book," the Scholastic spokeswoman confirmed.

The Eckerd drugstore responded with a "no comment" but has given assurances that it pulled all of the books from the shelves within an hour of the mishap.

"I think they made a mistake," Moran said.

Earlier this week, a Canadian supermarket chain accidentally sold 14 copies of the book.

The grocer begged customers to return the books, but in the event that they refused, Canadian publisher Raincoast Book Distribution Ltd. sought an unprecedented injunction from a provincial court to keep the storyline a secret.

Justice Kristi Gill ordered the 14 customers not to talk about the book, copy it, sell it or read it until after midnight on Saturday.

The judge also compelled the unidentified customers to hand over the novel to Raincoast, which has agreed to return them signed by Rowling, along with other gifts, after the official launch.

The first five Harry Potter books have sold nearly 300 million copies worldwide.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050713/ts_alt_afp/afpentertainmentbritain_050713174930

So I guess these shops that ACCIDENTLY sold the books forgot there is a STREET DATE?!? :rolleyes: They should READ when putting merchandise out to the public