BOOKS Next 'Potter' to set record at Amazon.com

NEW YORK (AP) -- The fifth novel in the popular Harry Potter series, due out in one month, will be Amazon.com's largest new product release, the online retailer said.
The Seattle-based company said Wednesday that more than 500,000 copies of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" were ordered in just four months on www.amazon.com. Amazon.com has received more than 875,000 orders for the book on all of its Web sites worldwide.
Previously, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was Amazon.com's largest new product release, with more than 350,000 orders placed on the site in the five months leading up to its July 8, 2000, release and 410,000 copies ordered in advance of its release on Amazon sites worldwide.
Meanwhile, Borders Group, the nation's second-largest bookseller behind Barnes & amp; Noble Inc., said it has more than 500,000 preorders, according to Emily Swann, a company spokeswoman. She said the retailer would at least be able to meet the preorder demand June 21, the opening day.
Carolyn Brown, a spokeswoman for Barnes & amp; Noble Inc., declined to comment on the exact number of preorders, but the number was in the several hundreds of thousands.
Judy Corman -- spokeswoman for New York-based Scholastic, which publishes the Potter books in the United States -- said there will be 6.8 million copies of the Harry Potter book on the opening day, with an additional 1.7 million within the following two weeks.