It didn’t take a wizard to figure out that there was massive demand for the German edition of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” After all, German fans have been waiting impatiently since the book’s English release in June to get a copy of the nearly 1,000-page epic account of Harry’s fifth year at Hogwarts in their hot little hands.

One of a kind phenomenon

To keep the wait to an absolute minimum, the creative minds at Deutsche Post AG got together with the Weltbild book shipping company for a one-of-a-kind delivery, explained Deutsche Post spokeswoman Ina Quilling.

“The Harry Potter phenomenon is the publishing phenomenon of the year, and so we came up with a very special idea -- to deliver, with Weltbild, the new edition right to the homes of Harry Potter fans, during the witching hour, that is, between midnight and 2 a.m.,” Quilling said. “We estimate that it was about 100,000 books for this special night delivery alone.”

Carlsen Verlag, the German publisher of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” has completed a first run of 2 million copies, and hopes that will sate the most hungry of German fans for the moment. More copies are already being printed.

Record success

Each of the first four books in the Harry Potter series had a print run of between 3.4 and 4.6 million copies. It’s that kind of extraordinary success that, in the space of a few years, transformed author Rowling from a social welfare recipient into one of the world’s richest women. And it’s hardly surprising that many companies, including Deutsche Post, are cashing in on her success.

“It’s a nice story,” said Quilling. “And it’s one where we at Deutsche Post were able to demonstrate just how flexible we can be. Of course, the credit for our special night-time delivery really goes to Weltbild. They came to us with the idea, and it turned out to be a really great thing. We helped to make it possible.”

The magic of marketing

It’s not just the postal workers who went to extra lengths to turn a profit on the delivery day of the latest Harry Potter book. In the run up to the magic hour, thousands of younger fans who wish they were schoolmates of Harry, Ron and Hermione could buy outfits to dress up as their fictional heroes at stores across the country. They were properly kitted out for the midnight reading circles, costume parties and wizardry competitions organized to celebrate the German release of the fifth book.

German toy retailers have also caught on to the money-making potential of jumping on the Harry Potter bandwagon. Their pre-Christmas range features everything from computer games to costumes to brooms like Harry’s trusty Nimbus 2000. There are even trips to Scotland on offer for die-hard fans who want to experience a setting similar to Harry’s world at Hogwarts School of Wizardry. The film versions of Rowling’s books have set box office records at cinemas world-wide.

Harry Potter, it seems, is a story of superlatives.´The fourth book in the series had the highest ever print run in the history of book publishing in Germany. It was the biggest ever success on the first day of sale in bookstores and in Internet shops.

Two tomes to come

All over the world, Harry has become the favorite character of children and adults alike. The fifth Harry Potter book looks set to break all these records -- but only until the sixth book in the series is published. Rowling plans to write seven books in all, and her adoring public seems to keep on wanting more.