Fun Facts

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was rejected by twelve publishers before Bloomsbury, a small publishing company in London, agreed to publish the book.  Interestingly enough, the decision to publish was largely due to the fact that the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman immediately fell in love with the book after reading just one chapter.  All-in-all, it took one year before J.K. Rowling found a publisher.

Rowling used to take her first daughter, Jessica, for a walk in her stroller each afternoon until she fell asleep.  Then she would slip into Nicholson’s Café to sip coffee and write while Jessica napped.

After three Nestlé Smarties Prizes, Rowling asked judges not to consider her books for future competitions.  She wanted to be fair and give other authors an opportunity to win.

Every Harry Potter has made the best seller lists and has stayed there for months.  After Rowling’s books had taken the top three spots on the New York Times best-seller list for more than a year, the newspaper decided to make two lists — one for adult books, and one for children’s books.  Rowling’s fourth book was about to be released, and other publishers and authors were beginning to complain that the presence of three, and possibly four, Harry Potter books on the best-seller list made it impossible for them to earn a place.

The Harry Potter books have been translated into more than sixty languages, including Korean, Afrikaans, Turkish, and Estonian — languages from every continent on earth.