first volume "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was published in a small edition (500 copies) by the English publishing house Bloomsbury. Joanne K. Rowling only received an advance of roughly 3000 €. A Scottish organization gave her the scholarship to enable her to continue with the second volume.
             In September 1997, the US publisher Scholastic bought the copyright for the USA for 105,000 $, a fairly high sum for a children's book which indicated the big potential of Harry Potter. And the success story began: by November 1997, the book had been published in eight countries, 30,000 copies had been sold in the UK, and the book had won its first prize (The Smarties Book Award). When the second volume "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" was published in July 1998, it immediately hit number one of the bestseller list in the UK, mainly due to word of mouth.
             Merchandising rights were sold to Warner Brothers, an AOL/Time Warner company, and the fantasy product Harry became a
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