New Harry Potter Book Dominates Sales

Riding high on the coattails of her success with the "Harry Potter" book and movie franchise, J. K. Rowling's new book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, hit shelves on Thursday - and immediately sold out.

Within hours of release, the book soared to the top of the online best sellers list on both Amazon.com and the Barnes & Noble Web site.

Although the book retails for $12.99, some readers were willing to pay much more - a $100 collector's edition offered exclusively at Amazon.com rose from 22 to 778,576 on the site's "Movers & Shakers List," which tracks the fastest-selling products when the Web site ran out of the standard version.

Containing five stories about Harry, Ron and Hermione, Beedle has a direct connection to the final installment in the original book series - it sets out to solve the central mysteries presented in Deathly Hallows.

Originally, Rowling didn't intend to market this book - she created only seven copies for friends, bound in Moroccan leather and embellished with silver talismans and mounted moonstones. One of the copies was put up for auction in 2007 and sold for $4 million to Amazon.com. Another copy of the bejeweled edition will be available at the New York Public Library until January 4.