Paul Moreton

Retailers have welcomed the "huge news" J K Rowling is to publish with Little, Brown, with one predicting it will top print and e-book charts. However, an independent bookseller voiced concerns that larger chains and supermarkets may slash its price in order to claim the greatest market share, but added the book's release "can only be a good thing for bookselling". Rival publishers privately expressed shock that they had not been offered the book. Rowling's agent Neil Blair told The Bookseller: "We didn't auction."