Rowling in it (again!)
JK rakes in over £86,000 a DAY from sales of her eBooks alone
HARRY Potter author JK Rowling made more than £86,000 a day last year from the sale of eBooks.
Revenue from digital sales in 2019 was £31.5million ahead of the 20th anniversary of the first film in the fantasy series.
This meant eBook versions of her work raked in £86,317 per day, or £605,769 per week.
And pre-tax profits at Pottermore Ltd – her digital publishing firm – more than doubled from £3.4million in 2018 to £6.9million.
Pottermore Ltd handles cash from eBook and audio versions of the smash-hit series.
It also published non-print versions of spin-off screenplays Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two and the scripts from the Fantastic Beasts films.
Miss Rowling regularly tops the charts of Britain’s highest-paid celebrities and is currently thought to be worth £750million.
And although digital revenue overall fell slightly from £32.8million in 2018, it was still higher than predicted following a surge in sales.
Accounts from Companies House filed last week revealed revenue was ‘above expectations’ due to the ‘launch of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’ and the ‘strong sales performance of the Harry Potter eBooks and digital audiobooks’.
They also cited preparations for next year’s 20th anniversary of the first film in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone as having boosted sales.
The balance sheet added: ‘Pottermore Publishing continues to be a profitable business.
‘Revenues of £31.5million were wholly achieved from digital publishing sales resulting from additional global distribution and the continued popularity of the Harry Potter stories bolstered by new products and twentieth (anniversary) activity in the US.’
A similar surge in internet sales was seen in 2017 due to the launch of the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child script, the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them screenplay and the Hogwarts Library Digital audiobook.
Money made from hard copies of the seven Harry Potter books is paid into a separate firm,
Collections Agency Ltd, which made £46million in 2017.
Rowling, who has previously featured on Forbes’ billionaire list, was revealed by the magazine to have dropped off it in 2012 due to her ‘estimated £114million in charitable giving’ making an impact on her finances.
Since then, she has continued to make sizeable donations to a variety of causes close to her heart, including more than £14million to the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic at the University of Edinburgh.
The unit is named after the author’s mother, who died aged 45 in 1990 following a ten-year battle with multiple sclerosis.
At the time of the donation, Miss Rowling said: ‘When the Anne Rowling Clinic was first founded, none of us could have predicted the incredible progress that would be made in the field of regenerative neurology.
‘It’s a matter of great pride for me that the clinic has combined these lofty ambitions with practical, on the ground support and care for people with MS.’
Miss Rowling also founded her own charity, Lumos, which helps Eastern European children in need, and set up the Volant Charitable Trust, which funds Scottish charitable causes relating to women and children.
‘Continues to be a profitable business’