Let the "Harry Potter" price war begin!

No sooner did J.K. Rowling announce that the seventh and final Harry Potter book would be released on July 21 than I received two emails in quick succession, offering me a chance to pre-order the book: one from Barnes & Noble, for $20.99, or 40 percent off of the book's list price; and one from Amazon.com, with a price tag of $18.99, or 46 percent off. The fact that the price war over the book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," has started a half year before its release should come as no surprise to fans of the series. Back in 2005, when volume 6, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," came out, rampant discounting — much of it from non-traditional retailers like supermarkets and drugstores — forced some booksellers to treat the book as a loss-leader and hope to make up the lost profits on sales of other products. This time around, the question for Potter-mad readers is whether to pre-order now or wait around for even deeper discounts. While we can't predict the future, our most recent bookstore report did determine that Amazon.com's prices are hard to beat; our test "basket" of 23 books came to $360 at Amazon vs. $456 at bn.com. And Amazon is already offering a low-price guarantee on "Deathly Hallows." However, that might not be reason enough to pre-order: when "Half-Blood Prince" was released, some retailers offered additional discounts on other books — even those purchased after the Harry Potter book — to encourage repeat business. Then again, if you absolutely must have "Deathly Hallows" on July 21, Amazon could be your best bet (unless you like standing in line at midnight). Last time around, the company guaranteed release-day delivery to customers who pre-ordered, and managed to fulfill "hundreds of thousands" of orders on July 16, 2005. While Amazon has yet to make a similar offer for "Deathly Hallows" customers,  Amazon.co.uk has already announced a July 21 guarantee, so it seems likely that the company will find enough extra floo powder to get some copies out early on this side of the pond as well.

— Marc Perton