WAITING in secure warehouses, in preparation for Britain’s largest book delivery operation, are 2.5 million books weighing a total of 2,400 tonnes.

In two weeks’ time, at midnight on June 21, children and adults will be given their first glimpse of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in J. K. Rowling’s series.

Royal Mail estimates that it will deliver more than 500,000 books to fans’ homes on the Saturday morning. The remainder will have been delivered to bookshops in security vans on the Friday night, to be kept in locked storerooms until midnight. Shopkeepers are bound by contract not to open the boxes until midnight, upon pain of being excluded from the next book in the series.

Amazon will send out more than 300,000 books in Britain and another 700,000 worldwide. Other online sellers including W H Smith and Tesco.com, which is selling it at a 55 per cent discount on its £16.99 price, will add to the load that will break all records for delivery of a single item. The book has been printed on extra-light paper to make the delivery possible. The print run contains almost two billion pages with 638 billion words.

It will be the end of a process that began in January when Rowling handed the 255,000-word manuscript to her publishers Bloomsbury. Her editor and two assistants saw the manuscript, which was sent to Clays printers in Bungay, Suffolk, in April.

Despite attempts by Donald Parfitt, a Clays forklift operator, to reveal a sneak preview, the contents have remained a secret. Parfitt was sentenced to 180 hours of community service for trying to sell the book to The Sun.

Since then the books have been held in locked cages in warehouses owned by Macmillan, the distribution arm of the publishing company. On Friday night, companies including Securicor will deliver the books from warehouses to hundreds of shops that are holding midnight openings for customers too eager to wait until daybreak on Saturday.

Bloomsbury has refused to confirm the print run of the books, which are available in adult and children’s editions. The adult cover was designed by William Webb, the publisher’s design director, to allow adults to read the book unashamedly in public. The children’s cover, depicting a blood red phoenix, was designed by Jason Cockcroft. The American print run is unknown, but is likely to be about ten million.

A buyer's guide

• The cheapest copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix can be bought for £7.64 plus delivery, 55 per cent off the cover price of £16.99, from Tesco’s online bookshop
  
• For fans unable to wait for daybreak on June 21, all of the major chains, including Ottakars and Borders, will hold midnight openings
  
• The Waterstone’s store in London’s Piccadilly will transform its children’s floor into Diagon Alley, featuring Madam Malkin’s robes shop. There will also be recreations of Hagrid’s cabin and Hermione’s reading garden

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