(Business 2.0) – The world's favorite wizard is getting ready for a new adventure. But secrecy surrounds the June 21 release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, as the book-publishing world sheds its genteel ways to crib a few business practices from the software industry. To keep the book's plot under wraps, a cloak of confidentiality extends even to the logistics of bringing the anticipated best-seller to market. Scholastic, U.S. publisher of the Potter series, has required partners and suppliers to keep quiet about their role.

This much is known: Buoyed by preorders, Scholastic increased the first U.S. hardcover printing from 6.8 million copies to 8.5 million. That's more than double the old industry record of 3.8 million (for the last Potter book, in 2000). To fail-safe supply, the print job has been spread among multiple companies, including giants R.R. Donnelley and Quebecor World. Production cycles have been shortened to reduce the potential for unauthorized leaks. While the printing and distribution of a typical hardcover takes as long as two months--even though roughly 70 percent of those runs are for less than 1,000 copies--the printing of Order of the Phoenix wasn't scheduled to begin until mid-May, a tight turnaround that helps explain Scholastic's Microsoft-like obsessiveness. Competing printers are hoping that the huge run will create a logjam, and thus an opportunity. Vern Attles, a former salesman at printer Victor Graphics, says he cherry-picked a dozen accounts because of the scheduling confusion that arose from the last Potter onslaught. Still, friends and foes alike want Scholastic to succeed. After a tough few years--printers like Donnelley and Banta Corp. have seen sales fall by at least 10 percent since 2000--the hope is that Harry Potter will entice buyers back into bookstores. --IAN MOUNT