Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince release is coming closer, and booksellers are getting ready for what they predict will be the biggest day in publishing history.

Booksellers globally have been made to sign watertight contracts that bind them to secrecy worthy of the Order of the Phoenix.

So secret are the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince contents, that it is estimated fewer than a dozen people in the world have read it.

As Potter mania reaches its peak, booksellers are not allowed to see, touch or read the coveted Harry Potter novels before 9.01am on July 16.

Most will not receive Harry Potter 6 copies until 8:30am on launch day, minutes before they are legally allowed to unseal the boxes.

Photography of any stage in the production and shipping processes of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is forbidden.

While the average for a popular book in its lifetime is 2 million copies sale, US publisher Scholastic announced a print run of 10.8 million for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

UK publisher Bloomsbury, who is known best for Harry Potter books, has refused to divulge the size of its print run for the sixth book in Harry Potter series.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is the story of Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where the battle of good and evil goes to a new high. Rowling, who first conceived Harry while riding a train in 1990 said, “Harry just strolled into my head fully formed". 

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