A GREEN online bookstore owner is urging Harry Potter fans NOT to buy the latest book of the schoolboy wizard in a bid to help save the planet!

Millions of people across the world will be queuing up to buy the seventh and last in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when it goes on worldwide sale on Saturday (July 21).

But Barry Crow, founder of internet bookstore GreenMetropolis.com (www.greenmetropolis.com), is calling on Potter buffs to be kind to the environment and wait just a week to buy the book from a fellow fan.

The eagerly-awaited book is tipped to be a publishing phenomenon - with a record 12 million copies of the final Harry Potter book being released in the first US print run and internet store Amazon alone securing 1.6 million advance sales breaking the figure set by the previous Potter installment.

Despite the fact that most of the millions sold will be read fervently, within days the majority will be placed on a shelf to gather dust and rarely opened again.

GreenMetropolis.com, which was launched in 2003, offers environment conscious bookworms the chance to sell their books on-line for a set price with a share of the sale going to the Woodland Trust to plant more trees.  The site does not auction books.

Web-site founder Barry Crow said: “Books are made to be read and passed on.  I am urging Potter fans to wait and buy a copy second hand or if they must get their hands on a copy straight away, to sell it on after reading it.

"Publishing companies rid our planet of millions of trees every year. The first print run of JK Rowling's last Harry Potter novel stretched to two billion pages - that's 2.5 million copies in the UK alone, and the equivalent of 8,333 trees. The new book is expected to dwarf that figure.  That’s a lot of trees."

The fourth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was listed as one of the books least likely to be finished by Britons, in a recent survey which indicates how much wastage there is.

By selling a copy of the new Potter book, fans can enjoy the story and then make a bit of cash while also letting someone else enjoy the book.

GreenMetropolis.com customers can snap up anything from latest releases through to classic best-sellers - with paperbacks costing just £3.75, including delivery. People selling books through the site can bag £3 per book.

Business is booming, with more than 50,000 members regularly using the site, buying and selling thousands of books each month from a stock of more than 500,000 – helping to save thousands of trees in the process.

Barry Crow can be contacted on 07947 174 495.

• JK Rowling's previous six Potter novels have sold 325 million copies.
• On average it takes one tree to make around 300 books.
• Student Toby Rundle, 19, from Somerset, is planning to sell a rare first edition of the first Harry Potter book to fund his university degree! The hardback copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was sent to Toby by his mother while he was at boarding school, is one of only around 500 printed. It is to be auctioned in Cirencester and is expected to fetch up to £15,000.
• The tales of the schoolboy wizard and his fight against the evil Voldemort have been translated into 63 languages.
• 479 million books in general were sold in the UK during 2006.

A recent survey conducted by GreenMetropolis.com among people registered to its website revealed: 

Some 40 per cent of readers surveyed have between 50 and 99 books gathering dust around the home, which if sold through GreenMetropolis.com would equate to between £150 and £297 profit.

The survey also found that 42 per cent of booklovers buy between 11 and 19 new books a year and, with 27 per cent of people never clearing paperbacks from their home, it is easy to see how they can be turned into ready cash.