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J.K. Rowling -- Joanne Kathleen, "Jo" to her friends -- turns 40 on July31, the same birthday as her famous creation, Harry Potter. And what an adventure they have shared.
Her own story is legendary: the money-pressed single mother handwriting her first Potter book in cafes, nursing one cup of coffee for hours.
How her fortunes have changed. Some differences are subtle. In the early days of Potterdom, Rowling had reddish hair; now she's blonde. In 1999, she could be reached by phone in the evening for an impromptu USA TODAY interview, although she couldn't talk for long because she was putting her daughter Jessica to bed. Now, her publishers, website and Colman Getty PR in Scotland and London handle most questions.
But this is the big difference: In less than a decade, Rowling has gone from being a struggling writer to being a billionaire.
Barry Cunningham, her first editor at Bloomsbury Publishing in London, remembers giving her "terrible advice" when they met in the 1990s. Rowling was a divorced woman without much money.
"She was telling me about her circumstances. I was worried she was really relying on Harry to be the future for her and her daughter," Cunningham says. "I told her she wouldn't make any money at children's books, and she should get a day job,"
Since then, her first five Harry Potter books (in a series of seven) have sold an estimated 270 million copies worldwide in 62 languages. That's not counting advance orders for the forthcoming sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Last year, Rowling landed on Forbes' list of the world's richest people. With an estimated net worth of $1 billion, she's richer than the queen of England, who had a mere $660 million in 2004.
She owns three houses: two in Scotland (Edinburgh and Perthshire) and one in London, according to Colman Getty PR. In 2001, she was married for the second time, to Neil Murray, an anesthesiologist. She gave birth to a son, David, in 2003 and another daughter, Mackenzie, in January.
Bloomsbury published the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in June 1997. The American edition (retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) arrived a year later from Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic. Levine bought the rights for the first book for $105,000, considered a princely sum for a children's book. "The burst of publicity terrified me," Rowling says in Conversations with J.K. Rowling.
The way Rowling has tended to her writing and personal life over the years impresses Levine: "It's a testament to her character, more than anything else, that she's remained true to herself. She has managed to maintain her perspective. I think that takes a great deal of effort."
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince goes on sale at a minute after midnight on Saturday, July 16. Rowling plans to be at Edinburgh Castle reading from the book. The event will be "beamed by satellite transmission to television and radio stations around the globe," according to Bloomsbury Publishing, organizer of the event.
In the audience will be her loyal constituency: fans who have practically memorized the books. Seventy children ages 8 to 16 won competitions and will hold a news conference that Sunday, Bloomsbury says.
On her own, Rowling invited two Americans -- Emerson Spartz, 18, who runs mugglenet.com, and Melissa Anelli, 25, of the-leaky-cauldron.org -- for a private interview that Saturday.
Says Anelli, who met Rowling before (and was given an exuberant hug for her website): "She's down-to-earth. It sounds like an easy description people use for many famous people, but for her it's absolutely true."
As for Rowling, on jkrowling .com, she tells fans this about her good fortune: "Probably the very best thing my earnings have given me, though, is absence of worry. I have not forgotten what it feels like to worry whether you'll have enough money to pay the bills. Not to have to think about that any more is the biggest luxury in the world."
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