A NEW literary identity, a new literary hero and a new detective series – a recipe for an instant publishing sensation.
The revelation that obscure writer Robert Galbraith is actually Harry Potter author JK Rowling has led to urgent requests for tens of thousands of "his" debut novel, The Cuckoo's Calling, to be ordered by publishers Little, Brown to satisfy demand from stores.
Waterstones last night said it would take at least a couple of days for the second editions of the novel, now the hottest property in the literary world, to reach Scottish stores.
From only 1500 copies published, the publisher, through its Sphere imprint, is urging its printers to produce significantly more, although it would not say how many are being published.
It confirmed that the next instalment of the adventures of private eye Cormorant Strike will be released in the summer of 2014.
However, Ms Rowling said her alter-ego would be unlikely to be making many personal appearances this summer.
The publisher added: "We were very pleased and proud to have published The Cuckoo's Calling, and we're delighted with the great response it has been met with from readers, reviewers and fellow writers."
A spokesman for Waterstones said: "We didn't have any idea Galbraith was JK Rowling and were just as surprised as everyone else.
"It was a hardback debut and we had the copies to reflect that, I think they only printed 1500.
"Now it is one of our largest orders of the year. We are now working hard to get it in shops in Scotland, especially in Edinburgh where demand is high."
Yesterday, one literary figure admitted she had turned down the book before it was published.
Kate Mills, fiction editor at London-based Orion publishing, said: "So I can now say that I turned down JK Rowling.
"I did read and say no to Cuckoo's Calling.
"Anyone else going to confess?
Ms Mills was not alone. The fiction reviewer for trade magazine The Bookseller, Cathy Rentzenbrink, tweeted that she had only read the first chapter of the book before abandoning it.
The book has now risen to the top of Amazon.co.uk's best-selling list.
The site's books manager Darren Hardy said: "For a title not even in our top 5000 to shoot to number one so quickly is almost unheard of."
Mr Hardy said this rise meant the book had become one of the summer's biggest-selling novels.
Rowling, 47, said that it had been wonderful to publish and to get feedback under a different name.
Her Harry Potter series was also rejected by publishers before the first of her seven novels about the boy wizard was published in 1997.
Ms Rowling said: "The upside of being rumbled is I can publicly thank my editor David Shelley, a true partner in crime, all those people at Little, Brown who have been working so hard on The Cuckoo's Calling without realising that I wrote it, and the writers and reviewers who have been so generous to the novel.
"To those who have asked for a sequel, Robert fully intends to keep writing the series, although he will probably continue to turn down personal appearances."
Edinburgh-based Rowling tweeted she had hoped to keep her secret a little longer "because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience."
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