The Casual Vacancy: sales figures revealed The Casual Vacancy, JK Rowling's first book for adults, sold nearly 125,000 copies in its opening week but fell way short of the record set by Dan Brown. The tale of local politics in a West Country village was the fastest-selling hardback in the UK for three years and the second biggest seller since records began in 1998. Dan Brown holds the record with The Lost Symbol, which sold 550,946 copies in its first week of sale in 2009. Unsurprisingly, The Casual Vacancy's first week tally of 124,603 copies proved no match for Rowling's Harry Potter stories. The final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, shifted 2.6 million copies on its first day of publication in 2007. A spokesman for Little, Brown, Rowling's publisher, said: "Sales across print and e-book editions have exceeded our expectations." In total, £1.3 million was spent on copies of the novel, according to The Bookseller. Jamie Oliver's 15-Minute Meals, released on the same day, sold 20,682 copies over the same period and now tops the hardback non-fiction chart. The record for biggest weekly sale of 2012 - albeit not in its opening week - is held by EL James and Fifty Shades of Grey, which sold 665,000 copies over seven days in July.