J.K. Rowling’s new book, The Casual Vacancy is performing very well in terms of sales, but it will always be compared to her multi-million selling Harry Potter franchise, The Guardian Reports.

A spokesman for Nielsen BookScan said: "Jk Rowling's UK sales to date are of a value in excess of £238m, making her by far the highest selling author in the UK since our records began.” Her first departure into adult literature has yielded great success, when compared books in the same category, but compared to Harry Potter sales, Rowling is nowhere near her peak. The Casual Vacancy topped the charts at a canter, with first week sales of 124,603. Just to give you some context: that’s 10x more than the book in the #2 spot, Bernard Cornwell's 1356, which sold 12,231. And now for a little more context: the seventh and final Potter book - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, sold more than 2.6m copies in its first week on sale in the UK, representing two-fifths of all book purchases that week. Whilst the sales have been kind, though, The Casual Vacancy reviews have been mixed, with the majority saying it could have been better.

Rowling’s name is so popular (and scary) in literary circles, that some rival publishers have pushed back launch timings for books expected to do well. Ian Rankin, for instance, has moved the release date of his latest work to November to avoid the inevitable Rowling-rush.