A staggering figure was released today indicating strong sales for J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy: The book has topped 1 million pre-orders.

What’s more, experts predict the book will have release week sales that may surpass Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol which nabbed 550,00 sales and remains number one. Brown’s book was the follow-up to to The Da Vinci Code.

It’s hard to say if The Casual Vacancy will be the bestselling book of the year. It currently has tough competition from E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey, which has sold over five million copies.

Earlier today Rowling commented on the possibility of a Casual Vacancy movie. “Personally, I don’t think this is a very filmable book,” she explained. “That is one of the things I like about it. I think it’s a very novelly novel in that a lot of what goes on happens internally. You need to understand what’s going on inside people’s heads.” Despite these remarks, we don’t believe this is grounds for ruling out a film entirely. In recent months we’ve seen books that revolve inside a head get turned into a film like The Hunger Games and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

The Casual Vacancy will be released this Thursday, Sept. 27 and we’ll be watching sales numbers with a very close eye. Thanks to The Telegraph.

Pictured above: The Casual Vacancy‘s German translation are packaged for distribution.