Though she said she doesn't plan to write any offshoots of the Potter series, she didn't rule it out "maybe 10 years from now," depending on how she feels. But she told one child she does want to write more books.

"Yes, I do, and I am," Rowling said. "I'm quite sure in the not-too-distant future I will bring out another book."

The book, published on December 4, marks Rowling's farewell to the world of Harry Potter. Not originally intended for mass market publication, Rowling initially handwrote and illustrated six editions of the book as personal gifts last year, with the seventh acquired by Amazon at auction for £1.95m.

Known to fans as the book which Albus Dumbledore left to Hermione Granger in Rowling's final Potter novel, The Tales of Beedle the Bard contains clues which helped Harry Potter in his mission to destroy Lord Voldemort. Only one of its five stories, The Tale of the Three Brothers, was recounted in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: the remaining four, The Fountain of Fair Fortune, The Warlock's Hairy Heart, The Wizard and the Hopping Pot and Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump, have not been seen before.

Rowling has waived her royalties for the book, with net proceeds from the sale to go to the charity she co-founded, The Children's High Level Group, which works with vulnerable children in eastern Europe.

Judges said Friday that Rowling was the unanimous choice to receive the 2008 Edinburgh Award, in recognition of her contributions to Scotland's capital. Rowling said she was honoured.

"Edinburgh is very much home for me and is the place where Harry evolved over seven books and many, many hours of writing in its cafes," Rowling said. "So much has happened to me both professionally and personally since I moved here nearly 15 years ago, that to receive this recognition is particularly meaningful and special."

Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling announced on Thursday that she will publish a book of wizarding fairy tales in December and donate an expected $8 million (4 million pounds) in proceeds to her charity for vulnerable children. "The Tales of Beedle the Bard," which will be published on December 4, is mentioned in the seventh -- and final -- Potter book as having been left to Harry's friend Hermione Granger by Professor Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of their school Hogwarts.

Rowling initially only produced seven copies of "The Tales," bound in brown Moroccan leather and decorated in silver and moonstones. She gave six copies to people closely connected to the Potter books and auctioned off the seventh, which was bought in December by Amazon.com Inc, the Web retailer known for selling books, for about $4 million.

Bloomsbury Publishing and Scholastic will now publish editions with an introduction by Rowling, selling for $12.99, while Amazon will produce up to 100,000 collector's edition copies, which will aim to replicate the look and feel of the original book and sell for $100. "The new edition will include the Tales themselves, translated from the original runes by Hermione Granger, and with illustrations by me, but also notes by Professor Albus Dumbledore, which appear by generous permission of the Hogwarts Headmasters' Archive," Rowling said in a statement.

She said the proceeds from the book would be donated to the Children's High Level Group, a charity she founded in 2005 to help the 1 million children across Europe still living in large residential institutions.

Vander Ark wiped away tears when he was asked to reflect on what the case has done to his relationship with the community of Harry Potter fans. The former middle school librarian, who fell in love with the books in the late 90s and has devoted years to studying them and indexing their content online, could barely speak. "It's been ... it's been," he stammered, choking on his words. "It's been difficult because there has been a lot of criticism, obviously, and that was never the intention. ... This has been an important part of my life for the last nine years or so."

*****

During his testimony Tuesday, Vander Ark acknowledged that he, too, had substantial concerns all along about whether publishing an encyclopedia based on Rowling's Potter universe would constitute copyright infringement. He said he was talked into doing it by the publishing company.

Amazon spokesman Craig Berman said Amazon wants to take the book on tour to libraries and schools, though the company doesn't yet have detailed plans. Amazon representatives did not disclose where the book is being stored. One of the book's five original stories, "The Tale of the Three Brothers" is told in the final "Harry Potter" novel, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

" 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard' is really a distillation of the themes found in the 'Harry Potter' books, and writing it has been the most wonderful way to say goodbye to a world I have loved and lived in for 17 years," Rowling said in a prepared statement. Rowling said the six other copies of the "Beedle" books have been given to people who were closely connected to the "Harry Potter" collection.

"Purchasing this book with the proceeds going to charity does, in a real tangible way, say thank you to J.K. Rowling for what she's done for readers around the world," Berman said. Rowling said she'd donate the proceeds to The Children's Voice campaign, a charity she co-founded to help improve the lives of institutionalized children across Europe.

There will be just seven volumes of The Tales of Beedle the Bard and they will not be published. One copy will be auctioned to raise money for her charity, The Children's Voice, and the author will give away the rest of them. She said the books were a "wonderful way" to say goodbye to Potter. "People kept saying to me 'you'll be glad to have a break from writing', when of course I wasn't taking a break at all," added the writer.

"I was literally writing out - as these are handwritten books - these new stories which has been a wonderful way to say goodbye. It's like coming up from a deep dive." The fairytales, which were illustrated by Rowling herself, are the first works she has written since the Potter novel was published in July. The Tales of Beedle the Bard was left to Potter character Hermione by Hogwarts school headmaster Dumbledore.

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling broke down in tears while writing the final book of the boy wizard's adventures, echoing the feelings of many fans as they await the end of the series.

"I was in a hotel room on my own, I was sobbing my heart out, I downed half a bottle of champagne from the mini-bar in one and went home with mascara all over my face," Rowling, 41, said in a BBC interview to be broadcast today.

The final novel in the seven-book series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be published on July 21. Advance orders made it online bookseller Amazon.com Inc.'s U.K. top- seller eight hours after the title was revealed in a puzzle on Rowling's Web site Dec. 21. The novels have all been No. 1 best- sellers, spawning movies, audio books and computer games.

Commenting on speculation that the final word of the book is "Scar," Rowling said, "Scar? It was so for ages, and now it's not. Scar is quite near the end, but it's not the last word." Harry's friend Hermione Granger is based on Rowling as a child. "I was quite swotty as a child," but Harry is a totally imaginary character, she said. Ron Weasley, another of Harry's friends, is "a lot like my oldest friend Sean," she said.

Rowling said last year that two characters die in the final book, leading many people to speculate that she may have decided to kill off the central character.

"What J.K. Rowling loves most is to talk with her readers, and that is what she will be able to do on this very special U.S. tour," Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic Trade and Book Fairs, said Thursday in a statement. Rowling's seventh and final Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," comes out July 21, but will surely remain deep in her fans' hearts when she arrives in the United States in October.

On Oct. 15, she will read at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, followed three days later by an appearance at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, then two readings Oct. 19 at New York's Carnegie Hall. Rowling, 41, will take questions at each of the readings and sign books.

Don't bother rushing for tickets. For three of the readings, Scholastic will pick schools to send children. For the fourth reading, at Carnegie Hall, 1,000 fans will be chosen from a Scholastic sweepstakes, with each winner receiving two passes.

I've now got a third title. I've been thinking back, and I know that I've had more titles than this for a couple of the previous books, so I'm not too worried by this. Title three currently ahead by a short nose, or perhaps that should be a vowel and two consonants.

I've just had a great writing week. There are few feelings more joyous than reading back over the week's work and thinking 'that's not bad at all', as opposed to the all-too-frequent, 'it's rubbish, I've wasted a week and I'll have to re-write the lot.' And if you think that's an exaggeration or false modesty, you are very, very wrong. It's perfectly possible to put in eight hour days and have nothing to show for them but a single idea that, if reworked completely, might be passable.

The release of a best seller into paperback usually isn't headline-worthy — unless it's Harry Potter. Two million paperbacks of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince the sixth in J.K. Rowling's series — go on sale Tuesday. There are 13.5 million Half-Blood hardcovers in print. If past is prologue, the new $9.99 book is certain to be a No. 1 best seller.

The USA TODAY Best-Selling Books list, which has tracked sales of all six installments, shows that each of the past five paperbacks reached No. 1. As the first three in the British series were introduced to an American audience, they spent more time at No. 1 in paperback than the hardcover. That pattern shifted when hardcovers were launched with gigantic initial print runs, starting with the fourth in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when 3.8 million hardcovers went on sale July 8, 2000.

Stores are ready for the Half-Blood Prince avalanche. At Barnes & Noble and Borders, the paperbacks will get prominent display at the front of stores and in the children's sections. At The Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, "we expect excitement; we expect big sales" just because it's Harry Potter, says Beth Wood, children's promotion coordinator. But the biggest anticipation is building for the seventh and final book in the series. "It is going to be crazy," she says. "I don't know if I can think of a better word than that."

More than 2,000 excited youngsters joined colourful characters from the nation's favourite story books to celebrate the Queen's 80th birthday. Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Alice in Wonderland, Bob the Builder, Wallace and Gromit, Noddy and Tracy Beaker were among the famous fictional faces on show.

From cartoons to classic tales, around 80 costumed characters descended on the Queen's neatly trimmed lawns which stretched over 39 acres. The highlight of the surreal royal party was a live show, featuring more than 30 stars.

"The Queen's Handbag" centred around the search for the monarch's stolen bag which contained her "royal spectacles" and speech for the end of the show. It featured, among others, Jonathan Ross as a portly Fat Controller, Anthony Head as Captain Hook, Amanda Redman as Cruella de Vil, Jerry Hall as Queen of the Pirates, Dani Harmer who plays Tracy Beaker, Nicholas Lyndhurst as Cruella's chauffeur, Joe Pasquale as the White Rabbit and Ronnie Corbett as Mr Tibbs the butler.

The Queen herself played her own starring role in the pantomime. She took to the stage after the finale to be given the missing shiny black leather handbag which had been recovered using a magic Harry Potter spell. To cheers from the audience, she opened it, pulling her glasses from the bag, holding them aloft before putting them on. Then taking out her speech, she told the audience: "I am delighted to have my handbag back, I do like happy endings."