The Lost Symbol is breaking records

Dan Brown's new novel sold more than a million copies in the US in its first day. The Lost Symbol also posted record-breaking sales of the digital edition. In the UK, the book has already sold more than 350,000 copies.

 In a sign of the book's popularity, pirated copies appeared across the internet only a day after it was published. The Lost Symbol was available for download on The Pirate Bay and Scribd on Wednesday morning. "Thank you so much! You just made my day. :)" said one Scribd user. Scribd says it immediately removes such material when it is notified by the copyright holders.

Online retailer Amazon and booksellers Barnes & Noble claimed record one-day sales. "The biggest surprise was that, despite strong physical book sales, on Tuesday we saw the Kindle edition outsell hardcover editions on the book's release day," Andrew Hardener of Amazon told Bloomberg. Sony also claimed The Lost Symbol set a single day record for e-sales, outselling other Reader titles more than 10 times on Tuesday.

"We are seeing historic sales in North America for The Lost Symbol," Sonny Mehta, editor-in-chief of US publisher Knopf Doubleday told the BBC.

But The Lost Symbol fell far short of sales figures of JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which sold more than eight million copies on its first day in the US alone.